Some students are falling through the cracks because teachers are failing to address their unique learning styles, according to veteran educator and Bermuda College professor Dr. Sharon Parris.

"There are some students who will be able to learn sitting at a desk with a book, listening to a teacher, but there are those who will not," said Dr. Parris. "Maybe they have the ability, but the relationship between teaching and learning will never be connected in a positive way.

"We lose many children and young adult learners through this. We have found that not just children learn in a certain way, but also adults."

A few years ago, Dr. Parris started using a technique in her classroom called the Dunn and Dunn Learning Model.

It seeks to address students' varied ways of learning and offers alternatives to the traditional lecture model, such as more group work, more tactile activities and more discussion.

After doing her doctoral dissertation on the Dunn and Dunn Learning Model with St. John's University in New York , Dr. Parris decided to write a book about it.

The book, 'The History and Future of the Dunn and Dunn Learning-Style Model: Assessing an Innovative Educational Strategy' was released by the Edwin Mellen Press this month.

"The model was created in the 1960s by Americans Drs. Kenneth and Rita Dunn," said Dr. Parris. "This kind of new way of learning is interesting to me because I had always been very successful with learning in the traditional way,

"Now that I was teaching so many different kinds of students I wanted to get into their perspective, and find out what I was doing that was good and what I was doing that I could improve upon."

She said she has tried to introduce more hands-on activities into the classroom.

"I am not the sole giver of information," she said.

"There is more work in small groups. The students are responsible for how they will present that information. I am never not in the conversation, but the conversation does go on."

But she said this did not mean that the classroom was overtaken by disorder and chaos.

"The teacher is still very much in control of what happens in the classroom," she said. "There are different ways of getting a concept across. The teacher is more the conductor in a symphony.

"There are those who are learning in a particular way and they are exchanging and appreciating their differences."

Advocates of the model claim that students do better in the classroom and the real world after their learning styles have been identified.

But Dr. Parris said it is sometimes difficult for people, particularly parents, who learn in the traditional way, to understand people who don't learn that way.

Her book looks at the historical development of the model over the last four decades, and looks into the future.

To write the book Dr. Parris did a number of student surveys and interviews with educators, including both Dr. Dunns.

The model came about in the 1960s when Dr. Rita Dunn, who was high up in the New York education system, was sent to observe teachers working in the classroom.

"She discovered that it was often more interesting to look at the students rather than the teacher," said Dr. Parris.

Dr. Dunn noticed that often students were doing almost anything other than sitting quietly and looking attentively at the teacher.

They talked to themselves, and each other, wrote, doodled and frequently moved from their seats. "Some would say if the teacher does not have total control then it is bad teaching," said Dr. Parris. "But Dr. Dunn found that the youngsters were attentive in their own ways, but also attentive to things they were doing.

"It was not that they weren't aware of what the teacher was doing or saying, but they were learning in a variety of ways. When she went back over her observations from a number of years she started to see a pattern."

Dr. Dunn worked with husband Kenneth to come up with the Dunn and Dunn Learning Style Model, a teaching method that utilises awareness that not all students learn and absorb information in the traditional manner.

"When they put it all together they realised that everyone had seen it (the different learning styles) and no one had seen it," said Dr. Parris.

"The Dunn and Dunn Learning Style Model has now spread all over the world and is particularly common in Scandinavian countries and in the Middle East."

But Dr. Parris said it was slightly less common in the British school system.

"The British system is very traditional," she said. " But most parts of the world where the Dunn & Dunn model has been introduced, it has done very well and swept through and changed the system.

"But it has to have the people in place. It can change the school in little ways and from there go to the world."

Dr. Parris referred to the Dunn and Dunn Learning Model as "one of those quiet revolutions" and said it was important that the model be taught to teachers who are still in training. "It takes time," she said.

Although the book can be used at the college level, she is hoping that it will appeal to the general public.

"It is for anyone who is interested in finding out how a new method of teaching can be implemented," she said. "It is important to teachers and anyone in education."

There are many other teachers in Bermuda involved with the Dunn and Dunn Learning Model. There is a Dunn and Dunn Learning Model Centre in Bermuda connected to Sandys Secondary Middle School. And Bermuda is currently the Caribbean hub for the model.

Dr. Parris has taught at the Bermuda College for about five years. Previous to that, she taught extensively in the Bermuda system at all levels from primary school to middle school and into secondary school. She has about 40 years total teaching experience.

"My real love is English, especially at the secondary and college level," said Dr. Parris. "I have enjoyed all of teaching. I think I have learned as much from my students as they have learned from me. That is a positive thing. That way, teaching doesn't get old and tired and difficult, it just becomes more interesting.

"With each generation there are skills that any good teacher wants to improve upon. You are never the same person you are at the beginning of any single year.

"Certainly, as I look back over the period that I have been teaching, I have found it a joy, no question."

The book can be ordered by contacting The Edwin Mellen Press at www.mellenpress.com or mailing PO Box 450, Lewiston, New York 14092-0450.