Again, in math, I show everyone three or four different ways to multiply or divide 2-digit numbers by 1-digit numbers. After the students understand all the ways, they each use the way that makes the most sense to them.
Plus, everyone should use technology. After a fifth-grade lesson on line plots, I showed my students how to use GoogleSheets. “Here’s how you enter the data. Here’s how you insert a chart.” (“Ooooh!” “Ahhhh!”) Then I added, casually, “After you finish today’s homework, I want you to take one of the examples and do it in GoogleSheets.” There were cheers and fist bumps around the room. One girl called out, “I want to do this!”
“You want to use multiple modalities? Great. But the idea that you have to speak to Johnny because he’s an auditory learner and show the visual to Sherry because she’s a visual learner? No, no, no!” says Chuck Schallhorn, California psychology teacher and author of Advanced Placement Psychology.
By stretching everyone to learn with all styles, whatever their preferences, everyone gets pushed out of their comfort zones. Which actually makes them better learners. It’s much better than being spoon-fed in their strongest modalities.
The real solution to personalized education is to let students learn at their own pace. First of all, making students stay lock-step with their grade/age peers puts undue pressure on students who need more time. This weekend I spoke with a friend about schools in Denmark where most of the time from kindergarten through third grade is spent in community building and playing outside—because how can you expect a child’s brain to work without lots of physical activity? If I had an elementary child, I would want to move to Denmark.
Second, forcing everyone to move through school at the same pace causes boredom and frustration for those who can move much more quickly. A year ago my district decided to stop allowing elementary students to accelerate in math. In spite of my best efforts to provide enrichment opportunities and alternate means of learning more advanced skills, I have several students who are angry they aren’t allowed to move up a level or two when they already know how to do everything in the grade level curriculum.
Let students learn at their own pace. Vary your styles of presentation—for everyone.
And don’t forget the importance of excitement and fun.
You are on point here. No matter the so-called preferred learning style, presenting information in a variety of ways, allowing students to choose what appeals to them most, and then keeping them at a level that challenges them- that’s what works best.
Thank you for your kind thoughts.
As always, thank you for your wisdom. Too bad most classrooms refuse to benefit from your creative, empathetic teaching tactics.