I am a HUGE fan of Howard Gardner's Multiple Intelligences (MI) and actually teach MI in a Learning Theory class for Lateral Entry teachers at the community college level. I believe people are intelligent in more than one way, thus learn in more than one way. Therefore as an instructor, I try to offer multiple ways to learn the online course material for my students. There are the usual books, slideshows and paper handouts for the verbal-linguistic learner, but for the interpersonal learner there are discussion boards and chats, for the body-kinesthetic learner, I have assignments where the student will go onsite and interview or observe a classroom or get involved with a classroom. In my computer classes, these learners also get hands-on training on the computer. For the logical-mathematic learner, I offer webquests that are performed in a logical manner to get to the end result. For the intrapersonal learner, I give assignments where the student must reflect on the class or previous assignments to determine what they have learned. For the musical learner, I have added music to my slideshows and added video from YouTube to the online class that usually has music plus helps the audio/visual learners as well. I have not figured out how to reach the spatial or naturalist learners in an online class yet and hope this class will give me some ideas.
I also agree with the constructivist ideas of learning and hope the MI methods will help learners build new knowledge onto their current knowledge of the world through their strongest intelligences.
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I thought about MI alot when I was reading the assigned materials. I found it important in the classroom, to help educate my students on different learning styles. Knowing how you learn best is a strong tool that we need to empower our students with. Do you teach your students their MI so they know which ones (of the many different methods you offer) to really focus on?
I think it is great that you try to reach all learners. It is a powerful tool for students to know which way they learn best. Since you present your information in different ways I am sure that your students do not get bored doing the same thing all the time. Variety is a good thing.
I know that it is impossible to include all learning styles into one lesson, but we can try... Some are posting to teach differentiation but not through Gardner because of its broadness. I, personally, love it!
Kudos to you for planning and delivering instruction in a variety of formats to reach all of your students in their various learning styles. I think this is the real challenge to those responsible for structuring learning situations for others. Do you have all students go through the various presentations, or do you allow a student to select a particular format for each lesson?
Very nice multi-faceted approach. I wish that I had more time to be able to design materials in multiple formats. Kudos.
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