Learning Styles

Learning styles and their effect on behaviour

scameron — Tue, 04 Jan 2011 16:57:23 +0000

Learning styles and their effect on behaviour
Are you aware of the many, varied learning styles adopted by your students and how they affect behaviour? This week’s Behaviour Matters explores the benefits of differentiating within the classroom and your own presentation style to accommodate these differences

Developing an enquiry-based curriculum

scameron — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 12:04:09 +0100

In issue 16 of Learning and Teaching Update, Anna Reid wrote about her early experiences as a Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP) associate, working on a research project in Bedlingtonshire Community High School in Northumberland. The project was designed to create an assessment framework for enquiry skills for Key Stage 3 pupils. In this article, we outline how the process affected us and our practice and how it benefited our students.

Multisensory maths for teaching SEN

scameron — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 14:36:17 +0000

Working with children who find maths difficult can become a ‘mission impossible’ if the adults involved with those children are not aware that there are alternative ways of helping them to learn and understand maths. In my experience – (long and varied!) – I have found that the best approach for these children from Year 1 right up to secondary age is to simply ‘start again’ using multisensory, hands on methods and concrete experiences.

Deep learning: structuring a coherent approach

scameron — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 16:10:56 +0000

For the past six years, I have been working with a range of secondary schools throughout the UK, trying to help them make sense of learning in order to support teachers’ understanding and broaden students’ achievement. In every school, I initially ask school leaders and teachers to describe the nature of their students as learners. Invariably, I am told ‘they do like to be spoon-fed’. I wonder if this is the case; or have they come to expect to be spoon-fed, by hard-working teachers who are driven by the understandable need to ratchet up standards?

Language for developing team work in young learners

scameron — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 11:52:28 +0000

The Thinking Together Project

A team at the Open University, led by Professor Neil Mercer (now of Cambridge University), began investigating the nature and value of children's collaborative talk in the late 1980s. The early research focused on talk during computer-based problem solving, but talk in other activities across several subjects including mathematics, science, English, citizenship, design and technology and geography has since also been studied.

Developing visual learning skills

scameron — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 17:26:12 +0000

Visual imagery can play a powerful role in accelerating human learning. Complex verbal explanations can often be simplified through visual support – now made more accessible through new technologies. And organised learners use a range of low-tech techniques to make sure that their notes are well-ordered and easy to navigate. These include colour coding, post-it notes, highlighters, etc, to help categorise, prioritise and make the work user-friendly.

The importance of subject-based teaching

scameron — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 16:07:45 +0000

There is plethora of teaching and curriculum experimentation at present. Much gets reported in our pages, under such titles as thinking skills, building learning power, learning to learn. There is much talk of a skills-based curriculum and this is accelerating under the engine of personal, learning and thinking skills (PLTS).

Strategies for developing team work in young learners

scameron — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 10:16:25 +0000

This week we will look at strategies that can help young learners to start thinking and talking about the concept of 'team work'. As in previous bulletins, these strategies will help to make the ‘invisible’ qualities and skills associated with thinking and learning, both ‘visible’ and learnable. They are designed to help staff and students develop a common understanding of what the different PTLS skills and competencies mean, and a common language for exploring their value both in school and in every day life.

Understanding ability grouping

scameron — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 16:31:42 +0000

Ability grouping is a generic term used to describe different types of organisation based on pupils’ perceived ability. One of the biggest areas of confusion in the field is the associated terminology – it is often the case that the same term is used to talk about different types of grouping or different vocabulary to talk about the same approach. The table below gives key terms and definitions as adapted from Sukhnandon and Lee (1998).

Essential therapy: reassurance and praise

scameron — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 16:00:59 +0000

I’m back at work, with a snappy new job title – research and emotional literacy coordinator – but not yet a job description.

After six months of maternity leave, it is pure joy having opportunities to complete sentences, sit quietly, write and finish cups of coffee. My ability to make people laugh has been upgraded from saying ‘boo’ to making attempts at satire and irony! Colleagues say thank you without being prompted. They don’t burp out loud, seem pleased to see me and are very welcoming.

Enquiry skills activity: What is learning?

sara — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 12:28:27 +0100

Activity on 'What is learning?'

Written by Anne de A'Echevarria

This teaching resource is taken from the winner of the BESA Educational Resources Book Award 2007 - Thinking Through School.

Teaching strategies for effective learning

sara — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 12:28:26 +0100

Matching teaching approaches to learning styles

Written by John Beresford

This resource provides a comprehensive breakdown of the four different learning styles below, and offers a useful range of classroom activities and strategies associated with each so you can implement them accordingly.

Playful science

scameron — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:21:00 +0100

Letting children play as part of their mental and physical development has, until recently, always been taken for granted, but in today’s society it seems to be becoming more and more restricted. A combination of parental anxiety mixed with excessive legislative demands placed on teachers has forced some schools to move away from play-based activities and turn towards a more formal (and some would say, in terms of science teaching, more boring) approach to teaching.

Replacing punishment with education

scameron — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:20:59 +0100

Two years ago, I was talking with an Australian teacher about the psychology behind school detention. Punishing children in this way, with the expectation that it will ‘teach them a lesson’, is a sanction commonly used by teachers in response to incidents ranging from forgotten homework to violent and abusive behaviour. The teacher described how her school in Queensland had eradicated detention as a result of training in something called choice theory. The more she talked about the impact of this theory on her school, the more interested I became.

The changing aims of primary education

scameron — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:20:58 +0100

Can schools be both learner-centred and standards-led at at the same time? Two papers for the Primary Review describe the emergence of such a hybrid from the century-long struggle to define the aims of education.

Personalised learning
A paper comparing approaches in six countries – Scotland, Sweden, Germany, Ireland, France, England and Wales – over the last 40 years observes the struggle has been between calls for:

a flexible and autonomous system shaped around the needs of children

Linking pedagogical theory and personalised learning

scameron — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:20:57 +0100

Developing a shared understanding and a common language to talk about pedagogy are crucial steps towards transforming teaching and learning to ensure that there is continuity and progression at all stages of the learning journey. The core principles outlined below were developed to be relevant for all learners regardless of age or stage, and are strongly aligned to the expectations of Every Child Matters.

Thinking skills in action

scameron — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:20:56 +0100

‘Children, if left to their own impulses, fill the air with perpetual questionings, every new thing being a mystery to them. Children should not be stinted, rebuked or dispirited, but allowed to develop a continuous elastic spirit, ever enquiring and ever extending to others the fullness of their own aspirations.’*

In 1816 Robert Owen presented this strong image of the thinking child. It neatly captures how adults should view young children who are learning to think and thinking to learn.

A different approach: teaching through the arts

scameron — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:20:54 +0100

Gallions Primary School opened in September 1999 on the Winsor Park Estate in the London Borough of Newham. Nearly all the children who came to the school did so because they had failed at their previous schools. They were disillusioned with the concept of education. We had to reverse their expectation.

Curriculum

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Motivating every learner

jlee — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:20:36 +0100

The best form of motivation is self-motivation. Pupils need to connect with teachers if they are achieve this. Teachers can motivate their pupils by meeting their needs for the three ‘As’: affiliation, agency and autonomy. They do this through the energisers that create a motivating learning climate; the flip side of the energisers are the drainers – things that staff need to avoid doing.
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The problems and pitfalls of 'learning styles' theories

jlee — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:20:32 +0100
There is enormous intuitive appeal in the idea that teachers should pay closer attention to students’ learning styles: by diagnosing them, by encouraging students to reflect on them and by designing teaching and learning interventions around them. A further impetus to interest in learning styles is given by government policy that aims to develop the necessary attitudes and skills for lifelong learning, particularly in relation to ‘learning to learn’ and personalised learning.
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Logovisual thinking

jlee — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:20:27 +0100

Logovisual thinking (LVT) is a method that stimulates high quality thinking and talking.
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Students as researchers: making a difference

jlee — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:20:23 +0100

The students as researchers (STARS) project was launched at Deptford Green school in 2003 and began by targeting students in Year 9. The project was launched in an assembly and thereafter 56 Year 9 students volunteered. The project started small with 18 of these students selected from across the ability range. These students then attended a training day held off campus to practise their teamwork skills and aspects of research project design, including research ethics, research methods, data analysis and evaluation.
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Howard Gardner: more than multiple intelligences

admin — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:20:18 +0100

Howard Gardner has mixed news for the would-be genius: we can’t all be exceptional – but we can still learn a lot from those who are. Indeed, he believes it is the duty of educators to draw their students’ attention to the lives of exceptional individuals. In his book Extraordinary Minds he examines the lives of four such individuals, seeking to understand the nature of genius and draw lessons for the rest of us.

A science of extraordinariness
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Robert Sternberg's educational theories

admin — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:20:18 +0100

Born in 1949, American psychologist Robert Sternberg says that he was considered a ‘dummy’ in his first years at school. At university he dropped out of psychology because of his poor grades and switched to maths. This is hardly the background one would expect of the man who is now IBM professor of psychology and education at Yale., but Sternberg’s research has been driven by his personal problems.
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A hundred years on with the Montessori approach

admin — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:20:11 +0100

Childhood education met in Rome to commemorate the hundredth anniversary of the first Casa dei Bambini (Children’s House), which was set up by Dr Maria Montessori on the ground floor of a block of apartments, where the poor of Rome had been re-housed as part of a slum clearance scheme.
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Helping adults develop

admin — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:20:08 +0100

Thinking about how adults learn is crucial for anyone involved in helping staff develop. If individual teachers understand how they learn, and can appreciate that others have different learning styles, they will be better able to support the learning of both pupils and colleagues.

Learning cycle

Experiential learning is particularly important for adults. Someone who wants to get better at taking assembly, for instance, might usefully go through the cycle of:
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Learning curve: multiple intelligences and G&T

admin — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:20:04 +0100

I recall attending numerous training courses on the subject during 2001 and must report that the jury is still out! I accept that the theory can be a powerful means to broadening our concept of what intelligence actually consists of and raising self-esteem. It takes us away from the closed and threatening ‘cleverness is maths’ idea that has haunted generations of innumerate wordsmiths before us. It also makes me wonder why the gene for naturalistic intelligence has skipped my generation (me in particular) when it comes to growing a good hosta.
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Activities to develop phonological awareness

jlee — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:19:57 +0100

Pupils who have difficulties in this area may have:
read more

Activities to develop visual discrimination skills

jlee — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:19:57 +0100

Pupils who have difficulties in this area may:
read more

Activities to develop and improve listening skills and attention

jlee — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:19:56 +0100

Pupils with listening and attention difficulties are generally experiencing one of two problems. Either they cannot screen out what is unimportant from what they hear and so listen to everything, or they may not be very skilful at controlling attention and therefore miss large chunks of information.
read more

Activities to develop auditory discrimination skills

jlee — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:19:56 +0100

Pupils who have difficulties in this area may have:
read more

Activities to develop visual perception

jlee — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:19:49 +0100

Pupils who have difficulties in this area may have:
read more

Activities to develop verbal comprehension

jlee — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:19:49 +0100

Pupils who have difficulty in this area may have:
read more

Multiple intelligences

admin — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:19:45 +0100

How would you like to have a low IQ?

What sorts of people have a low IQ?

Or a high IQ?

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Learning preferences

admin — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:19:43 +0100

The label 'Learning Styles' has often been attached, perhaps too closely, to VAK - essentially a model for ensuring effective transition of information from Teacher to Learner. However,it could be argued that a person's Learning Style is a broader, more complex and - most significantly - more fluid combination of preferences.
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Pictures in the Mind: Using Visualisation Ladders

admin — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:19:43 +0100

Some background to Guided Visualisation

Computers and television provide wonderful access to images, mainly - but by no means entirely - visual. They also offer great opportunities to develop imaginative layout and presentation skills. They are an enormously useful teaching and learning asset. One small word of caution may not be out of place, however. Virtual reality is becoming more and more a fact of life, and the silicon revolution gives us instant and intriguing standard images.
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Superlearners Day

admin — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:19:42 +0100

By Karen Faulkner and Tim Gamble
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The evidence for accelerated learning

admin — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:19:41 +0100
Search the Internet for 'accelerated learning' and you will find more than three million potential sites to visit. Not surprisingly, there is no one accepted definition of accelerated learning today. I offer this synthesis of the many definitions that I have looked at:
'Accelerated learning combines aspects of established learning theory with brain-based approaches, in order to engage learners and speed up the process of learning.'
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Metaphors, motivation and multi-sensory learning

admin — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:19:31 +0100

If you were to shadow one of your classes through a school day, you'd probably be exposed to a wide range of teaching techniques. Some aspects of our colleagues' teaching can really make a difference to our own lessons. I've outlined three different techniques below that can really help to motivate students and get them to approach your subject from an unexpected angle.

1. Metaphors
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A teaching elixir or best-fit pedagogy? Do learning styles matter?

admin — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:19:27 +0100

The idea of a personal style in learning has clearly spread across the globe during the last decade to occupy a prominent place in professional discourse about learning and teaching (Rayner, 2001; Coffield, 2005). Do learning styles matter in supporting learning? Recent work by Cheminais (2002), Reid (2005) and Burnett (2005) identify learning style as an important idea for inclusive learning and teaching in the classroom. Indeed, Cheminais (2002) foregrounds the concept in an approach to school improvement and writes that effective and successful teachers will:

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SEN review: books and websites

admin — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:19:25 +0100

Learning Styles

Books to buy
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Learning styles as a catalyst for more enlightened approaches to teaching

admin — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:19:24 +0100
Learning Styles and Inclusion
Reid, G (2005), price £17.99
Paul Chapman Publishing. 180pp.
ISBN: 1-4129-1064-1

Accelerated learning - how quick is it?

admin — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:19:19 +0100

Originally it was the name coined in the west for a teaching method called 'Suggestopedia' by its Bulgarian founder, Georgi Lozanov. Lozanov was (and still is - he's now living in Vienna) a psychologist whose early work in the 1950s was to do with pain-free medicine. He began to wonder whether learning could be equally free of pain by making that suggestion to the learners, namely that learning is quick and easy and that it is the natural state for the human organism.