Understanding Learning Styles and Multiple Intelligences
Module Six

Jack Drury - Instructor
E-mail: jack@realworldlearning.info
Tel: 518-891-5915
Cell: 518-524-0732
Fax: 518-891-6989
Sandy Hildreth - Course Designer

Understanding Learning Styles and Multiple Intelligences - Module 6
"Cultivating Independent Learners"

REFLECTION

The following Reflection Questions concern the "visual rubric" you were asked to design last month and what impact its use might have had in your classroom.


Before proceeding with Module 6, please send an email to jack@realworldlearning.info and respond to the following questions:

Module 6 Reflective Responses


1. Were you able to design and use a "visual rubric" in your classroom? Yes or No?
2. If you did, please briefly describe it. If unable to create one, please describe an idea for one you might be able to use in the future.
3. What is your opinion about the possible effectiveness of using a "visual rubric"?
4. Describe, if possible, how your students reacted to a "visual rubric".
5. Do you feel a "visual rubric" would be more useful for the teacher or the learners, and why?


READING:

Change. Perhaps the activities from this online course have encouraged some experimentation or change. Or maybe they simply reinforced things you already were doing to help your students succeed in the classroom. Designing meaningful activities for multiple intelligences and different learning styles, while still addressing all your curriculum requirements is not easy. However, the more you do it, the better you get at it. Secondly, students begin to think and work more independently. They realize that they learn and respond to things in different ways (multiple intelligences) and that they will have the opportunity to show what they have learned in a variety of ways. While more time might be spent on some of these instructional activities, it is my personal opinion that students get more from them and therefore you might be able to skip or abbreviate some other lessons. Over time, if we prepare learners who are better able to think for themselves, make good use of available resources, and creatively solve the problems they face, I believe they will essentially be better prepared to do well on the various state assessments.

Many years ago, in a now forgotten periodical, there was a discussion of all the vast new information developing everyday in the field of medicine. Huge amounts of new knowledge that doctors are expected to know and make use of. And it grows or changes every day. How can any medical school totally prepare a student for all they need to know? It was suggested that rather then try to teach them everything, when the information is so rapidly expanding and changing, that medical schools produce students who are good problem solvers. Doctors that may not know everything, but will know where to look or who to contact to solve the problems they encounter. Educators face much the same problem. Our students are expected to all pass the required state exams, which seem like an overwhelming amount of knowledge to squeeze into sometimes unwilling heads. Learner centered activities and products can help students accept the responsibility for their own learning. We may not be able to teach them everything, but if we can teach them how to find the answers for themselves, then they will be capable of obtaining success.

ACTIVITY:

This final activity involves the most risk. Instead of using a traditional test, or a teacher provided list performance tasks to measure student learning - leave it up to the students to demonstrate what has been learned. If possible, select a unit of study during the next few weeks and when it's been concluded, tell your students that they are to design a product that will show how much they have learned. This product or performance is to provide proof that they understand the material that was taught. It might be necessary to provide some guidelines or requirements, depending on topic and/or grade level. Perhaps there will need to be reminders about quality and content. Students should be told that what they produce will be counted instead of a test.

This may be too much of a risk for some teachers, or there just may not be an appropriate opportunity in the curriculum for it. If that is the case, please put some thought into where and how this kind of an activity could have been done if conditions had been right. Final reflection questions will address this activity.

From personal experience, this kind of on open-ended activity is often one that the more logical, well-organized, left-brained thinkers have difficulty with (both teachers and students). Sometimes traditional "A" students will respond to a challenge like this by asking for more direction. "I don't know what to do - tell me what to do." In contrast, many intuitive, right-brained, hands-on learners will thrive and produce remarkable results. The trick is to provide enough structure for the first type described, and enough freedom for the others. Directions need to be very clear. If some choose to produce a typical written report or term paper, it should be just as acceptable as someone else creating a diorama or producing a skit. It is certainly possible to design a rubric that can be used to assess any type of product. (Remember there was an example in Module 5 )

Performance tasks like this help develop students who are independent learners. Students who start to accept the responsibility for their own learning because they get to choose their own path. In the second module of this course, the Learning Pyramid that was included had "Teach Others/Immediate Use" at the bottom. Educational research has indicated that the average retention rate for learning is nearly 90% when the students get the opportunity to use their new knowledge immediately or have the chance to teach it to someone else. Therefore, designing their own performance task not only gives the students independence, it helps store what they've learned in the part of the brain that actually keeps it, rather than the short term memory that is often used just to pass a test.

If you accept this challenge, the results might be very rewarding, or they might be distressing. There are many students who do not want to think or act independently. But the long-term benefits could definitely help all types of learners become more successful in school and attain higher standards. Our graduates need to be independent thinkers.

FINAL COURSE PRODUCT:

You can review at any times the options listed in Module 1 . If you have ideas or questions, please email the course designer.