LEARNING STYLE SURVEYS AS A TOOL TO INCREASE STUDENT PARTICIPATION IN LECTURE BASED CLASSROOMS

Getting students to actively participate in classroom activities in lecture-based introductory geoscience courses remain one of the major challenges faced by instructors. The source of student reluctance to participate in classroom activities may lie in the different learning styles of individual students. Preliminary studies (e.g. Amigo, 2001) also show the necessity of adapting course materials to accommodate the diverse learning styles of the students. Conducting a survey of student learning styles on the first day of class helps to identify different type learners in each section. The results of such a survey can be tabulated to identify groups of students with similar learning styles, which can help the instructor to tailor classroom activities to the learning styles of the students.

Such an approach has been taken in small enrollment (20-30 students per section) lecture-based introductory earth science courses for non-science majors at the St Louis Community College, Meramec. Based on the results of the learning style surveys, teaching strategies were modified so that all four learner types as defined by McCarthy (1980, 1996) can equally benefit from their classroom experience.

Such a learning centered approach has been beneficial for facilitating student participation in general, but this has been particularly successful for motivating physical or type three learners such as student athletes to participate more in classroom activities. Allowing these students to physically manipulate objects during in-class demonstrations added a vibrant dimension in classroom dynamics.

No quantitative evidence of student success of such an approach has yet been obtained. However, anecdotal evidence in the form of student comments and feedbacks and their enthusiasm for class participation show that such an approach has improved the classroom experience of all students.