Learning styles and multiple intelligences

• Quickscan

• http://www.support4learning.org.uk/education/learning_styles.cfm

• What do you already know about learning styles?

• Have you seen the theory used in practice or tried to implement it yourself?

• "an individual's characteristic way of processing information feeling, and behaving in learning situations" (Smith, as cited in Merriam and Caffarella, 1991, p. 176).

• "the cognitive, affective, and physiological factors that serve as relatively stable indicators of how learners perceive, interact with, and respond to the learning environment" (Keefe, as cited in Swanson, 1995, p. 2).

• "the complex manner in which, and conditions under which, learners most efficiently and most effectively perceive, process, store, and recall what they are attempting to learn" (James and Gardner, 1995, p. 20).

• http://www.tss.uoguelph.ca/resources/idres/packagels.html#whatisls

• 'As a society, we repeatedly confuse styles with abilities, resulting in individual differences that are really due to styles being viewed as due to abilities … Many of the students we are consigning to the dust heaps of our classrooms have the abilities to succeed. It is we, not they, who are failing. We are failing to recognise the variety of thinking and learning styles they bring to the classroom, and teaching them in ways that don't fit them well.'

• (Sternberg, 1997)

• http://www.teachernet.gov.uk/supplyteachers/detail.cfm?&vid=4&cid=15&sid=92&ssid=4010502&opt=3

THE IDENTIFICATION of LEARNING STYLES

• Learning style theorists have developed different terminology for learning characteristics

• Broad agreement that any group of learners will encompass at least 4 bands of learning styles.

• There will be some cross over of characteristics, but learners will have a ‘dominant’ preference

• Learners also bring additional characteristics to the learning context: existing knowledge, personal skills, personal motivations, gender,socio-economic status, language

Howard Gardner

Reflector

                 

               

Theorist 

 

 

                               

 

  Activist Pragmatist

Honey and Mumford

http://www.campaign-for-learning.org.uk/aboutyourlearning/whatlearning.htm

KOLB

Examples of learning styles/advice

• http://www.learning-styles-online.com/inventory/• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learning_styles

• http://www.engsc.ac.uk/er/theory/learningstyles.asp

• http://www.campaign-for-learning.org.uk/aboutyourlearning/whatlearning.htm

• http://www.aboutlearning.com/learning-styles-assessment.htm?gclid=CI-xgLr33IcCFUtLMAod7AF0nw#SlideFrame_5

• http://www.ldpride.net/learningstyles.MI.htm#What%20are• http://www.ldpride.net/learning_style_work.html• http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/think/methodology/learning_style.sht

ml#one• http://www.ncsu.edu/felder-public/Papers/Secondtier.html

IMPLICATIONS FOR PRACTICE 1

• What potential problems might students encounter using these theories to analyse their learning?

• How can teachers/lecturers accommodate different student styles? Give examples.

• Read article?

Identifying Teaching Styles

• Expert (transmitter of information)• Formal Authority (sets standards and defines

acceptable ways of doing things)• Personal Models (teaches by illustration and direct

example)• Facilitator (guides and directs by asking questions,

exploring options, suggesting alternatives)• Delegator (develops student ability to function

autonomously)A.F.Grasha, University of Cincinnati

Dominant teaching styles?

• 38% Cluster 1: Expert/ Formal authority• 22% Cluster 2: Personal Model/ Expert/

Formal authority• 17% Cluster 3: Facilitator/ Personal Model/

Expert• 15% Cluster 4: Delegator/Facilitator/Expert

• http://spahp.creighton.edu/ofda/docs/Teaching%20With%20Style.htm

• Try these two for your teaching style• http://members.shaw.ca/mdde615/tchstylsquiz7.htm

• http://www.longleaf.net/teachingstyle.html

Some advice about different ways of teaching /learning• http://www.sports-media.org/

sportapolisnewsletter23newlook.htm• http://www.tlc.eku.edu/tips/teaching_styles/

How do we perceive ourselves as teachers?

as learners?

PRACTICAL TASKS - for next week

• Use one of the Learning Style inventories to identify your own current preferred learning style

• Use one of the Teaching Style inventories to identify your own current preferred teaching style

• What were the outcomes of your inventories? Were they useful? Accurate?

• What did you think of the process?

• What are the implications for you as a teacher?

• What are the implications for your learners? • Reflection needs to include critique.

Systematic review/critique

Frank CoffieldInstitute of EducationUniversity of London

David MoseleyUniversity of Newcastle

Elaine HallUniversity of Newcastle

Kathryn EcclestoneUniversity of Exeter

• 71 different theories of learning style

• http://www.lsda.org.uk/files/PDF/1543.pdf

• Few based on real research• Very lucrative - £10 to take test on line• Very varied• Very fragmented• Overlap of styles• Answers based on mood/contextstage of life?

• Claxton,Guy – Elsin conference• Elsin Conference • EUROPEAN LEARNING STYLES INFORMATION

NETWORK• http://www.elsinnet.org.uk/abstracts/1999/1ab-99.htm• http://www.elsinnet.org.uk/abstracts/2000/1ab-00.htm• http://www.elsinnet.org.uk/abstracts/2001/1ab-01.htm

• When we looked at Piaget we considered a critique of his theories -stages too rigid etc -- what criticisms are there of learning styles theory ( in pairs)

You might want to consider:

• The data upon which your style is selected.• The results -- what are they often like?• Have you done two learning styles

questionnaires? – are the results the same?• What action should you take once you have

identified your learning style?• What action should teachers take if they

have identified a student’s learning style?

• What conclusions do you draw about learning styles theory?

• Newspaper cutting???

• DA for next week

• Do multiple intelligences questionnaire

• http://www.mitest.com/o7inte~1.htm

Howard Gardner Multiple Intelligences Theory

• http://www.infed.org/thinkers/gardner.htm

• http://www.pz.harvard.edu/PIs/HG.htm

• Should you just develop one intelligence at the expense of others?

• Gardner doesn’t suggest this – he thinks we are always using several

• Gardner critical of concept of one measure of intelligence

• Also critical of testing regimes in schools -felt students should be given enjoyable activities through which teachers could understand their capability

• Gardner wrote lots of interesting things about education – not just multiple intelligences.

• Did you ever feel you didn’t really ever understand a particular topic in school?

• Read Gardner’s account of his daughter (The Unschooled Mind pg 5)

• Genuine understanding is most likely to emerge and be apparent to others if people possess a number of ways of representing knowledge of a concept or a skill and can move readily back and forth among these forms of knowing. (pg 13)

• Concept of master and apprentice – learning by doing

Critique• Sticks with idea of intelligence - this got

itself a bad name-associated with racism• http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/hottopics/intelligen

ce/clever.shtml

• Can result in labelling and over simplification of student’s capacity

• http://www.educationnext.org/20044/6.html• http://www.illinoisloop.org/mi.html

• educationalists often prefer concept of attainment /capability – leaves promise of further development at any point in life and avoids labelling

• Gardner, Howard (1983; 1993) Frames of Mind: The theory of multiple intelligences, New York: Basic Books. The second edition was published in Britain by Fontana Press. 466 + xxix pages. (All references in this article refer to this second, 10th Anniversary, edition). A major addition to the literature of cognitive psychology being the first full length explication of multiple intelligences. 

• Gardner, Howard (1989) To Open Minds: Chinese clues to the dilemma of contemporary education, New York: Basic Books. This book includes a significant amount of material on Gardner's early life.

• Gardner, H. (1991) The Unschooled Mind: How children think and how schools should teach, New York: Basic Books.

• Gardner, Howard (1999) Intelligence Reframed. Multiple intelligences for the 21st century, New York: Basic Books. 292 + x pages. Useful review of Gardner's theory and discussion of issues and additions.

• Gardner, Howard (1999) The Disciplined Mind: Beyond Facts And Standardized Tests, The K-12 Education That Every Child Deserves, New York: Simon and Schuster (and New York: Penguin Putnam).