Teaching Health Education Through Students' Individual Learning Styles

Abstract:
This chapter from regional meetings proceedings focuses on students' individual learning styles as a key determinant of the most effective way to provide instruction. An introductory section discusses why this is particularly important for health education, but the rest of the chapter could be applied to any instructional area, not just health. It describes 21 elements of learning style: environmental (sound, light, temperature, and room design); emotional (motivations, persistence, responsibility, and structure); sociological (pairs, peers, self, adult, authority, and variety); physiological (perceptual strengths, intake, time of day, and mobility); and psychological (global/analytic, hemispheric preferences, and impulsive/reflective). The chapter outlines a process for identifying and accommodating students' learning styles and describes specific activities such as contract activity packages, programmed learning sequences, and multisensory instructional packages that are effective for students of particular learning styles and afford opportunities to incorporate health education in the curriculum. Overall, this chapter will benefit health education providers by offering not only a more thorough understanding of student learning styles but also direct applications to improve health education instruction.

Author(s): Klavas, Angela

Publication: Strengthening Health Education for the 1990s: Proceedings of Six Regional Workshops


Date Published: 1/1/1992

Location Code: 11172