Bernice McCarthy is a professional educator who earned her doctorate in education and learning theory from Northwestern University in Chicago in 1979. She founded Excel, now known as About Learning, Inc that same year and continues as its President. McCarthy is the creator of The 4MAT System®, a framework for organizing learning. 4MAT is a natural cycle for identifying the diversity of learners, for enhancing communicating, teaming, and problem solving, and for designing learning at all levels. McCarthy is a nationally known author and lecturer on the art of effective instruction. She has presented numerous workshops and keynote sessions to a host of renowned organizations, including The Smithsonian Institute, The Center for Creative Leadership, IDEA, The Association of School Administrators, the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD), the United States Navy and the Florida Department of Labor.

About Learning, Inc.

From the site: “About Learning is a research, publishing and consulting firm for educational theory, instructional design and technology. About Learning, Inc. works with formal education worldwide, as well as with leaders and managers in the private sector to teach people about learning—how individuals learn, how groups learn and how organizations learn.”

Learning Style Theory and Computer Mediated Communication

From the site: This paper looks at the low participation rates in computer mediated conferences (CMC) and argues that one of the causes of this may be an incompatibility between students’ learning styles and the style adopted by CMC.

Learning Styles and the 4MAT System: A Cycle of Learning

From the site: This cycle of learning is based on a number of premises. First, different individuals perceive and process experience in different preferred ways. These preferences comprise our unique learning styles. Essential to quality learning is an awareness in the learner of his/her own preferred mode, becoming comfortable with his/her own best ways of learning, and being helped to develop a learning repertoire, through experience with alternative modes.

A Tale of Four Learners