Cooper's Interactive Learning Styles Model

This software is based on identifying the key priorities in the learning process and understanding how they inter-relate. At the heart of the model is the recognition that feelings and meaning drive all preferences.

Cognitive styles are entirely dependent on what feels meaningful to the learner. Individuals make sense of their experiences holistically (as a pattern of interconnecting factors), or sequentially (as a series of events that are understandable as chronological events and/or caused by preceding events). These ways of understanding are then primarily articulated either visually or verbally. Haptic or kinaesthetic elements in cognitive style relate directly back to feelings and meaning and can be understood as part of the internalisation of meaning. However, cognitive styles are usually defined by their articulation rather than by how they feel. Problem solving strategies are usually a compromise between a number of factors. The first is how the problem is perceived. This in turn is dependent on both how meaning is internalised, also on learnt ways of seeing problems. Similarly, the learner will have been taught to solve problems in particular ways. The compromise is forged between learnt strategies, matching the strategies to the nature of the problem, and matching strategies to the cognitive preferences of the learner.

Self-perception of sequencing difficulties relates to both self-esteem and self-awareness about strengths and weaknesses. Sequential difficulties can be a product of specific processing difficulties intrinsic to dyslexia, or indeed a possible by-product of an extreme preference for holistic processes. The need to move derives directly from feelings and the need for comfort when dealing with new situations or information. The need to move can be a powerful feeling that needs to be accommodated and supported in any learning or working environment. In many cases, it enables greater concentration on the task at hand by releasing activity, rather than requiring concentration on suppressing it. In extreme cases, it can actively support the internalisation and expression of meaning. This may seem surprising, yet we are all familiar with expressing emotions through physical movement. Learning (and working) is an emotional business for most of us.