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In the last edition of Teaching History, Maria Osowiecki described in detail the fourth lesson in a five-lesson enquiry entitled: What was remarkable about the Renaissance? She also shared her resources for two lively, interactive activities - the Renaissance Party and a balloon debate. Here she complements that piece with a full account of the entire lesson sequence, an explanation of the conceptual underpinning of the pupils' work (historical significance) and a full discussion of the learning styles debate and how it influenced her work. She challenges some common assumptions about learning styles and suggests that establishing particular pupils' preferences may not be the best way forward. She argues, instead, that conceptual subject rigour and diversity of learning experience for all are more important factors in enabling pupils to tackle and overcome their difficulties.
According to Rita and Kenn Dunn, only 30% of pupils in a class are likely to commit to memory more than 75% of what they hear in any one lesson; only 40% of pupils will be able to recall more than 75% of what they see and read; whilst 15% of pupils are naturally kinaesthetic in their learning capacity. ' Such statistics as these are being quoted with ever-increasing frequency in educational and governmental circles, with the result that the subject of learning styles within the classroom currently looms large. For, if the figures quoted above provide an accurate indicator of the rate of learning (if, indeed, recall can be described as a facet of learning), they raise a number of important questions as regards what constitutes effective teaching and learning. Does, as seems to have been suggested, the seeming inability of a substantial minority of pupils to maintain a positive relationship with the education system, as well as the perceived and sustained 'underachievement' of many other pupils, owe somediing to a mismatch of learning and teaching styles in the classroom? Could some pupils enhance their capacity to learn if teachers adapted their teaching to take account of the learning preferences of their pupils?
It was such questions that underpinned the five-lesson enquiry unit on the European Renaissance that I was asked to devise during my PGCE training year.2 The intention of this project was threefold: to provide Year...