Definition
Richard Felder is an American engineering educator and emeritus professor at North Carolina State University who, with Linda Silverman, developed the Index of Learning Styles (ILS) — a model that describes how learners take in and process information across four dimensions: active/reflective, sensing/intuitive, visual/verbal, and sequential/global. His work is referenced in the Aviation Instructor's Handbook as one of the recognized frameworks instructors can use to identify learner preferences and adapt their teaching accordingly.
Plain English
He is the educator who created the learning-styles model the FAA references when it talks about identifying how individual students prefer to learn.
Context Anchor
Seen in the Aviation Instructor’s Handbook chapter on learning styles, where flight instructors are learning how to recognize and support different student learning preferences.
Why Pilots Care
Flight instructors who understand the Felder–Silverman model can adjust how they present material — more demonstrations for visual learners, more hands-on practice for active learners — which tends to produce faster, more durable learning in flight training.
Intuition Check
Do not read Richard Felder as an aviation term, aircraft system, or FAA procedure. Here it is the name of a researcher connected with a learning-style model used in instructor training.
Example Sentence 1
The CFI mentioned that Richard Felder's learning styles model helped her recognize that her student learned better by doing rather than by listening.
Example Sentence 2
Using Richard Felder’s model helped the instructor present the same material both visually and verbally to reach more students.