LEARNING STYLES

(Harvey F. Silver)

A style is a basic orientation toward the world based upon functional (sensing vs. intuition, thinking vs.
feeling) preferences. Now lets take a more in-depth look into the four learning stylesMastery,
Understanding, Self-Expressive, and Interpersonalwith an emphasis on what motivates each type of
learner and how they learn most easily.

Sensing-Thinking or Mastery Learners

What Motivates Mastery Learners?
Mastery learners rely on sensing as a mode of perception and thinking as a means of judgment or decision
making. They prefer well-organized, highly-routinized classrooms where expectations are clearly described
and strongly related to practical outcomes such as good grades, things they can make or do, and practical
connections to jobs and careers. More than anything else Mastery learners want to appear competent, able
to complete the work assigned as well or better than other students in their classrooms or grade levels.
How Mastery Students Learn Most Easily
The combination of sensing with thinking creates students with a strong need for purposeful action. They are
frequently uncomfortable with both reading and lecture and prefer to learn from brief demonstrations
followed by immediate opportunities to practice what they have seen or heard. They learn most easily in
skill-based content areas where each step is modeled in a step-by-step manner, and where practice is
followed by immediate feedback on how well they have done. They also look for clear instructions on how
they can improve their performance. They prefer work that calls for short, right or wrong answers, and they
learn most easily where there is a physical object they can manipulate or a visual diagram they can follow.

Intuitive-Thinking or Understanding Learners

What Motivates Understanding Learners?
Understanding learners rely on intuition as a mode of perception and thinking as a means of judgment or
decision making. Intuition focuses the learners attention on ideas rather than details, abstractions rather
than facts, patterns rather than components, forests rather than trees. The thinking function creates a
strong need for logical consistency, a commitment to thinking things through, a preference for reason and
discovery over demonstration and modeling. Though some Understanding learners share with Mastery
students a desire for efficiency, they are motivated largely by a need to understand and question what they
learn rather than simply accept and record what the textbook or the teacher claims.
How Understanding Students Learn Most Easily
The Understanding learner thrives in an intellectual atmosphere and has a strong drive for perfection.
Rigorous texts, demanding and complex ideas, well-organized but provocative lectures stimulate
Understanding learners brains to action. But this intellectual atmosphere needs to be balanced effectively
with opportunities for them to develop their own ideas and to question, revise, and criticize the ideas of
others. They may grasp a new concept with frightening speed and lucidity but may require more time to
think things through and put the new learning into action. The demand for logical consistency means they
have a strong need to question and test ideas. Finally, their concern with intellectual content and reasoning
sometimes causes them to undervalue the need for routine work and practice resulting in boredom when
teachers insist on drill and practice.

Intuitive-Feeling or Self-Expressive Learners

What Motivates Self-Expressive Learners?

Self-Expressive learners rely on intuition as a mode of perception and feeling as a means of judgment or
decision making. The intuition of Self-Expressive learners uses hunch, guessing, and insight to organize the
world into shifting patterns of possibility. Meanwhile, their feeling function applies association, memory, and
emotion to the task of turning these patterns into concrete images they can use to understand what they
are learning, and to create meaningful products. It is through these processes of imagination, creativity,
personal expression, and communication that Self-Expressive learners become excited and motivated in the
classroom.
How Self-Expressive Students Learn Most Easily
Self-Expressive learners need stimulation and surprise to engage and focus their attention. They thrive on
imaginative literature and provocative prose in science and social studies. They master content when they
can add a personal, creative hook to lessons or create a project to stimulate their imaginations: in social
studies, they might look to bring in dusty diaries of ancestors or to write a history of the American
Revolution through the eyes of a slave or Native American; in science class they might push for a trip to the
local pond thats been carved in the woods by a glacier; they might use their knowledge of statistics and
percentages to create a business plan. They also need sustained, quieter times to work through and
implement their ideas.

Sensing-Feeling or Interpersonal Learners

What Motivates Interpersonal Learners?
Interpersonal learners rely on sensing (focus on the physical nature of the world) as a mode of perception
and feeling as a means of judgment or decision making. But, unlike Mastery learners who transform the
data into separate details, Interpersonal learners look to extend these physical sensations into images and
emotions and strive to connect this new information to their own body of personal experience. What
Interpersonal students seek that Mastery students dont is a sense of belonging and a reason to believe they
are part of a team or cooperative group. Interpersonal students are strongly motivated by the quality of
their relationships to the teacher, to the other students, and to their parents and friends.
How Interpersonal Students Learn Most Easily
The combination of sensing and feeling provokes in the Interpersonal student a strong need for
conversation. The Interpersonal student best confirms and reinforces new learning through conversation,
personal connections, and shared projects. When it comes to skills, both Mastery and Interpersonal learners
need modeling and demonstration, but Interpersonal learners prefer a more personal approach where
feedback and correction are carried by the human voice of the teacher or another student. Though they
show some preference for short answer work, they are quite comfortable with work that asks for their
thoughts, feelings, and personal opinions. Physical objects and visual diagrams can aid in their learning, but
it is the quality of the social content, learning partner, cooperative group, or relationship with the teacher
that drives them to do their best work.

A good teacher can

inspire hope, ignite the
imagination, and instill a
love of learning.
BRAD HENRY

I am indebted to my
father for living, but to

my teacher for living

well.
ALEXANDER THE GREAT

What the teacher is, is

more important than
what he teaches.
KARL A. MENNINGER

The Master said: A true

teacher is one who,
keeping the past alive, is
also able to understand
the present.
(Analects 2.11)
Confucius

The effects you will have on your

students are infinite and currently
unknown; you will possibly shape the
way they proceed in their careers, the
way they will vote, the way they will
behave as partners and spouses, the
way they will raise their kids.
Donna Quesada, Buddha in the Classroom: Zen Wisdom to Inspire Teachers

Child friendly schools

UNICEF has developed a framework for rights-based, child-friendly educational systems and
schools that are characterized as "inclusive, healthy and protective for all children, effective
with children, and involved with families and communities - and children" (Shaeffer, 199 l
environment in the lives of its students. A child-friendly shool ensures every child an
environment that is physically safe, emotionally secure and psychologically 9). Within this
framework:

The school is a significant personal and socia enabling.

Teachers are the single most important factor in creating an effective and inclusive
classroom.
Children are natural learners, but this capacity to learn can be undermined and
sometimes destroyed. A child-friendly school recognizes, encourages and supports
children's growing capacities as learners by providing a school culture, teaching
behaviours and curriculum content that are focused on learning and the learner.
The ability of a school to be and to call itself child-friendly is directly linked to the
support, participation and collaboration it receives from families.
Child-friendly schools aim to develop a learning environment in which children are
motivated and able to learn. Staff members are friendly and welcoming to children
and attend to all their health and safety needs.

A framework for rights-based, child-friendly schools

All social systems and agencies which affect children should be based on the principles of
the Convention on the Rights of the Child. This is particularly true for schools which, despite
disparities in access across much of the world, serve a large percentage of children of
primary school age.
Such rights-based or child-friendly schools not only must help children realize their
right to a basic education of good quality. They are also needed to do many other things
help children learn what they need to learn to face the challenges of the new century;
enhance their health and well-being; guarantee them safe and protective spaces for
learning, free from violence and abuse; raise teacher morale and motivation; and mobilize
community support for education.
A rights-based, child-friendly school has two basic characteristics:

It is a child-seeking school actively identifying excluded children to get them

enrolled in school and included in learning, treating children as subjects with rights
and State as duty-bearers with obligations to fulfill these rights, and demonstrating,
promoting, and helping to monitor the rights and well-being of all children in the
community.
It is a child-centred school acting in the best interests of the child, leading to the
realisation of the childs full potential, and concerned both about the "whole" child
(including her health, nutritional status, and well-being) and about what happens to
children in their families and communities - before they enter school and after they
leave it.

Above all, a rights-based, child-friendly school must reflect an environment of

good quality characterized by several essential aspects:
IT IS INCLUSIVE OF CHILDREN IT:

Does not exclude, discriminate, or stereotype on the basis of difference.

Provides education that is free and compulsory, affordable and accessible, especially
to families and children at risk.

Respects diversity and ensures equality of learning for all children (e.g., girls, working
children, children of ethnic minorities and affected by HIV/AIDS, children with
disabilities, victims of exploitation and violence).
Responds to diversity by meeting the differing circumstances and needs of children
(e.g., based on gender, social class, ethnicity, and ability level).

IT IS EFFECTIVE FOR LEARNING IT:

Promotes good quality teaching and learning processes with individualizd instruction
appropriate to each child's developmental level, abilities, and learning style and with
active, cooperative, and democratic learning methods.
Provides structured content and good quality materials and resources.
Enhances teacher capacity, morale, commitment, status, and income and their
own recognition of child rights.
Promotes quality learning outcomes by defining and helping children learn what they
need to learn and teaching them how to learn.

IT IS HEALTHY AND PROTECTIVE OF CHILDREN IT:

Ensures a healthy, hygienic, and safe learning environment, with adequate water and
sanitation facilities and healthy classrooms, healthy policies and practices (e.g., a
school free of drugs, corporal punishment, and harassment), and the provision of
health services such as nutritional supplementation and counseling.
Provides life skills-based health education.
Promotes both the physical and the psycho-socio-emotional health of teachers and
learners.
Helps to defend and protect all children from abuse and harm.
Provides positive experiences for children.

IT IS GENDER-SENSITIVE IT:

Promotes gender equality in enrolment and achievement.

Eliminates gender stereotypes.
Guarantees girl-friendly facilities, curricula, textbooks, and
processes.
socializes girls and boys in a non-violent environment.
Encourages respect for each others' rights, dignity, and equality.

teaching-learning

IT IS INVOLVED WITH CHILDREN, FAMILIES, AND COMMUNITIES IT IS:

Child-centred - promoting child participation in all aspects of school life.

Family-focused working to strengthen families as the child's primary caregivers
and educators and helping children, parents, and teachers establish harmonious
relationships.
Community-based - encouraging local partnership in education, acting in the
community for the sake of children, and working with other actors to ensure the
fulfillment of childrens' rights.

Experience is now showing that a framework of rights-based, child-friendly schools can be a

powerful tool for both helping to fulfill the rights of children and providing them an education
of good quality. At the national level, for ministries, development agencies, and civil society
organizations, the framework can be used as a normative goal for policies and programs
leading to child-friendly systems and environments, as a focus for collaborative
programming leading to greater resource allocations for education, and as a component of
staff training. At the community level, for school staff, parents, and other community
members, the framework can serve as both a goal and a tool of quality improvement
through localized self-assessment, planning, and management and as a means for
mobilizing the community around education and child rights.#

What Is Social and Emotional Learning?

Social and emotional learning (SEL) is the process through which children and adults acquire and
effectively apply the knowledge, attitudes, and skills necessary to understand and manage emotions, set
and achieve positive goals, feel and show empathy for others, establish and maintain positive
relationships, and make responsible decisions.
SEL programming is based on the understanding that the best learning emerges in the context of
supportive relationships that make learning challenging, engaging, and meaningful.
Social and emotional skills are critical to being a good student, citizen, and worker. Many risky behaviors
(e.g., drug use, violence, bullying, and dropping out) can be prevented or reduced when multiyear,
integrated efforts are used to develop students' social and emotional skills. This is best done through
effective classroom instruction, student engagement in positive activities in and out of the classroom, and
broad parent and community involvement in program planning, implementation, and evaluation.
Effective SEL programming begins in preschool and continues through high school.
Outcomes Associated with the Five Competencies

The short-term goals of SEL programs are to (1) promote students' self-awareness, social awareness,
relationship, and responsible-decision-making skills and (2) improve student attitudes and beliefs about
self, others, and school.
The Promotion of Students' Social and Emotional Learning

Educators, parents, and policymakers who recognize that the core SEL competencies are necessary for
effective life functioning also know these skills can be taught.

IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT
OF THE REQUIREMENTS IN
PRINCIPLES OF TEACHING 1

Prepared by
FATIMA Q. BAGAY

Submitted to
MR. KHENN C. BONA

September 17, 2016

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