| Author | |
ALmom
Forum All-Star
Joined: May 18 2005
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 3299
|
| Posted: Sept 25 2008 at 12:55am | IP Logged
|
 |
|
This is somewhat related to other posts, but I did a simple question and answer to determine if the children's learning styles were what I expected. For the most part, I do think we had things pegged rather closely. Even my dh and I did the test. I was most surprised by my dh style (but then I don't teach him  ) Knowing this, I think will make me a better communicator. I am your auditory/visual type with a strong language and mathematical way of thinking - ie your traditional school type who has to have detail and build to the big picture from the details. I have both a interpersonal and intrapersonal component whereas one child has to be totally alone to learn and one child has to be interacting with people (and wouldn't you know that is the child who didn't get a lot of that kind of interaction because we were one of the few homeschoolers at the time and I was struggling to do therapy with 4 children). My visual/spatial folks have evidently been overwhelmed with my detail and need the big picture first. I cannot even think without the detail. When they have a math question, they never show work - just intuit to answer. But in order for me to explain it, I simply have to work it out step by step. I like to see steps because it is a clue to me as to where they lost the concept or what area needs further explanation. Of course, thrown into the mix of learning styles are various processing or deficiencies in one of the senses. So one of my visual learners, is still in vision therapy.
We had an interesting lesson on the periodic table where dd and I were almost at meltdown. Daddy to the rescue. He came back afterwards laughing to tell me all I needed to have done was hand her marbles while I was talking. Now, something so simple just would not have occured to me. I drew neat pictures of an atom with all these protons and neutrons and kept repeating the information. The picture did not help even one iota. Dh simply handed her a green marble - here is a proton and then various white marbles - here are the neutrons. From that all the numbers on the periodic table made perfect sense to her. I'm glad she got it - but aaah. Does this mean I will be forever stressed over school because my style of learning doesn't come close to any of my children's and I don't even think in terms of kinesthetic. How do you manage to jump start yourself to think outside of your normal mode and comfort zone?
There was a second section on this learning styles test that talked about intelligences. I'm a bit confused but I had one child come out as almost 100% kinesthetic with tiny bit of auditory. No wonder my little sketches while teaching science don't cut it. However this same child has a strong visual/spatial intelligence and is definitely not mathematical/logical intelligence and a lot of the hints for visual learners on the other post are quite helpful to said child. So is there a difference between learning style and learning intelligence. There must be some differences. I'm thinking the visual spatial is like Diane Craft's right brain learners - the creative types.
This is all new to me and I'm trying to think how to make life/school more efficient. I want my children to have plenty of time to soak in what they want to soak in and yet not come out as unbalanced.
I was also wondering if the goal is to eventually strengthen all the learning modes so we all become balanced in our learning styles?
In the end I really don't care how we test as long as I know things to try that might or might not work but it sure would be nice to eliminate some of the trial and error, experimentation and guesswork. I have come to learn pretty clearly what does not work. I'm still trying to find some things that do work.
I also do know that even with those children for whom we did our best and still didn't know all this information and thus made school a real burden and cross, God still, in His goodness, was in control and these little glitches in life were used to form them in other ways for their greater good. So I'm not trying to beat myself up or anything - just learn and hopefully achieve a bit more of a relaxed but diligent school environment in our home.
Janet
Janet
|
| Back to Top |
|
| |
Mackfam
Board Moderator
Non Nobis
Joined: April 24 2006
Location: Alabama
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 14656
|
| Posted: Sept 25 2008 at 6:12am | IP Logged
|
|
|
Ok Janet - it helps that I know you and your precious children.  It also helps that we both just wrote an article for Mrs. A on learning styles...
Here's my 2cents...
Use your attention to detail to work for you. I know you've said before that you find it frustrating to teach one subject to all the children at the same time - but I'm going to use an example like that just for the purpose of illustration...
Take geography. If you've planned a lesson or presentation or even if you're just filling in some geographical info that's pertinent to history, keep the basics the same, but vary the medium or manipulatives that each child uses to fit individual children. So, you offer the map of the US as it relates to the Civil War - for your auditory learner you make specific time to *hear* his recounting of the battle scenes, your visual learner will outline and detail a map with battles and various details drawn on a map, and your kinesthetic learner uses the map on the floor but is given army men, or pegs, or whatever to represent the two sides and re-enacts the battles. Same with science - one needs marbles, one needs pictures, one needs to simply hear it.
Since you (and I ) are so visual, perhaps it would be helpful for you to have a visual cue in your lesson plans to help you remember and shift gears for each child - you could code each of their plans, or make a master code for yourself reminding you that this child needs visual cues but processes spatially so that you have that *visual* reminder that he isn't going to give you the 10 steps you're expecting to see in math - he's just going to give you the answer because he *saw* the steps in his head already.
Use your visual talents to see the details to help you anticipate the different learning language each child is going to need - only anticipate it. Try to spend some time on the front end using your very detail oriented brain to *see* what a child will need to make a lesson *real* to him and make a note of it beforehand. Make any sense? Think of your pictures/sketches, all manipulatives, and even the time it might take for listening to or explaining something to an auditory learner as tools in your arsenal. The tool you use will depend on each child's needs.
Do you have Discover Your Child's Learning Style by Mariaemma Willis and Victoria Hodson? I'm asking because you refer to a learning style test you and the kids took...I like the book because it DOES go beyond the modality aspect (which is just visual/auditory/kinesthetic) and looks at other factors that highly influence learning style like...
**Disposition (Do they perform? produce? think? create? invent? relate? inspire?)
**Talents (music? math-logic? spatial? mechanical reasoning? word reasoning? body coordination? interaction? humor?)
**Interests (sports? music? etc.)
**Environment (temp sensitive? light sensitive? position sensitive? food sensitive? color sensitive? needs interaction? works alone?)
and
**Modality (Visual? Auditory? Kinesthetic?)
It looks more to the whole person and beyond just the modality. It would seem it might address some of your other concerns about how to deal with a spatially talented visual learner, etc.
I have it  and you can borrow it with the other books if you're interested. I found it very, very helpful!
It *is* a challenge in homeschooling to teach to varying learning styles outside of our teaching style, but I believe God created us with a certain amount of flexibility to teach His children. And you wisely pointed out yourself, where we lack, where we come up short, He makes up for.
__________________
Jen Mackintosh
Wife to Rob, mom to dd 19 , ds 16, ds 11, dd 8, and dd 3
Wildflowers and Marbles
|
| Back to Top |
|
| |
Maren
Forum Newbie
Joined: Sept 23 2008
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 6
|
| Posted: Sept 25 2008 at 6:27am | IP Logged
|
|
|
Wow, that was really helpful! Even though my kids are still litte (four and two), they're already showing signs of having different learning styles. Robbie, who's four, seems very auditory and can memorize a poem or passage in a story after one hearing. Hannah, who is two, is much more visual and notices every detail in a picture and asks a million questions about them. She also seems more mathematically inclined and is very careful about counting things, something Robbie didn't grasp at her age. I've been worrying about how their differences will affect our homeschooling as they get older, and it's good to hear how other moms approach the differences.
|
| Back to Top |
|
| |
ALmom
Forum All-Star
Joined: May 18 2005
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 3299
|
| Posted: Sept 25 2008 at 8:15am | IP Logged
|
|
|
Jennifer:
Yes, I'd like to borrow that book from you along with the others.
Oh, the problem with the above analogy is that my highschooler is one of my kinesthetic learners (so army men on the floor with her won't quite work and she is at the point where you do have to get used to how the rest of the world works and time is limited) but you know my other kinesthetic who is hard to miss. I'm really trying to ponder how you help these kids develop strategies because they are going to have bosses, superiors, professors who are not going to take the time to appreciate the particular learning style and completely adjust. I really am striving for balance - appreciating their gifts and talents which are numerous, but also helping them manage regardless of how something is presented. I know that I've always allowed free reign to projects in my house so this highschooler has mummified a barbie, tried to cure a deer hide (with smooshed deer brains and all) over the grill, we've had fires in our driveway when studying Indians - and whatever the acorn stuff is called that the Indians made to eat. We had medieval tournaments, rather awesome armor and very little trash in our house (it all gets turned into someone's project). I know all my kids playdough playtime turns into anatomy - they build the inside of the critters they are modeling and we have lots and lots of experiment kits available - the highschooler just doesn't seem to use them with her other work looming. We may have to force it. Some things like a small wad of something to squeeze while in a lecture help. She does crafts while listening to any audio lessons. I'm looking for some additional things. I am just so NOT creative and I have a houseful of creative, nontraditional learners. Each person's style seems to interfere with the others. We are learning charity and patience!
I do have to remember when she is having difficulty and comes to me with a question, it helps if I keep the detail down (but usually it is an on the spot question so I have to go through the detail outloud to jog my memory to figure out the idea so I can explain it. She just shuts down somewhere in my talking outloud to figure it out. We are learning to communicate these kinds of things in writing so I can figure it out first and then call her and give her an overview. I'll have to think in terms of hands - on some. She is not visual, though she is what was labeled visual spatial so this is what confused me. Maybe your book will help clear it up. I know you'll be getting a copy of the test we used soon so you'll get to see it first hand.
I do get the idea though and yes, I'll have to remember to note all these things in my plans. I've already been modifying plans for each of these - but the bottom line is there isn't time or energy to plan projects for every kinesthetic in my house. Most of my dc are either visual or kinesthetic according to this test. I might need a little better test as there were a few things that made me wonder.
Janet
|
| Back to Top |
|
| |
JodieLyn
Forum Moderator
Joined: Sept 06 2006
Location: Oregon
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 12234
|
| Posted: Sept 25 2008 at 11:05am | IP Logged
|
|
|
Quote:
| help these kids develop strategies because they are going to have bosses, superiors, professors who are not going to take the time to appreciate the particular learning style |
|
|
Except that professors are more flexible than elementary or high schools and you can sit in a lecture and crochet or something without being told to put it away.. you are paying for it and as long as it doesn't bother the people around you, you can pretty much get away with it. And you tend to have a choice of classes.. only a few of which you're simply stuck with.
And as far as bosses etc.. it would seem to me that they would be choosing professions that make the most of their talents which would mean that they wouldn't be doing a job that would require them to be "out of their element" for very much of the time anyway.
__________________
Jodie, wife to Dave
G-18, B-17, G-15, G-14, B-13, B-11, G-9, B-7, B-5, B-4
All men who have turned out worth anything have had the chief hand in their own education.
-Sir Walter Scott
|
| Back to Top |
|
| |
ALmom
Forum All-Star
Joined: May 18 2005
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 3299
|
| Posted: Sept 25 2008 at 11:46am | IP Logged
|
|
|
Aah, Jodie you have a point that is calming this schoolteacher nature just a tad. 
However, it isn't always the case. Engineers are often hands on and end up doing more paperwork than hands on especially since most manufacturing is done outside the U.S. Of course this child is not going to be an engineer based on her science avoidance . At the moment it is acting  - another area like music with which I am so totally unfamiliar.
Now if only one of my children's creativity would rub off on me, we'd be in great shape. Of course, is there someone out there with a kinesthetic highschooler. Could you sketch a day or how you plan? I probably should have ditched texts for science long ago with this one - but I just didn't know what else to do or know how to verify that learning did take place (science is this child's let me avoid it as much as I can subject). She has learned to use a textbook for the first time in her life, so maybe that isn't all bad (we avoided science till high school and I was a bit slow to put two and two together and realize I had to somehow hold her accountable in this subject or it would never happen).
Janet
|
| Back to Top |
|
| |
JodieLyn
Forum Moderator
Joined: Sept 06 2006
Location: Oregon
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 12234
|
| Posted: Sept 25 2008 at 11:54am | IP Logged
|
|
|
Yes but even that, my dh is a firefighter and is as high in the beauracracy that he wants to be because the next level up will seriously tip the scales on the officework vs outdoor work.. and he simply isn't ready to go there.. and I'm supporting him in that.. told him we're doing just fine and would rather he stays with what he likes doing.
__________________
Jodie, wife to Dave
G-18, B-17, G-15, G-14, B-13, B-11, G-9, B-7, B-5, B-4
All men who have turned out worth anything have had the chief hand in their own education.
-Sir Walter Scott
|
| Back to Top |
|
| |
|
|
4Real Forums : Living Learning
Topic: learning styles
