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Jennifer Lesh, Tricia Clarke, and Jennie Trocchio Barry University Florida ASCD Conference, 2009

Teach the Socially Diverse Student not the text: A Comparison Study of Graduate Level Education Majors’ Teaching, Learning and Thinking Styles. Jennifer Lesh, Tricia Clarke, and Jennie Trocchio Barry University Florida ASCD Conference, 2009. PURPOSE.

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Jennifer Lesh, Tricia Clarke, and Jennie Trocchio Barry University Florida ASCD Conference, 2009

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  1. Teach the Socially Diverse Student not the text: A Comparison Study of Graduate Level Education Majors’ Teaching, Learning and Thinking Styles Jennifer Lesh, Tricia Clarke, and Jennie Trocchio Barry University Florida ASCD Conference, 2009

  2. PURPOSE This study investigates the relationship among variables pertaining to the learning and teaching process in graduate level education students.  Just as each person is a unique individual, each person has his/her own unique methods of processing and taking in new information, or his/her own preferred learning styles (Felder & Silverman, 1988). The purpose it to explore if education majors teach the same way they learn.

  3. Learning Styles In 1988, Richard Felder and Linda Silverman developed a learning-style model which classifies the ways in which students receive and process information according to four dimensions.

  4. Four Dimensions of Learning Styles According to Felder and Silverman • Sensing/Intuitive • Visual/Verbal • Active/Reflective • Sequential/Global

  5. Why are Learning Styles Important? Most of the studies by Felder and Silverman focused on Engineering students.  Felder and Silverman did not find a match with professors’ teaching styles to students’ learning styles.  Changing the way that teachers present material to accommodate many learning styles, the quality of learning will increase dramatically, (Felder & Silverman, 1988).

  6. Teaching StylesHow do we think that we teach? Zhang and Sternberg (2002) developed the Thinking Styles Inventory For Teachers, The Teaching Style Questionnaire.  This teaching style questionnaire measures seven styles of thinking as they pertain to teaching.  Thinking styles: Legislative Executive Judicial Liberal Conservative Local Global

  7. Teaching Styles and Learning Styles: Why is this connection important? Self-Awareness of one’s own teaching style can increase efforts to enhance student learning, (Zhang & Sternberg, 2000).  According to Zhang and Sternberg (2002), knowledge about the relationship between teaching styles and learning styles can be beneficial to teacher training.

  8. Methods Participants in this study included 95 graduate level students from various programs in the School of Education at Barry University. According to U.S. News & World Report (2009), Barry University, Miami Shores, Florida was ranked 11th (Diversity index-.64) among best colleges for racial diversity.

  9. Demographic Information _____________________________________________________ _________________________n__________%________________ Gender Female 77 81.1 Male 18 18.9 Ethnic Group Black 43 45.3 Hispanic 24 25.3 White 23 24.2 Other 5 5.3 ______________________________________________________

  10. Demographic Information cont. _______________________________________________ _____________________ _n_________&__________ Age 19-25 14 14.7 26-35 28 29.5 36-45 33 34.7 46+ 19 20.0 _____________________________________________

  11. Demographic Information cont. _____________________________________________ ________________________________n______%____ Program Educational/Curriculum Leadership 31 32.6 Exceptional Student Education 29 30.5 Reading 21 22.1 Elementary Education 14 14.8 __________________________________________

  12. Demographic Information cont. ______________________________________________________ _________________________n__________%________________ Currently Teaching Yes 70 73.7 No 25 26.3 Place of Birth United States 65 68.4 Other 30 30.5 Native Language English 69 72.6 Spanish 18 18.9 Creole/French 5 5.3 Other 3 2.1 ______________________________________________________

  13. Demographic Information cont. ______________________________________________________ _________________________n__________%________________ Currently Teaching Yes 70 73.7 No 25 26.3 Place of Birth United States 65 68.4 Other 30 30.5 Native Language English 69 72.6 Spanish 18 18.9 Creole/French 5 5.3 Other 3 2.1 ______________________________________________________

  14. Instruments and ProceduresThe following instruments were used in this study: • Background questionnaire • Thinking Styles Questionnaire for Teachers (Grigorenko & Sternberg, 1993c) • The Index of Learning Styles (Felder & Silverman, 1994)

  15. Results No males were found to be reflective learners, while 17.6% of the females had a reflective learning style, x2 =10.047, p<.01.

  16. Results Female students demonstrated a greater preference towards observing, gathering data slowly and carefully through the senses, or using a sensing learning style than male students (t(89=3.27,p<.002) who preferred to learn by making inferences and creating hunches quickly and not very carefully, or by using an intuitive learning style.

  17. Results • Local thinking or a tendency to work with concrete details was strongly correlated (r(83)=.51, p< .001) with having a sequential learning style or a tendency to learn in continual steps. • Adherence to existing rules or procedures, or having a conservative thinking style was strongly correlated (r(86) = .41, p <.001) with the sensing learning style; in other words, education students with a conservative thinking style has a tendency to solve problems by means of established methods, using concrete ideas and facts.

  18. Results

  19. Activity

  20. References . Felder, R.M., & Silverman, L.K. (1988). Learning and teaching styles in Engineering Education. Engineering Education, 78, 674-681. Felder, R.M., & Soloman, B.A. (1994). Index of Learning Styles. Retrieved March 10, 2008, fromhttp://www.ncsu.edu/felder-public/ILSpage.html U.S. News & World Report (2009). Best colleges-education. Retrieved August 20, 2009 from http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com

  21. References cont. Zhang, L.F., & Sternberg, R.J. (2000). Are learning approaches and thinking styles related? A study in two Chinese populations. The Journal of Psychology, 13, 469-489. Zhang, L.F., & Sternberg, R.J. (2002). Thinking styles and teachers’ characteristics. International Journal of Psychology, 37, 3-12.

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