Editing Learning styles (section)

=== Sprenger's differentiation ===
Another scholar who believes that learning styles should have an effect on the classroom is Marilee Sprenger in ''Differentiation through Learning Styles and Memory''.<ref name="Sprenger">{{cite book |last=Sprenger |first=Marilee |date=2008 |orig-date=2003 |title=Differentiation through learning styles and memory |edition=2nd |location=Thousand Oaks, CA |publisher=[[Corwin Press]] |isbn=9781412955447 |oclc=192109691 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=DaVu2p5uDBkC}}</ref> She bases her work on three premises:
#Teachers can be learners, and learners teachers. We are all both.
#Everyone can learn under the right circumstances.
#Learning is fun! Make it appealing.<ref name="Sprenger"/>{{Page needed|date=August 2015}}

Sprenger details how to teach in visual, auditory, or tactile/kinesthetic ways. Methods for visual learners include ensuring that students can see words written, using pictures, and drawing [[timeline]]s for events.<ref name="Sprenger"/>{{Page needed|date=August 2015}} Methods for auditory learners include repeating words aloud, small-group discussion, debates, listening to books on tape, oral reports, and oral interpretation.<ref name="Sprenger"/>{{Page needed|date=August 2015}} Methods for tactile/kinesthetic learners include hands-on activities (experiments, etc.), projects, frequent breaks to allow movement, visual aids, role play, and field trips.<ref name="Sprenger"/>{{Page needed|date=August 2015}} By using a variety of teaching methods from each of these categories, teachers cater to different learning styles at once, and improve learning by challenging students to learn in different ways.

James W. Keefe and John M. Jenkins have incorporated learning style assessment as a basic component in their "personalized instruction" model of schooling.<ref name="KeefeJenkins2008">{{cite book |last1=Keefe |first1=James W. |last2=Jenkins |first2=John M. |date=2008 |orig-date=2000 |title=Personalized instruction: the key to student achievement |edition=2nd |location=Lanham, MD |publisher=[[Rowman & Littlefield]] Education |isbn=9781578867554 |oclc=173509416}}</ref> Six basic elements constitute the culture and context of personalized instruction. The cultural components—teacher role, student learning characteristics, and collegial relationships—establish the foundation of personalization and ensure that the school prizes a caring and collaborative environment. The contextual factors—interactivity, flexible scheduling, and authentic assessment—establish the structure of personalization.<ref name="KeefeJenkins2008"/>{{Page needed|date=August 2015}}

According to Keefe and Jenkins, cognitive and learning style analysis have a special role in the process of personalizing instruction. The assessment of student learning style, more than any other element except the teacher role, establishes the foundation for a personalized approach to schooling: for student advisement and placement, for appropriate retraining of student cognitive skills, for adaptive instructional strategy, and for the authentic evaluation of learning.<ref name="KeefeJenkins2008"/>{{Page needed|date=August 2015}} Some learners respond best in instructional environments based on an analysis of their perceptual and environmental style preferences: most individualized and personalized teaching methods reflect this point of view. Other learners, however, need help to function successfully in ''any'' learning environment. If a youngster cannot cope under conventional instruction, enhancing his cognitive skills may make successful achievement possible.<ref name="KeefeJenkins2008"/>{{Page needed|date=August 2015}}

Many of the student learning problems that learning style diagnosis attempts to solve relate directly to elements of the human information processing system. Processes such as attention, perception and memory, and operations such as integration and retrieval of information are internal to the system. Any hope for improving student learning necessarily involves an understanding and application of information processing theory. Learning style assessment can provide a window to understanding and managing this process.<ref name="KeefeJenkins2008"/>{{Page needed|date=August 2015}}

At least one study evaluating teaching styles and learning styles, however, has found that congruent groups have no significant differences in achievement from incongruent groups.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Spoon |first1=Jerry C. |last2=Schell |first2=John W. |date=Winter 1998 |title=Aligning student learning styles with instructor teaching styles |journal=Journal of Industrial Teacher Education |volume=35 |issue=2 |pages=41–56 |url=http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/ejournals/JITE/v35n2/spoon}}</ref> Furthermore, learning style in this study varied by demography, specifically by age, suggesting a change in learning style as one gets older and acquires more experience. While significant age differences did occur, as well as no experimental manipulation of classroom assignment, the findings do call into question the aim of congruent teaching–learning styles in the classroom.<ref name="Coffield"/>{{rp|122}}

Educational researchers Eileen Carnell and Caroline Lodge concluded that learning styles are not fixed and that they are dependent on circumstance, purpose and conditions.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Carnell |first1=Eileen |last2=Lodge |first2=Caroline |date=2002 |title=Supporting effective learning |location=London; Thousand Oaks, CA |publisher=Paul Chapman Publishing; [[SAGE Publications]] |isbn=0761970460 |oclc=48110229 |page=[https://books.google.com/books?id=5AgCUC7M05sC&pg=PA22 22]}}</ref>