learning methods essay

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The 7 main types of learning styles (and how to teach to them), share this article.

Understanding the 7 main types of learning styles and how to teach them will help both your students and your courses be more successful.

When it comes to learning something new, we all absorb information at different rates and understand it differently too. Some students get new concepts right away; others need to sit and ponder for some time before they can arrive at similar conclusions.

Why? The answer lies in the type of learning styles different students feel more comfortable with. In other words, we respond to information in different ways depending on how it is presented to us.

Clearly, different types of learning styles exist, and there are lots of debates in pedagogy about what they are and how to adapt to them.

For practical purposes, it’s recommended to ensure that your course or presentation covers the 7 main types of learning.

In this article, we’ll break down the 7 types of learning styles, and give practical tips for how you can improve your own teaching styles , whether it’s in higher education or an online course you plan to create on the side.

Skip ahead:

What are the 7 types of learning styles?

How to accommodate different types of learning styles online.

• How to help students understand their different types of learning styles

How to create an online course for all

In the academic literature, the most common model for the types of learning you can find is referred to as VARK.

VARK is an acronym that stands for Visual, Auditory, Reading & Writing, and Kinesthetic. While these learning methods are the most recognized, there are people that do not fit into these boxes and prefer to learn differently. So we’re adding three more learning types to our list, including Logical, Social, and Solitary.

Visual learners

Visual learners are individuals that learn more through images, diagrams, charts, graphs, presentations, and anything that illustrates ideas. These people often doodle and make all kinds of visual notes of their own as it helps them retain information better. 

When teaching visual learners, the goal isn’t just to incorporate images and infographics into your lesson. It’s about helping them visualize the relationships between different pieces of data or information as they learn. 

Gamified lessons are a great way to teach visual learners as they’re interactive and aesthetically appealing. You should also give handouts, create presentations, and search for useful infographics to support your lessons.

Since visual information can be pretty dense, give your students enough time to absorb all the new knowledge and make their own connections between visual clues.

Auditory/aural learners

The auditory style of learning is quite the opposite of the visual one. Auditory learners are people that absorb information better when it is presented in audio format (i.e. the lessons are spoken). This type of learner prefers to learn by listening and might not take any notes at all. They also ask questions often or repeat what they have just heard aloud to remember it better.

Aural learners are often not afraid of speaking up and are great at explaining themselves. When teaching auditory learners, keep in mind that they shouldn’t stay quiet for long periods of time. So plan a few activities where you can exchange ideas or ask questions. Watching videos or listening to audio during class will also help with retaining new information.

Reading and writing (or verbal) learners

Reading & Writing learners absorb information best when they use words, whether they’re reading or writing them. To verbal learners, written words are more powerful and granular than images or spoken words, so they’re excellent at writing essays, articles, books, etc. 

To support the way reading-writing students learn best, ensure they have time to take ample notes and allocate extra time for reading. This type of learner also does really well at remote learning, on their own schedule. Including reading materials and writing assignments in their homework should also yield good results.

Kinesthetic/tactile learners

Kinesthetic learners use different senses to absorb information. They prefer to learn by doing or experiencing what they’re being taught. These types of learners are tactile and need to live through experiences to truly understand something new. This makes it a bit challenging to prepare for them in a regular class setting. 

As you try to teach tactile learners, note that they can’t sit still for long and need more frequent breaks than others. You need to get them moving and come up with activities that reinforce the information that was just covered in class. Acting out different roles is great; games are excellent; even collaborative writing on a whiteboard should work fine. If applicable, you can also organize hands-on laboratory sessions, immersions, and workshops.

In general, try to bring every abstract idea into the real world to help kinesthetic learners succeed.

Logical/analytical learners 

As the name implies, logical learners rely on logic to process information and understand a particular subject. They search for causes and patterns to create a connection between different kinds of information. Many times, these connections are not obvious to people to learn differently, but they make perfect sense to logical learners. 

Logical learners generally do well with facts, statistics, sequential lists, and problem-solving tasks to mention a few. 

As a teacher, you can engage logical learners by asking open-ended or obscure questions that require them to apply their own interpretation. You should also use teaching material that helps them hone their problem-solving skills and encourages them to form conclusions based on facts and critical thinking. 

Social/interpersonal learners 

Social or interpersonal learners love socializing with others and working in groups so they learn best during lessons that require them to interact with their peers . Think study groups, peer discussions, and class quizzes. 

To effectively teach interpersonal learners, you’ll need to make teamwork a core part of your lessons. Encourage student interaction by asking questions and sharing stories. You can also incorporate group activities and role-playing into your lessons, and divide the students into study groups.  

Solitary/intrapersonal learners 

Solitary learning is the opposite of social learning. Solitary, or solo, learners prefer to study alone without interacting with other people. These learners are quite good at motivating themselves and doing individual work. In contrast, they generally don’t do well with teamwork or group discussions.

To help students like this, you should encourage activities that require individual work, such as journaling, which allows them to reflect on themselves and improve their skills. You should also acknowledge your students’ individual accomplishments and help them refine their problem-solving skills. 

Are there any unique intelligence types commonly shared by your students? Adapting to these different types of intelligence can help you can design a course best suited to help your students succeed.

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How to help students understand their different types of learning styles 

Unless you’re teaching preschoolers, most students probably already realize the type of learning style that fits them best. But some students do get it wrong.

The key here is to observe every student carefully and plan your content for different learning styles right from the start.

Another idea is to implement as much individual learning as you can and then customize that learning for each student. So you can have visual auditory activities, riddles for logical learners, games for kinesthetic learners, reading activities, writing tasks, drawing challenges, and more.

When you’re creating your first course online, it’s important to dedicate enough time to planning out its structure. Don’t just think that a successful course consists of five uploaded videos.

Think about how you present the new knowledge. Where it makes sense to pause and give students the time to reflect. Where to include activities to review the new material. Adapting to the different learning types that people exhibit can help you design an online course best suited to help your students succeed.

That being said, here are some tips to help you tailor your course to each learning style, or at least create enough balance. 

Visual learners 

Since visual learners like to see or observe images, diagrams, demonstrations, etc., to understand a topic, here’s how you can create a course for them: 

• Include graphics, cartoons, or illustrations of concepts 
• Use flashcards to review course material 
• Use flow charts or maps to organize materials 
• Highlight and color code notes to organize materials 
• Use color-coded tables to compare and contrast elements 
• Use a whiteboard to explain important information
• Have students play around with different font styles and sizes to improve readability 

Auditory learners prefer to absorb information by listening to spoken words, so they do well when teachers give spoken instructions and lessons. Here’s how to cater to this learning type through your online course: 

• Converse with your students about the subject or topic 
• Ask your students questions after each lesson and have them answer you (through the spoken word)
• Have them record lectures and review them with you 
• Have articles, essays, and comprehension passages out to them
• As you teach, explain your methods, questions, and answers 
• Ask for oral summaries of the course material 
• If you teach math or any other math-related course, use a talking calculator 
• Create an audio file that your students can listen to
• Create a video of you teaching your lesson to your student
• Include a YouTube video or podcast episode for your students to listen to
• Organize a live Q & A session where students can talk to you and other learners to help them better understand the subject

Reading and writing (or verbal) learners 

This one is pretty straightforward. Verbal learners learn best when they read or write (or both), so here are some practical ways to include that in your online course:

• Have your students write summaries about the lesson 
• If you teach language or literature, assign them stories and essays that they’d have to read out loud to understand
• If your course is video-based, add transcripts to aid your students’ learning process
• Make lists of important parts of your lesson to help your students memorize them
• Provide downloadable notes and checklists that your students can review after they’ve finished each chapter of your course
• Encourage extra reading by including links to a post on your blog or another website in the course
• Use some type of body movement or rhythm, such as snapping your fingers, mouthing, or pacing, while reciting the material your students should learn

Since kinesthetic learners like to experience hands-on what they learn with their senses — holding, touching, hearing, and doing. So instead of churning out instructions and expecting to follow, do these instead: 

• Encourage them to experiment with textured paper, and different sizes of pencils, pens, and crayons to jot down information
• If you teach diction or language, give them words that they should incorporate into their daily conversations with other people
• Encourage students to dramatize or act out lesson concepts to understand them better 

Logical learners are great at recognizing patterns, analyzing information, and solving problems. So in your online course, you need to structure your lessons to help them hone these abilities. Here are some things you can do:

• Come up with tasks that require them to solve problems. This is easy if you teach math or a math-related course
• Create charts and graphs that your students need to interpret to fully grasp the lesson
• Ask open-ended questions that require critical thinking 
• Create a mystery for your students to solve with clues that require logical thinking or math
• Pose an issue/topic to your students and ask them to address it from multiple perspectives

Since social learners prefer to discuss or interact with others, you should set up your course to include group activities. Here’s how you can do that:

• Encourage them to discuss the course concept with their classmates
• Get your students involved in forum discussions
• Create a platform (via Slack, Discord, etc.) for group discussions
• Pair two or more social students to teach each other the course material
• If you’re offering a cohort-based course , you can encourage students to make their own presentations and explain them to the rest of the class

Solitary learners prefer to learn alone. So when designing your course, you need to take that into consideration and provide these learners a means to work by themselves. Here are some things you can try: 

• Encourage them to do assignments by themselves
• Break down big projects into smaller ones to help them manage time efficiently
• Give them activities that require them to do research on their own
• When they’re faced with problems regarding the topic, let them try to work around it on their own. But let them know that they are welcome to ask you for help if they need to
• Encourage them to speak up when you ask them questions as it builds their communication skills 
• Explore blended learning , if possible, by combining teacher-led classes with self-guided assignments and extra ideas that students can explore on their own.

Now that you’re ready to teach something to everyone, you might be wondering what you actually need to do to create your online courses. Well, start with a platform.

Thinkific is an intuitive and easy-to-use platform any instructor can use to create online courses that would resonate with all types of learning styles. Include videos, audio, presentations, quizzes, and assignments in your curriculum. Guide courses in real-time or pre-record information in advance. It’s your choice.

In addition, creating a course on Thinkific doesn’t require you to know any programming. You can use a professionally designed template and customize it with a drag-and-drop editor to get exactly the course you want in just a few hours. Try it yourself to see how easy it can be.

This blog was originally published in August 2017, it has since been updated in March 2023. 

Althea Storm is a B2B SaaS writer who specializes in creating data-driven content that drives traffic and increases conversions for businesses. She has worked with top companies like AdEspresso, HubSpot, Aura, and Thinkific. When she's not writing web content, she's curled up in a chair reading a crime thriller or solving a Rubik's cube.

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Learning Styles: A Review of Theory, Application, and Best Practices

Much pedagogical research has focused on the concept of “learning styles.” Several authors have proposed that the ability to typify student learning styles can augment the educational experience. As such, instructors might tailor their teaching style so that it is more congruent with a given student's or class of students' learning style. Others have argued that a learning/teaching style mismatch encourages and challenges students to expand their academic capabilities. Best practice might involve offering courses that employ a variety of teaching styles. Several scales are available for the standardization of learning styles. These scales employ a variety of learning style descriptors and are sometimes criticized as being measures of personality rather than learning style. Learning styles may become an increasingly relevant pedagogic concept as classes increase in size and diversity. This review will describe various learning style instruments as well as their potential use and limitations. Also discussed is the use of learning style theory in various concentrations including pharmacy.

INTRODUCTION

The diversity of students engaged in higher education continues to expand. Students come to colleges with varied ethnic and cultural backgrounds, from a multitude of training programs and institutions, and with differing learning styles. 1 Coupled with this increase in diversification has been a growth in distance education programs and expansions in the types of instructional media used to deliver information. 2 , 3 These changes and advances in technology have led many educators to reconsider traditional, uniform instruction methods and stress the importance of considering student learning styles in the design and delivery of course content. 4 - 5 Mismatches between an instructor's style of teaching and a student's method of learning have been cited as potential learning obstacles within the classroom and as a reason for using a variety of teaching modalities to deliver instruction. 6 - 8 The concept of using a menu of teaching modalities is based on the premise that at least some content will be presented in a manner suited to every type of learner within a given classroom or course. Some research has focused on profiling learning types so that instructors have a better understanding of the cohort of students they are educating. 7 - 8 This information can be used to guide the selection of instruction modalities employed in the classroom. Limited research has also focused on describing and characterizing composite learning styles and patterns for students in various concentrations of study (eg, medicine, engineering). 5 , 6 , 9 This review will describe the potential utility and limitations in assessing learning styles.

LEARNING STYLES

A benchmark definition of “learning styles” is “characteristic cognitive, effective, and psychosocial behaviors that serve as relatively stable indicators of how learners perceive, interact with, and respond to the learning environment. 10 Learning styles are considered by many to be one factor of success in higher education. Confounding research and, in many instances, application of learning style theory has begat the myriad of methods used to categorize learning styles. No single commonly accepted method currently exists, but alternatively several potential scales and classifications are in use. Most of these scales and classifications are more similar than dissimilar and focus on environmental preferences, sensory modalities, personality types, and/or cognitive styles. 11 Lack of a conceptual framework for both learning style theory and measurement is a common and central criticism in this area. In 2004 the United Kingdom Learning and Skills Research Center commissioned a report intended to systematically examine existing learning style models and instruments. In the commission report, Coffield et al identified several inconsistencies in learning style models and instruments and cautioned educators with regards to their use. 12 The authors also outlined a suggested research agenda for this area.

Alternatively, many researchers have argued that knowledge of learning styles can be of use to both educators and students. Faculty members with knowledge of learning styles can tailor pedagogy so that it best coincides with learning styles exhibited by the majority of students. 4 Alternatively, students with knowledge of their own preferences are empowered to use various techniques to enhance learning, which in turn may impact overall educational satisfaction. This ability is particularly critical and useful when an instructor's teaching style does not match a student's learning style. Compounding the issue of learning styles in the classroom has been the movement in many collegiate environments to distance and/or asynchronous education. 2 , 3 This shift in educational modality is inconsistent with the learning models with which most older students and adult learners are accustomed from their primary and high school education. 3 , 13 , 14 Alternatively, environmental influences and more widespread availability of technological advances (eg, personal digital assistants, digital video, the World Wide Web, wireless Internet) may make younger generations of students more comfortable with distance learning. 15 - 17

LEARNING STYLES INSTRUMENTS

As previously stated, several models and measures of learning styles have been described in the literature. Kolb proposed a model involving a 4-stage cyclic structure that begins with a concrete experience, which lends to a reflective observation and subsequently an abstract conceptualization that allows for active experimentation. 18 Kolb's model is associated with the Learning Style Inventory instrument (LSI). The LSI focuses on learner's preferences in terms of concrete versus abstract, and action versus reflection. Learners are subsequently described as divergers, convergers, assimilators, or accommodators.

Honey and Mumford developed an alternative instrument known as the Learning Style Questionnaire (LSQ). 6 Presumably, the LSQ has improved validity and predictive accuracy compared to the LSI. The LSQ describes 4 distinct types of learners: activists (learn primarily by experience), reflectors (learn from reflective observation), theorists (learn from exploring associations and interrelationships), and pragmatics (learn from doing or trying things with practical outcomes). The LSQ has been more widely used and studied in management and business settings and its applicability to academia has been questioned. 6 An alternative to the LSQ, the Canfield Learning Style Inventory (CLSI) describes learning styles along 4 dimensions. 19 These dimensions include conditions for learning, area of interest, mode of learning, and conditions for performance. Analogous to the LSQ, applicability of the CLSI to academic settings has been questioned. Additionally, some confusion surrounding scoring and interpretation of certain result values also exists.

Felder and Silverman introduced a learning style assessment instrument that was specifically designed for classroom use and was first applied in the context of engineering education. 20 The instrument consists of 44 short items with a choice between 2 responses to each sentence. Learners are categorized in 4 dichotomous areas: preference in terms of type and mode of information perception (sensory or intuitive; visual or verbal), approaches to organizing and processing information (active or reflective), and the rate at which students progress towards understanding (sequential or global). The instrument associated with the model is known as the Index of Learning Survey (ILS). 21 The ILS is based on a 44-item questionnaire and outputs a preference profile for a student or an entire class. The preference profile is based on the 4 previously defined learning dimensions. The ILS has several advantages over other instruments including conciseness and ease of administration (in both a written and computerized format). 20 , 21 No published data exist with regards to the use of the ILS in populations of pharmacy students or pharmacists. Cook described a study designed to examine the reliability of the ILS for determining learning styles among a population of internal medicine residents. 20 The researchers administered the ILS twice and the Learning Style Type Indicator (LSTI) once to 138 residents (86 men, 52 women). The LSTI has been previously compared to the ILS by several investigators. 8 , 19 Cook found that the Cronbach's alpha scores for the ILS and LSTI ranged from 0.19 to 0.69. They preliminarily concluded that the ILS scores were reliable and valid among this cohort of residents, particularly within the active-reflective and sensing-intuitive domains. In a separate study, Cook et al attempted to evaluate convergence and discrimination among the ILS, LSI, and another computer-based instrument known as the Cognitive Styles Analysis (CSA). 11 The cohort studied consisted of family medicine and internal medicine residents as well as first- and third-year medical students. Eighty-nine participants completed all 3 instruments, and responses were analyzed using calculated Pearson's r and Cronbach's α. The authors found that the ILS active-reflective and sensing-intuitive scores as well as the LSI active-reflective scores were valid in determining learning styles. However, the ILS sequential-global domain failed to correlate well with other instruments and may be flawed, at least in this given population. The authors advised the use of caution when interpreting scores without a strong knowledge of construct definitions and empirical evidence.

Several other instruments designed to measure personality indexes or psychological types may overlap and describe learning styles in nonspecific fashions. One example of such an indicator is the Myers-Briggs Index. 6 While some relation between personality indexes and learning styles may exist, the use of instruments intended to describe personality to characterize learning style has been criticized by several authors. Therefore, the use of these markers to measure learning styles is not recommended. 6 The concept of emotional intelligence is another popular way to characterize intellect and learning capacity but similarly should not be misconstrued as an effective means of describing learning styles. 23

Several authors have proposed correlations between culture and learning styles. 6 , 24 This is predicated on the concept that culture influences environmental perceptions which, in turn, to some degree determine the way in which information is processed and organized. The storage, processing, and assimilation methods for information contribute to how new knowledge is learned. Culture also plays a role in conditioning and reinforcing learning styles and partially explains why teaching methods used in certain parts of the world may be ineffective or less effective when blindly transplanted to another locale. 6 , 24 Teachers should be aware of this phenomenon and the influence it has on the variety of learning styles that are present in classrooms. This is especially true in classrooms that have a large contingency of international students. Such classrooms are becoming increasingly common as more and more schools expand their internationalization efforts. 25

The technological age may also be influencing the learning styles of younger students and emerging generations of learners. The Millennial Generation has been described as more technologically advanced than their Generation X counterparts, with higher expectations for the use of computer-aided media in the classroom. 15 , 16 , 26 Younger students are accustomed to enhanced visual images associated with various computer- and television-based games and game systems. 16 , 26 Additionally, video technology is increasingly becoming “transportable” in the way of mobile computing, MP3 devices, personal digital video players, and other technologies. 26 All of these advances have made visual images more pervasive and common within industrialized nations.

APPLYING LEARNING STYLES TO THE CLASSROOM

As class sizes increase, so do the types and numbers of student learning styles. Also, as previously mentioned, internationalization and changes in the media culture may affect the spectrum of classroom learning styles as well. 24 , 25 Given the variability in learning styles that may exist in a classroom, some authors suggested that students should adapt their learning styles to coincide with a given instruction style. 6 , 27 This allows instructors to dictate the methods used to instruct in the classroom. This approach also allows instructors to “teach from their strengths,” with little consideration to other external factors such as learning style of students. While convenient, this unilateral approach has been criticized for placing all of the responsibility for aligning teaching and learning on the student. When the majority of information is presented in formats that are misaligned with learning styles, students may spend more time manipulating material than they do in comprehending and applying the information. Additionally, a unilaterally designed classroom may reinforce a “do nothing” approach among faculty members. 6 Alternatively, a teaching style-learning style mismatch might challenge students to adjust, grow intellectually, and learn in more integrated ways. However, it may be difficult to predict which students have the baseline capacity to adjust, particularly when significant gaps in knowledge of a given subject already exist or when the learner is a novice to the topic being instructed. 6 , 27 This might be especially challenging within professional curricula where course load expectations are significant.

Best practice most likely involves a teaching paradigm which addresses and accommodates multiple dimensions of learning styles that build self-efficacy. 27 Instructing in a way that encompasses multiple learning styles gives the teacher an opportunity to reach a greater extent of a given class, while also challenging students to expand their range of learning styles and aptitudes at a slower pace. This may avoid lost learning opportunities and circumvent unnecessary frustration from both the teacher and student. For many instructors, multi-style teaching is their inherent approach to learning, while other instructors more commonly employ unilateral styles. Learning might be better facilitated if instructors were cognizant of both their teaching styles and the learning styles of their students. An understanding and appreciation of a given individual's teaching style requires self-reflection and introspection and should be a component of a well-maintained teaching portfolio. Major changes or modifications to teaching styles might not be necessary in order to effectively create a classroom atmosphere that addresses multiple learning styles or targets individual ones. However, faculty members should be cautious to not over ambitiously, arbitrarily, or frivolously design courses and activities with an array of teaching modalities that are not carefully connected, orchestrated, and delivered.

Novice learners will likely be more successful when classrooms, either by design or by chance, are tailored to their learning style. However, the ultimate goal is to instill within students the skills to recognize and react to various styles so that learning is maximized no matter what the environment. 28 This is an essential skill for an independent learner and for students in any career path.

Particular consideration of learning styles might be given to asynchronous courses and other courses where a significant portion of time is spent online. 29 As technology advances and classroom sizes in many institutions become increasingly large, asynchronous instruction is becoming more pervasive. In many instances, students who have grown accustomed to technological advances may prefer asynchronous courses. Online platforms may inherently affect learning on a single dimension (visual or auditory). Most researchers who have compared the learning styles of students enrolled in online versus traditional courses have found no correlations between the learning styles and learning outcomes of cohorts enrolled in either course type. Johnson et al compared learning style profiles to student satisfaction with either online or face-to-face study groups. 30 Forty-eight college students participated in the analysis. Learning styles were measured using the ILS. Students were surveyed with regard to their satisfaction with various study group formats. These results were then correlated to actual performance on course examinations. Active and visual learners demonstrated a significant preference for face-to-face study groups. Alternatively, students who were reflective learners demonstrated a preference for online groups. Likely due to the small sample size, none of these differences achieved statistical significance. The authors suggest that these results are evidence for courses employing hybrid teaching styles that reach as many different students as possible. Cook et al studied 121 internal medicine residents and also found no association (p > 0.05) between ILS-measured learning styles and preferences for learning formats (eg, Web-based versus paper-based learning modules). 31 Scores on assessment questions related to learning modules administered to the residents were also not statistically correlated with learning styles.

Cook et al examined the effectiveness of adapting Web-based learning modules to a given learner's style. 32 The investigators created 2 versions of a Web-based instructional module on complementary and alternative medications. One version of the modules directed the learner to “active” questions that provided learners immediate and comprehensive feedback, while the other version involved “reflective” questions that directed learners back to the case content for answers. Eighty-nine residents were randomly matched or mismatched based on their active-reflective learning styles (as determined by ILS) to either the “active” or “reflective” test version. Posttest scores for either question type among mismatched subjects did not differ significantly ( p = 0.97), suggesting no interaction between learning styles and question types. The authors concluded from this small study that learning styles had no influence on learning outcomes. The study was limited in its lack of assessment of baseline knowledge, motivation, or other characteristics. Also, the difficulty of the assessment may not have been sufficient enough to distinguish a difference and/or “mismatched” learners may have automatically adapted to the information they received regardless of type.

STUDIES OF PHARMACY STUDENTS

There are no published studies that have systematically examined the learning styles of pharmacy students. Pungente et al collected some learning styles data as part of a study designed to evaluate how first-year pharmacy students' learning styles influenced preferences toward different activities associated with problem-based learning (PBL). 33 One hundred sixteen first-year students completed Kolb's LSI. Learning styles were then matched to responses from a survey designed to assess student preferences towards various aspects of PBL. The majority of students were classified by the LSI as being accommodators (36.2%), with a fairly even distribution of styles among remaining students (19.8% assimilators, 22.4% convergers, 21.6% divergers). There was a proportional distribution of learning styles among a convenience sample of pharmacy students. Divergers were the least satisfied with the PBL method of instruction, while convergers demonstrated the strongest preference for this method of learning. The investigators proposed that the next step might be to correlate learning styles and PBL preferences with actual academic success.

Limited research correlating learning styles to learning outcomes has hampered the application of learning style theory to actual classroom settings. Complicating research is the plethora of different learning style measurement instruments available. Despite these obstacles, efforts to better define and utilize learning style theory is an area of growing research. A better knowledge and understanding of learning styles may become increasingly critical as classroom sizes increase and as technological advances continue to mold the types of students entering higher education. While research in this area continues to grow, faculty members should make concentrated efforts to teach in a multi-style fashion that both reaches the greatest extent of students in a given class and challenges all students to grow as learners.