Student Learning Styles Writing to Learn -- Real World Issues

A university instructor that seeks to interest and motivate students through a lecture is sometimes on thin ice as far as keeping students' attention. Hence, it is incumbent on the alert contemporary instructor to present highly relevant material (in a way that engages students) while at the same time realizing there are vastly different learning styles.

Still, the job of the instructor is to present information that helps the student develop skills in critical thinking -- and helps the student learn to solve problems. There are many aspects to the vitally important environmental issue of climate change, and all aspects of this issue cry out for clarity. An instructor can create a worthy activity -- that informs while it stimulates -- from the various approaches to climate change. In this paper the emphasis on writing to learn assignments are relevant to Kolb's Learning Styles, Fleming and Mills's Sensory-Based Learning Style, and also Felder and Silverman's Index of Learning Styles.

The Lecture -- Climate Change

The most respected and thoroughly scientific data surrounding the issue of climate change is researched and reported empirically by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). It its Fifth Assessment Report the panel explains that, in addition to the vast volumes of evidence gathered and presented over the past sixty years, there is new evidence of climate change. This new evidence allows the Working Group (hundreds of scientists that research and report) to say without equivocation that the climate is warming, and the since the 1950s, the recorded changes in global temperatures are unprecedented.

And while many people agree that the climate is warming, a significant number of those polled by Gallup and other polling organizations do not believe that humans are responsible for climate change.
The Lecture -- Polling the Public on Climate Change

A Gallup poll report in April, 2014 showed that one person in four is skeptical that climate change is taking place (Saad, 2014). That poll indicates that about 39% of participants are those who believe that global warming is real and is caused by humans -- and are worried about it (Saad, 2014). Another 36% of those polled by Gallup believe that media reports on global warming are exaggerated and they are not worried about the threats from rising temperatures. About 25% of participants in the poll simply doubt that climate change is anything to worry about; these individuals don't believe it is caused by humans (Saad, 2014).

Research in the journal Public Opinion Quarterly reflects the fact that 33% of Americans are not aware of any evidence that the climate is actually warming (Schuldt, 2011). Schuldt found that data in a Pew poll from 2009, and he goes on to report that conservatives tend to use global warming as terminology while liberals like to use climate change. The reason for the differences in identifying the phenomena is that climate change has caused wildly fluctuating weather conditions, and not all of those changes result in warmer air in any given region of the planet. For example, a conservative talk show host noting that New York City (in January, 2013) had its coldest day on record rips apart the idea that global warming is real.…