Learning Styles

Anthony Gregorc's "Style Delineator Approach" is based on studies into the functions of the left and right brain hemispheres. His system of learning takes into account the varied ways in which people perceive and order information. We either perceive things in methods that are concrete-oriented (from our physical senses) or abstract-oriented (from logical, deductive reasoning). Ordering is making sense of what we perceive. Ordering can either be sequential (organized, systematic) or random (unorganized).

These diverse means of perceiving and ordering information form

Gregorc's four categories of learning styles:

Gregorc maintained that four conditions are required for learning: motivation, interest, transfer of training and environment.

Motivation

Motivation is anything that affects the state of the nervous system to determine behaviour. It is the driving force for the activation and persistence of behaviour. This helps to explain why some behavioural patterns occur more frequently or at certain times. Motivation generally relates to a psychological drive or need which pressures us into behaving accordingly. There may also be external stimuli or incentives that contribute to motivation by rewarding appropriate behaviour.

Interest

Interest is important to learning, since it facilitates thinking and attention. We cannot effectively think about a topic that we find boring and purposeless; nor can we learn something that seems tedious. Interest guarantees that we will focus on what we are supposed to be learning. We think and learn when we read the newspaper or a novel, watch television or a movie, or solve a problem - but only if we are interested in it. Thinking and learning are inseparable because our brains strive to think all the time, meaning that learning occurs whenever there is meaningful thought.

Transfer of Training

The recognition that new learning can profit from old learning because learning one thing helps in learning another, is called transfer of training. Currently, the viewpoint regarding transfer of training is that both concrete and abstract knowledge can be transferred from one situation to another. Recent studies have shown that the most important factor in transfer of training is the quality of the person's organisation of prior knowledge.

Environment

The more varied and enriched the environment and the longer the stimulation within this environment, the longer the learning is retained. Research also showed that exposure to enriched environments enables significantly better task performance than learning that has taken place in less stimulating environments.

Past experiences influence our expectations about whether we can achieve a particular goal or not. Gregorc believed that when we encounter new experiences, our generalized expectations from the past will guide our action.

The objectives of teaching should extend far beyond the subject matter being taught. Essentially, teaching aims at developing well-integrated people who are capable of undertaking a responsible, independent, and active role in society. Teaching objectives extend from intellectual abilities and cognition (social insight) to psychomotor learning (learning practical skills) and affective thinking (development of emotions, attitudes, morals, and values).

Teaching involves individual lessons which are part of a larger unit. While each lesson is a self-contained concept within a broader topic, learning should consist of individual or group teaching – learning - thinking - practice exercises and skills training.

In education, having a clear understanding of the learning theories and styles is not sufficient to sustain survival in a complex world. Learners need to be given practical skills that will encourage and facilitate creativity, innovation, lateral thought, reasoning, problem solving and change.

We need to teach our children how to think……..

Thinking Skills

Edward De Bono in his book ‘Thinking Course’ puts forward the combination of two theories that thinking is a matter of intelligence (determined by genes) and that it is a skill that can be improved by training – The learning strategies discussed below are based on De Bono’s views that Intelligence is a potential and that Thinking is an operating skill. Purposeful teaching programmes of creative thinking skills and proficiency could be one method of helping students of all ages to cope with our Complex World.

At school and in later life most people have to think in every situation. This is thinking in practice. Education systems around the world claim to teach pupils how to think yet very few schools can be found that have ‘thinking’ on the curriculum. If thinking is a skill and education has become skills based then why is it not explicitly taught in education institutions from as early on as possible?

In a stable world the theories of the Greek Philosophers Socrates, Plato and Aristotle promote knowledge as all important and that all life skills are facilitated through the collection of information. In a complex world, knowledge is not enough and the creative, constructive (hands on), design (innovative) and operating (involvement) aspects of thinking are as important as knowledge.

Each subject area has its own idioms, needs and models but there are fundamental thinking processes that are applicable across all fields of education and training. These processes will be explained through Edward De Bono’s Tool Method. These tools are attention directing tools and are taught as a means of escaping the patterns laid down by experience while furnishing the mind with some executive concepts so that we can learn to instruct our minds to work as they wish. The tool method is a powerful and effective way of improving thinking skills.

Some of these tools are explained in detail below……

Six Thinking Hats

The 'Six Thinking Hats' is a powerful technique that helps individuals or teams to look at important decisions from a number of different perspectives. It aids objective decision making by forcing people to move outside habitual ways of thinking. The hats help understanding of the full complexity of decisions, and identify issues and opportunities to which people might otherwise be blind.

The Six Thinking Hats technique can be used in meetings or individually. In meetings it has the benefit of blocking the confrontations that may happen when people with different thinking styles or attitudes discuss the same problem.

One of the great values of the hats is that they provide thinking roles. They simplify thinking and enable a thinker to deal with one thing at a time; another value is that they allow a switch in thinking. Requests to change hats or think in a certain way can be made without being offensive; they do not threaten a person’s ego or personality.

White Hat virgin white, pure facts, figures and information, neutrality

Red Hat seeing red, emotions and feelings, hunch and intuition

Black Hat devil’s advocate, negative judgement, why it will not work

Yellow Hat sunshine, brightness and optimism, positive, constructive, opportunity

Green Hat fertile, germination, creative, movement, provocation

Blue Hat cool and control, orchestra conductor, thinking about thinking

Now, a yellow hat remark.

Try it out for yourself.

The PMI (plus, minus and interesting)

Encouraging people to take a more balanced view is not very effective. Patterns from experience and personal views (first impressions, prejudice and tradition) will influence decisions. The PMI is a simple thinking tool that is concerned with facilitating a broad scan within any situation.

P stands for Plus or good points

M stands for Minus or the bad points

I stands for interesting or the fascinating points

The PMI is an attention directing tool and in applying this method, attention is directed objectively within the three aspects of exploration. Instead of intelligence supporting a particular prejudice or personal view, it is now being used to explore the subject matter. Emotions and feelings are applied after the exploration and Plus, Minus and Interesting information has been gathered.

APC (alternatives, possibilities and choices)

The natural tendency of the mind is to support views arrived at by other means. It is therefore the deliberate search for alternatives that becomes an extremely important part of a thinking programme.

Without the willingness to look for alternatives, people remain trapped by past experience. Identifying alternatives opens up possibilities and the opportunity for change. Newly generated alternatives provide the option of choice. Alternatives can be rejected if they do not seem to be superior to existing processes.

The tool that deliberately signals the need to look for alternatives and ultimately leads to the identification of new possibilities is the key thinking tool. 

OPV (Other People's Views) 

The letters “OPV” stand for Other People's Views. By using this thinking tool, the thinker tries to put him/herself into the other person’s shoes. This is done in order to look at the world from a different position. There are two elements to this task. The first involves identifying the other people involved. The second part involves putting on the ‘shoes’ of all these people.

Doing an OPV means objectively trying to look at the world from their point of view and possibly adding what is thought to be their actual perspectives are. This thinking tool is intended to give a broader and clearer view of the situation – a better situational map.

The second part of the process would be to construct an objective design of an outcome or course of action

eg. A child is dismissed from school for bullying

The Other People involved could be…

The school community

The pupil’s parents

The accused pupil

The bullied pupils

The class teacher

The bus conductor

Clearly, the work that teachers do, and the way they do it, is changing, and will change even more rapidly in the future.

A phrase which has become a cliché but is clearly a reality is that the teacher is changing from being “the sage on the stage, to the guide on the side”. Rather than being at the centre of the learning process, teachers are becoming facilitators, moderators, and enablers.

De Bono puts forward fundamental thinking tools which are extremely simple but very powerful to use. Together these ‘attention directing tools’ are derived from the basic CoRT Thinking Lessons programme, which is available for use in schools and should be considered as part of a flexible personalized learning curriculum.

Conclusion

In attempting to create pro-active, intellectually autonomous young people, able to cope with the diversity of a complex world, educators should investigate personal learning styles and teach real thinking skills. This involves education action. The future is where action takes place. Education has essentially been about the existing knowledge of the past.

To facilitate a shift from past routines to current active and creative thinking, De Bono has coined the term OPERACY for the skills of doing and he believes that it should rank equally with Numeracy and Literacy.

In our complex world there are people to deal with, decisions to be made, strategies to be considered and monitored, plans to be designed and implemented. There is conflict, bargaining, negotiating and deal making. All this requires a great deal of thinking and a great deal of operacy. …

Operacy involves such aspects of thinking as: other peoples’ views, priorities, objectives, alternatives, consequences, decisions, conflict resolutions, creativity and many other aspects not normally covered in the type of thinking used for information analysis.

teach your students to think…

and you’ll teach them to succeed

Edward De Bono

According to De Bono the biggest enemy of thinking is complexity, which leads to confusion. He says when thinking is clear and simple it becomes more enjoyable and effective.

By using some of his ideas, and adopting a more collaborative approach, we, as educators, need to work with our students and strive for more efficient and simple solutions to the complex challenges of the future.

References and Resources

De Bono, E. (1990). “Six Thinking Hats”

Further Reading

http://schoolnet.gov.mt/thinkingskills/thinkingtools.htm

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