What teachers have struggled with, though, is helping students of color and those from less affluent circumstances achieve as well as their white, higher-income peers.

Belinda Williams, a cognitive psychologist who studies that achievement gap, spoke with teachers at the Utah Education Association convention Thursday to help them understand theories behind closing achievement gaps between student groups. While she may have inspired teachers with several theories about understanding individual students' backgrounds and learning styles, her talk was short on specifics that might help teachers who often have more than 30 students per class.

However, she did suggest that teachers and administrators stop blaming students and start looking at their own teaching styles to close the gaps.

The biggest problem, she said, is that teachers aren't well-educated about learning styles and the current research on how students learn.

"The answer is to understand learning clearly enough to engage students," she said.

Williams said the biggest failing of the federal No Child Left Behind act is that it sets target standards, but doesn't teach educators how to reach students.

That same failing applies to most schools' comprehensive plans, she said, because such plans are too convoluted to improve teaching and learning. She recommended setting three or four goals, such as better cultural and learning-style understanding, and two or three specific objectives to meet each goal, instead of the typical binder full of information. Again, she offered no specifics, instead saying workplaces need to be "recultured" to incorporate such goals.

"Learning is not addressed in comprehensive plans," Williams said. "Teachers are required to be certified in the content of a subject area, but there is no emphasis on learning itself."

Roy Elementary's Mary Green, who has taught for 16 years, liked the emphasis on understanding students' backgrounds and appealing to both the emotional and intellectual sides of learning.

"Dr. Williams stressed the importance of having a knowledge base along with caring for a student," she said. "She emphasized the importance of the needs of everyone, and left the message that closing the achievement gap can be done and to not give up hope."

Williams said one of the most important parts of understanding learning is knowing a student's background. And teachers should recognize that tests only show how much a student has learned - not what they are capable of learning.

"If we don't understand a student's background, we can potentially limit their learning experiences simply because they come to school but have not learned what the system calls normal," she said. "Few of us realize the power and potential of understanding the daily experience of a student, not just celebrating holidays and hosting an ethnic food night." smcfarland@sltrib.com