A Call to Address Learner Diversity in Health Professions Education

In today's teaching and learning environments, knowledge, understanding, and incorporation of strategies to address diverse adult learning styles are crucial to success. Educators must develop self-awareness and appreciation of teacher and student origins of knowing and cultural, social, and motivational contexts to harmonize personal teaching styles with adult learning styles. This essay examines adult learning theories to identify methods to connect teaching strategies to diverse needs in health professions education. Andragogy, self-directed, transformative, and experiential learning as well as Western and non-Western ways of knowing are applied to adult learning styles. Comprehending and integrating these theories into personal teaching approaches can transform learning in classroom and clinical settings and promote development of a diverse health professions workforce.