A Primer on Learning Styles: Reaching Every Student

• Publication year: 2001
• Citation: Vol. 25 No. 04

SEATTLE UNIVERSITY LAW REVIEWVolume 25, No. 1SUMMER 2001

ARTICLES

A Primer on Learning Styles: Reaching Every Student

M.H. Sam Jacobson(fn*)

The days of The Paper Chase(fn1) are over, or so the law schools at Harvard and other universities announce.(fn2) But, are they? In The Paper Chase, Professor Kingsfield teaches Contracts to a class of approximately 150 first-year students at Harvard. He is the master of his classroom: He wields the Socratic method like an intellectual sword, intimidating, if not terrorizing, many of his students in the process. He berates students for not speaking up or for not being prepared. He evaluates students on a single exam at the end of the course. Then, at the end of the year, he still does not know his students' names.

So what has changed? Law school classes may be smaller and the professor less rude or remote, but the instruction and method of evaluation generally remain the same. Brooks, the student with a photographic memory, still would claim to not have what it takes to succeed because of his inability to analyze the data. Bell, the student with a 190 I.Q. who was fifth generation Harvard, still would generate an 800-page course outline ("better than the book") because he did not know what the focus of the course or his analysis should be. Finally, O'Connell still would be overwhelmed by the volume of work, unable to keep up. These students, all very bright, would flounder in today's law school just as they did in The Paper Chase because their habitual ways of learning do not correspond with law school's way of teaching and these students do not know how to adapt.

In addition, the law student population has changed both in the way the students have been learning and in their make-up. First, no longer do all of the students enter law school because of their mastery of books. Grade school rooms have tables, not desks, and no one is sitting very still. High school English classes teach Shakespeare by showing a movie. University classes grade group, not individual, projects. And at every level of education, the rooms are filled with computers, alive with color and motion, beeps and clicks. Yet when these students reach law school, professors too often expect them to sit still, work alone, and learn either through written materials or in the classroom hot seat. Professors are too often disappointed when they do not.

Second, law students are far more diverse than in previous generations.(fn3) This diversity in ethnicity and gender also represents diversity in thought.(fn4) As a result of these changes, law teaching must necessarily change as well-but how? For all law professors, whether new or experienced, knowing something about learning styles will enhance the professors' teaching and their students' ability to master the material. Many authors and researchers have written extensively about learning styles, but the literature can be daunting to the uninitiated.(fn5) A plethora of articles exists, and they all seem to be discussing different things. How do professors compare them? How can professors evaluate what is helpful and what is not? How does the information apply to teaching law? If students have unique learning styles, how do professors teach to a class of 100 students?

This article establishes a framework that will put the literature into perspective, will allow professors to evaluate what is meant by "learning style," and will give them guidance for how to be more effective teachers both in the classroom and out. Part I discusses how knowledge of learning styles will help professors achieve their pedagogical goals. Part II discusses the personal characteristics that contribute to learning style. Finally, Part III applies the learning styles to the learning cycle and discusses how professors can most effectively help their students grow.

I. Knowledge of Law Students' Learning Styles Will Help Professors Achieve Pedagogical Goals

Why should professors be concerned with learning styles? Simply stated, when teachers teach in ways that acknowledge and validate different styles of learning, students do better. No common definition of learning style exists, but generally, learning styles are those cognitive, affective, and psychological behaviors that indicate how learners interact with and respond to the learning environment and how they perceive, process, store, and recall what they are attempting to learn.(fn6) By applying some basic concepts of learning styles in the classroom, professors can improve student retention of information, help students develop more efficient and effective study methods, increase student self-awareness of how students learn best, and help move students to a higher or more evolved level of thinking. Most important, professors can improve student success in law school.

For teachers of law, the primary goal is to help law students master the doctrinal or substantive material of their law courses and apply that information using various legal skills such as legal analysis or advocacy. Law professors assess whether students have mastered the material, usually through an examination or paper, and assign them a grade. However, not all students do equally well. This inequality is a concern because the students may not have another opportunity to master the material, which they will need to pass the bar and to adequately represent their clients. Professors can help their students achieve their full potentials by teaching to the diverse learning styles in the classroom.

Teaching to diverse learning styles helps students in two significant ways. First, students will be more successful in mastering their coursework if they are better able to absorb, process, and retain information. Second, students will be more successful in mastering their coursework if they learn how they learn best. When students learn how they learn best, they engage in metacognition. Metacognition involves knowing how one learns and what results one achieves from different learning processes; it involves self-regulation of cognitive activities through monitoring and making appropriate adjustments.(fn7) When professors teach to diverse learning styles, students will become aware of different learning processes and can assess which ones work best for them in given situations. Most significantly, students may discover that their traditional methods of studying are not adequate to achieve analytical competence.

Teaching to diverse styles will also move law students to a higher, more evolved level of thinking because the students can adjust their cognitive activity to the desired outcome. Professors know something that beginning law students do not: one cannot do well in law school solely by memorizing. While professors may know this intuitively, they may not know why this is true. The answer comes from the education psychology literature: memorization will not generate the desired outcomes of synthesis, application, and analysis. These are different levels of learning, and what is required to achieve each level is different.(fn8) While different schemata of the levels of learning exist,(fn9) most are derivative of Bloom's Taxonomy of Educational Objectives.(fn10) For our purposes, we can simplify the taxonomy to three manageable levels: knowledge, comprehension and sorting, and analysis.

For law students to master analysis, law professors must teach in a way that guides students from the simplest level of learning, knowledge based on memorization, to the most complex level of learning, analysis. Law students are comfortable with the former, but inexperienced with the latter.(fn11) Whether law students are achieving the higher levels of learning required for studying law is evidenced through their levels of understanding.(fn12) Students reach a high level of understanding when they can apply information, detail the analysis, and conclude.(fn13) A lesser level of understanding occurs when students can apply information and come to conclusions, but with no detail in the analysis.(fn14) Below that, a second lesser level of understanding occurs when students' work is descriptive, although detailed. Finally, the lowest level of understanding occurs when students' work is descriptive, but without detail.(fn15) To illustrate these categories in the context of studying law:

	Detail	No detail
Analysis	#1: Deep level of understanding illustrated by a strong analytical framework and reasoning by analogy that includes detailed discussion of authorities and facts	#2: Deep level of understanding illustrated by a strong analytical framework, but reasoning by analogy lacks detail and is more conclusory
Description	#3: Surface level of understanding illustrated by detailed description of authorities but without a clear analytical purpose	#4: Surface level of understanding illustrated by description of authorities but without detail or clear analytical purpose

Students whose work is descriptive have a low level of understanding, relying solely on memorization. To achieve a deeper or higher level of understanding, more than memorization is necessary. Achieving a...