For the teacher in your life

Do you know a teacher? Delight them this Christmas with a unique gift: a present created especially for them.

Barbara Prashnig’s book, “Learning Styles in Action”, is a practical guide to implementing learning styles in the daily teaching practice, thus helping teachers solve any stress and discipline issues.

The newspaper-column-style of the book ensures fast reading. The layout allows the reader to skim and dip into the content at any point, gathering the desired information and enhancing it with the content supplied on the left-hand pages. (These pages partly elaborate the content of the right-hand pages, partly illustrate and explain the concepts discussed on opposite pages.)

The book is full of scenarios and diverse real-life situations. Among others, “Learning Styles in Action” shows you:

• How learning styles can help underachieving or disruptive students
• Multi-sensory teaching and learning in action
• Ways to integrate learning styles and ICT (computer technology)
• How to create a real learning styles classroom
• The do’s and don’ts of using learning styles.

Each chapter gives answers to different areas of teaching. Special care has been given to the application of LS in different age groups because despite the same underlying concept and philosophy, teaching strategies, classroom set-ups, and interaction with students vary profoundly from pre-school to university level.

The book also explains the integration of LS with other pedagogic concepts like learning cycles, Multiple Intelligences (MI) and Information Communication Technology (ICT). Most importantly, it also suggests strategies for dealing with discipline issues and disruptive disrespectful students.

Help a teacher today with “Learning Styles in Action”. 

What Teachers Can Learn From Famous People

Terry Pratchett is an internationally bestselling novelist and a multi-millionaire. At school, he was, according to his own words, "a non-decrypt student", a "dreamer", and a "goat". His principal open doubted Terry would achieve anything in life. At 17, Terry left school with 5 O-levels, and got a job at a local newspaper. at 35, he had his first Discworld novel published. 25 years later, he was knighted.

Thomas Edison, famous scientist and inventor (of, among many things, the electric light bulb), was thrown out of school at age 12 because he couldn't learn maths and was unable to focus. His teacher said, "he was too stupid to learn anything."

Tom Cruise, a world-famous movie producer, director, and actor, describes himself as a “functional illiterate” due to dyslexia. He wasn't a good student. Today, his estimated wealth is 380 million dollars.

Director of Jaws, Steven Spielberg, dropped out of high school because he was put in a "special education" class.

Benjamin Franklin, whose image graces the $100 bill, left school at age ten.

Bill Gates, a co-founder of Microsoft and the richest person in the world for a number of years, left Harvard in his junior year.

All these people succeeded despite, rather than because of, their teachers. And yet, a good teacher can ignite the imagination and instill a love of learning. Are you a good teacher? Find out.

Learning Styles Continue To Conquer Poland

(please scroll down for the Polish version)

Good morning. It's our privilege today to host in our virtual studio a Polish specialist in learning and teaching, an enthusiast of psychology, education, neuro-didactics and learning styles, as well as a mind map devotee: Joanna Prus. Earlier in October 2014, Joanna took part in the Conference Of Neuro-Didactics, attended by outstanding Polish and foreign lecturers in the field of neuroscience, neuro-didactics, and learning style analysis. We are honoured to be able to share her impressions from the conference.

Q: Joanna, please tell us about the general atmosphere of the conference.
A: It's amazing that something is finally beginning to vibrate slowly in the Polish rigid educational system. There are already quite a number of teachers searching for better and more effective teaching tools, people who have a passion and desire to grow, who are looking for new, more effective ways of working and strive to constantly improve them. I remember even just three years ago typing "learning styles" into the Polish Google yielded disappointing results: one article written by a passionate teacher as well as my own website, where I described the LSA. In those days very few people were interested or knew anything about learning styles and the proof was the Google search results for the phrase "learning styles". This is why the atmosphere at the conference was so special - I finally felt that I didn't talk to a brick wall when discussing learning styles and proclaiming that all children are talented, they all like to learn, but they sometimes just have completely different learning preferences.

Q: And now, specifically, what did you think about Barbara's presentation?
A: Barbara is fantastic. I was impressed by her presentation - very substantive, yet interesting and engaging. Personally, I think the lecture is one of the most difficult forms of communication and you have to be a really good speaker to keep the audience's attention for an hour. Barbara, however, by the very way she presented, proved that learning styles are the key to success in education. In her lecture, there was something for auditory learners, visual learners, and kinesthetic learners - sound, music, text, images, movement and emotion. Something for the right and left hemispheres - the whole picture in the form of an LSA pyramid and an extremely logical analysis of the various elements. Barbara argued successfully how much can be achieved simply with the awareness of learning styles and understanding that students learn in different ways. 

Q: Other experts also attended - what interesting new concepts did they bring to the conference?
A: It was Dr. Marzena Żylińska, author of "Neurodydaktyka" and the cause of the whole positive vibe around this topic in Poland. Dr. Żylińska used a bitter joke to describe the mistaken direction of education in most schools today: "Sit down, Johnny, this is a school, no-one here is interested in what interests you." She tries to gather lessons learned from neuroscience and convince teachers, parents, and educators, that it is up to them to create an environment that determines what becomes of our children. Last year, she invited  Manfred Spitzer, a German neuroscientist, and this year she hosted the famous German professor of neurobiology and educator, Gerald Hüther, the author of the book "All children are gifted." Professor Hüther also starred in the acclaimed Erwin Wagenhofer movie "Alphabet".



What stood out for me in the professor's speech was that brain development is not genetically determined. The way in which our brain connects nerve cells does not depend on any genetic programming. Every child comes into the world with plenty of invaluable neural connections. Gerald Hüther illustrated it thus: like a sculptor carves a block of stone, so does a human by his/her activity and experience shape the neural structure of the brain, strengthening some connections and pruning the others. The "Mozart gene" or the "Einstein gene" doesn't exist. We parents, educators, teachers should not spoil the natural potential of our children, instead, we should create conditions for their development through love and acceptance. Entice, encourage, and inspire. The professor also highlighted the importance of cooperation between students, teachers, and parents. This was also strongly emphasized by Barbara Prashnig.
 
Q: Following the conference, what will you do differently?
A: Good question. I wondered about this already before conference, as well as during it. Now I am convinced that the next step after the engagement of the teachers are the parents. We need to invite them to work with us to change schools for the better, to help children learn and to ensure their development in accordance with their predispositions. Parents want the best for their children, but often end up unknowingly ruining the natural potential of their children in the name of parental love. I see my role in helping parents, I would like them to notice their children's potential, recognize their learn preferences and discover their talents. Building a community, a kind of club for parents, students, and teachers - that's my dream.
 
Q. Wow. If anyone would like to try LSA in Polish, how can they contact you?
The easiest way to reach me is write to the address joannaprus@edu-you.pl, or contact us through our Facbook https://www.facebook.com/eduyou?ref=hl.

Thank you so much for the interview.

Wywiad po polsku

Dzień dobry. Dzisiaj gościmy w naszym wirtualnym studio polską specjalistkę od uczenia się i nauczania, pasjonatkę psychologii edukacji, neurodydaktyki oraz stylów uczenia się, wielbicielkę map myśli – Joannę Prus. W połowie października Joanna uczestniczyła w Kongresie Neurodydaktyki, w gronie znakomitych polskich i zagranicznych prelegentów z dziedziny neurobiologii, neurodydaktyki, analizy stylu uczenia. Jesteśmy zaszczyceni, że zechciała się z nami podzielić wrażeniami.

1. Joasiu, powiedz nam ogólnie o atmosferze konferencji.

To niesamowite, że w Polsce wreszcie coś powoli zaczyna drgać w sztywnym systemie edukacji. Jest już całkiem spora grupa nauczycieli, którzy poszukują sposobów na lepsze i efektywniejsze nauczanie, ludzi, którzy mają pasję i chęci, by się rozwijać, którzy poszukują nowych, skuteczniejszych metod pracy oraz ciągle je doskonalą. Pamiętam, jak jeszcze zaledwie trzy lata temu wpisując w Google wyrażenie „style uczenia”, można było znaleźć w polskim Internecie zaledwie kilka wyników, z czego jeden artykuł napisany przez nauczycielkę pasjonatkę i moją stronę, na której opisałam LSA. Faktem jest, że rzadko kto się tym interesował i wiedział cokolwiek o stylach uczenia się. Dowodził tego również ówczesny raport Google, dotyczący wyników wyszukiwania frazy – „style uczenia”. Zatem atmosfera na Kongresie była szczególna, bo wreszcie poczułam, że nie „rzucam grochem o ścianę”, kiedy mówię o analizie stylu uczenia się, o tym, że wszystkie dzieci są utalentowane, że lubią się uczyć, tylko mają do tego czasem zupełnie różne predyspozycje. 

2.      A teraz specyficznie o wystąpieniu Barbary.

Barbara jest fantastyczna. Byłam pod wrażeniem jej wystąpienia – bardzo merytoryczne, a jednocześnie ciekawe i angażujące. Osobiście uważam, że wykład jest jedną z trudniejszych form przekazu i trzeba być naprawdę niezłym mówcą, aby przez godzinę utrzymać uwagę słuchaczy. Barbara jednak całą sobą udowodniła, że style uczenia się to klucz do sukcesu w edukacji. W jej wykładzie było coś dla słuchowców, wzrokowców, kinestetyków – dźwięk, muzyka, prezentacja, teksty, obrazy, ruch i emocje. Coś dla prawej i lewej półkuli – obraz całości w postaci piramidy LSA i niezwykle logiczna analiza poszczególnych elementów składających się na style uczenia się, w której jedno wynika z drugiego.
Barbara przekonała, jak wiele można zdziałać już samą świadomością i zrozumieniem tego, że  uczniowie uczą się w różny sposób.  

3. Byli tam też inni specjaliści – co ciekawego wnieśli do sympozjum?

Była dr Marzena Żylińska, autorka książki „Neurodydaktyka” i sprawczyni całego pozytywnego zamieszania wokół tego tematu w Polsce. Dr Żylińska jednym gorzkim dowcipem opisuje niewłaściwy kierunek nauczania w większości dzisiejszych szkół - „Siadaj, Jasiu, tu jest szkoła, tu nikogo nie interesuje, co ciebie interesuje.” Stara się zebrać wnioski płynące z neuronauk, przekonuje nauczycieli, rodziców, pedagogów, że to my tworzymy środowisko, które decyduje o tym, czym zajmować się będą nasze dzieci. W zeszłym roku zaprosiła do Polski Manfreda Spitzera, niemieckiego neurobiologa, a w tym roku gościł równie znany niemiecki profesor neurobiologii i pedagog – Gerald Hüther, autor książki „Wszystkie dzieci są zdolne”. Profesor Hüther wystąpił również w głośnym filmie Erwina Wagenhofera „Alfabet”.

Dla mnie niezwykle interesująca w wystąpieniu profesora była informacja o tym, że rozwój mózgu nie jest uwarunkowany genetycznie. O tym, jak w naszym mózgu będą łączyły się komórki nerwowe, nie decyduje żaden program genetyczny. Każde dziecko przychodzi na świat z niedocenianą jeszcze dziś obfitością połączeń neuronalnych. Gerald Hüther tak to zobrazował – jak rzeźbiarz z kamiennego bloku wykuwa rzeźbę, tak człowiek poprzez swoją aktywność i doświadczenie kształtuje strukturę neuronalną mózgu – jedne połączenia wzmacnia a inne „przycina”. Nie ma – jak powiada profesor – „genu Mozarta” czy „genu Einsteina”. My rodzice, wychowawcy, nauczyciele nie możemy psuć naturalnego potencjału naszych dzieci, a stwarzać warunki do ich rozwoju poprzez miłość i akceptację. Zachęcać, dodawać odwagi i inspirować. Profesor również podkreślił ogromną rolę współpracy na linii uczeń – nauczyciel – rodzic, co również silnie podkreśla Barbara Prashnig.

4. Co teraz, na skutek sympozjum, zamierzasz zacząć wdrażać w życie?

Dobre pytanie. Zastanawiałam się już nad tym tak przed kongresem jak i w jego trakcie. Teraz już jestem przekonana, że kolejnym krokiem po zaangażowaniu nauczycieli są rodzice. Aby zmienić szkołę na lepsze, ułatwić dzieciom naukę i zapewnić im rozwój zgodny z ich predyspozycjami, musimy zaprosić do współpracy również rodziców. Rodzice często chcą jak najlepiej dla swoich dzieci, ale często w imię właśnie rodzicielskiej miłości zupełnie nieświadomie psują naturalny potencjał swoich dzieci.  Widzę ważną rolę w pomaganiu rodzicom, chciałabym aby umieli tak spojrzeć na swoje dzieci, by zobaczyć drzemiący w nich potencjał, by potrafili rozpoznać ich predyspozycje do uczenia się i kształtujące się w nich talenty. Zbudowanie społeczności, czegoś w rodzaju klubu rodzica, ucznia i nauczyciela to moje marzenie.

5. Jeśli ktoś chciałby spróbować LSA po polsku, jak może się z Tobą skontaktować?

Najprościej do mnie napisać na adres joannaprus@edu-you.pl można również się z nami kontaktować przez naszego Facbooka https://www.facebook.com/eduyou?ref=hl

Dziękujemy za wywiad.

Five Things Successful Teachers Do

There are lots of things highly successful teachers do differently from their colleagues. Here are the top five:

1. Successful teachers have fun in the classroom and make learning fun for their students.
2. Successful teachers communicate with parents, students and fellow teachers.
3. Successful teachers expect and encourage their students to succeed.
4. Successful teachers connect with their students and support them emotionally.
5. Successful teachers know the learning styles of their class.

DO WE REALLY TEACH LITERATURE?

(a guest blog by Nicholas Reid, writer and critic)

A question has been jangling in my head recently and keeping me awake at night. Is the appreciation of literature really being taught?

I know at first glance the question seems self-evidently absurd. Of course the appreciation of literature can be taught. Otherwise why do we have all those English and other language departments and programmes in universities and colleges? And why do high-school teachers force Lord of the Flies, The God Boy, The Color Purple, To Kill a Mockingbird, The Whale Rider, The Old Man and the Sea, Man Alone, The Scarlet Letter into young and unwilling heads?

But think carefully about the question and you’ll see there is a real problem. If the appreciation of literature means responding perceptively to what authors have actually written, then is it really being taught?

Let me illuminate the problem by telling you what I know about a specific writer.

I’m quite knowledgeable about Elizabeth Gaskell and her novels. I know that she was not quite up there with classics like Dickens, George Eliot and Thackeray, but that she was an esteemed Victorian writer who has retained a considerable readership. I know that she is now much lauded by feminist academics because she gave a distinctly female account of early industrialised England. I know she wrote Mary Barton, Cranford, North and South, Wives and Daughters and other novels and short stories of small town, industrial town and domestic life; and I know that some of her work first appeared as serials in periodicals like Household Words and All the Year Round.

If you sat me down in front of a school exam question on Elizabeth Gaskell, or confronted me with an undergraduate essay topic on her, I’d be able to concoct a creditable answer. I could sagely discuss her themes – the circumscribed lives of women; the power of gossip; the clash of older village ways with industrialisation in England’s “railway age”; the beginnings of wage slavery; class divisions between the squirearchy and the middle classes; the ties that bind small communities together and so forth. I could name her main characters, write accounts of them, and neatly précis her plots. I could even make some apt comments on her style and her tendency to focus on the minutiae of life. All this would be off the top of my head from what I already know. Give me spend and hour or two to look some reference material, and I’d do even better.

But here’s the rub. Although it pains me to admit it, and although I should be performing ritualised penance, I have never read a single word of Elizabeth Gaskell’s works, even though three of her books sit on my shelves as I write this.

Having never got around to her, I have simply accumulated knowledge of her from other sources. These include passing references in general histories of literature; what I have heard other people say about her; enthusiastic recommendations from an Elizabeth Gaskell fan whom I knew some years back; and my having seen two BBC TV serial adaptations of her work – North and South and Cranford.

Everything I know about Elizabeth Gaskell is second-hand. My eyes have never travelled across the words she actually wrote and I’ve never experienced or assessed how she wrote.


Which brings me back to my original question – is the appreciation of literature really being taught?

After all, if the study of literature is supposed to be training our responses to the process of reading itself, to a particular writer’s style, and to the impact of the words on the page, then plot summaries, character studies, background sociological or biographical detail, what eminent critics have thought and the neat corralling of themes all have very little to do with it. Those things can be acquired without ever bothering to read whatever is supposedly being studied. They are a form of knowledge, but they are not an appreciation of literature.

I’m not exposing any obscure trade secret in noting this. The world is filled with high school students and perhaps a majority of BA students who have negotiated literature courses not by reading the set texts, but only by reading “study guides” on the model of the old Cole’s Notes or Monarch Notes, or by accessing whatever Wikipedia and the ‘net have to say. Conning lecturer’s notes always helps, too. (Our Humanities departments are so constituted that it is always wise to flatter your lecturer’s opinions when you formulate your answers.)

Regrettably, these methods will often be the very ones that earn an A+. Real literature for adults is allusive, can be read on many levels, and does not often lend itself to simple interpretations of the sort that one dashes off against the clock in exam or term-paper conditions. The student who has dutifully ploughed through, puzzled over and personally responded to something compendious like Bleak House may well be at a disadvantage in comparison with the student who has memorised by heart ready-made phrases about style, plot, character, themes, historical significance and so forth. I have often enough been on the other side of the fence as a (secondary- and tertiary-level) marker, and I know that a forthright, organised, clearly-expressed, information-packed answer will usually trump a sincere but more tortuous answer. Clarity and a genuine personal response to a text are not mutually-exclusive. Yet the organised, clearly-expressed answer is more likely to be the parroted answer.


I am reminded of a true story Solzhenitsyn once reported. An official Soviet-era manual advised students not to bother reading Tolstoy or Dostoievsky, but just to read the summaries of their novels given in the manual. The books themselves would be too “confusing”. Soviet officials may well have had ideological objections to undiluted Tolstoy and Dostoievsky, with all their religious and non-materialist concerns. But the manual’s advice was a frank admission of the same process that is encouraged by our own pedagogy. I’m further reminded of how often, over the years, I have heard blowhards boasting that they won high grades in school and university courses just by memorising bits of a “study guide”. Usually this has been said to me as if it were a sign of the speaker’s extreme cleverness. In fact it merely references a game whose rules all teachers and academics fully understand.

There are some fairly obvious responses to what I am saying.

One would be to ask whether any of it matters. After all, if high school or tertiary students of literature are gaining credits in NCEA courses, or passing their examinations, then what does it matter how they acquired the relevant knowledge? This approach appeals to principals whose chief concern is making their schools look good in a competitive market (between schools, NCEA is just as competitive as older national examination systems were). It appeals equally to supervisors of tertiary academic programmes, whose funding relies on a successful through-put of as many students as possible. But it implicitly negates the whole reason for studying literature in the first place. It says that a real encounter with an author’s written words is less important than knowledge about those written words. Literature is reduced to useless data, encouraging many students to regard the whole concept with contempt and to avoid ever reading anything challenging again, once they have their degree or certificate.

Another response would be to point out that I am really talking about means of assessment rather the study of literature itself. What about those teachers who ask students to compile reading journals, or to compose personal and subjective responses to what they are set to read? What about those who devise tests and exercises that require recall of a text’s actual wording? What about seminars which challenge students’ understanding and discuss specific given passages of a text?


I concede that assessment of students is one of the main things that concerns me. I acknowledge, too, that the more advanced the level of study, the less easy it becomes to hide behind ready-made packages of other peoples’ summaries. Generally, high-school students and undergraduates can get away with it, but at the postgraduate level it is much harder. (Not that it is impossible, mind. And a little creative re-wording can usually circumvent the electronic guards that most universities now use to prevent outright plagiarism in students’ work.).


But I am still on firm ground when I note the prevalence of pretending to teach literature itself, while actually encouraging students to value facts and opinions about literature. Some years ago, as a conscientious high-school teacher, I used to read the “model” essays that were sent out to us as examples of the best students’ work in the old Bursary and Scholarship English exams. I became rapidly disillusioned as I noted how many of them could have been written without even opening the works that were supposedly being analysed. One such “model” essay, earning top marks, was a collection of well-ordered, clearly-expressed current clichés about the role of women in literature. It had only a peripheral relationship with the Virginia Woolf novel that it was ostensibly discussing. Doubtless the student who wrote it was a very intelligent 17-year-old (or Year 13) student. Doubtless, too, she had carefully memorised everything her teacher had told her. But she was not responding to literature. She was repeating something that had been squeezed out of literature before she got to it.

I could pile up the depressing anecdotes along these lines. I once met a high-school teacher at a training day who proudly circulated materials he gave his senior classes, telling them that “there are two ways to study a novel”. One was to read the novel. The other, which he recommended to his students as less laborious, was to watch a good film or television adaptation of the novel and then read a study guide. So much for encountering the words on the page. Then there was the lecturer who claimed that it was unimportant for him to read the works on which he lectured. All that mattered was that he knew the work’s cultural significance, its place in literary history and the chief critical arguments and controversies it had aroused. In effect, the lecturer gave second-hand opinions to his students who (unless they took the unusual expedient of doing their own reading) would eventually give him back third-hand answers.


And so on and so on.

In our senior national high-school Bursary and Scholarship English exams, there used to be a compulsory “unseen” question, in which students had to interpret a poem or piece of prose they were seeing for the first time. It was the one part of the paper that challenged them to demonstrate their own reading skills and perception, as opposed to regurgitating what they had been told. Of course it was eventually judged to be too hard for too many students, and ceased to be compulsory. So it was back to a paper which encouraged students to write what they had been told about literature, rather than what they had personally experienced of it. I am, however, encouraged that a similar “unseen” interpretation question is now part of NCEA exams.

As a teacher, one of my preferred forms of torture was to photocopy extracts from the novel my class was studying, and then make the students, under test conditions, identify where it came from, what it meant and what the passage displayed that was typical of the author’s style. Perhaps one day I will get around to reading Elizabeth Gaskell. I might then be able to answer such contextual quizzing about her. In the meantime, having not read single word of hers, I am fully equipped to pass whatever standard test a standard literature course on her could throw at me.

I know at least as much as an A+ student would.

(to read more of Nicholas Reid, have a look here)

Teaching Maths Another Way

I was watching a mathemagic show the other day (that's a magic show in which the magician does multiplications in his head faster than you can do them on the calculator). Right at the end, the performer revealed to the audience the trick he used to square 57683 (i.e., to multiply 57683 by itself). It's not a trick in the magical sense of the word, it's a formula for calculating (x+y) to the power of 2, which we all learned in high school, except he figured a way to make it useful beyond the final exam.

So many of us learn to ace the test without thinking of everyday applications for the things we learn. Isn't it a sign that we should change the way we teach? Remove the notion that math is the same as learning to do sample problems or calculating answers. Maths should be about solving problems, turning an unknown problem into a known one, thinking what data you need instead of having it supplied on a plate. Maths should be about tricks like the ones the "mathemagician" used to break down the problem into manageable chunks.


Not many Western schools teach the Vedic Maths of simplifying calculations, for example, and yet there is something inherently beautiful about the fact that the square of a two-digit number that end in 5 is always the product of the first digit and one more than the first digit, followed by 25. For example, the square of 75 is (7x8) followed by 25, or 5625.

Or the trick for multiplying by 11 (see tutorial 6). This is not calculating - this is playing with patterns.

In another excellent video clip, Dan Meyer suggests how to make maths problems more challenging and more fun for our students. TV has trained us that any problem can be solved  “in 22 minutes, with three commercial breaks and a laugh track”, and his dream is to teach a patient way of solving problems.

For sure, not every learning style is suited to patient problem solving. Not every student will have a natural ability to perform complex calculations in their heads. But if these ideas improve the school experience for even one student, they are worth trying.

iPads and Learning Styles

In the last ten years, computers have become the answer to the complex issue of lifting education standards. Students dropping out of school? Give them computers in the classroom. Numeracy outcomes deteriorating? Here is a website where you can do sums and compete with people in other countries. Too few teachers? No problem: replace them with computers that work 24/7 and never get sick.

This year, a new sub-trend has emerged, with iPads as the latest panacea. Apparently, all you need to keep students motivated and interested in schoolwork is to get iPads.

iPads are cool, no argument there. The education programs available impress with variety and ingenuity: from spelling through division to scientific reasoning and creative writing, you can download an app to suit every student's needs.

Too simple to be true? You bet.

While almost every child (and grownup) will enjoy playing with an iPad, not everybody's Learning Style is suited to this method of learning, iPads are mainly tactile and visual, with a limited auditory output that's not sufficient to satisfy an auditory person. Kinesthetic learners, dreamers and people who learn in social groups are left behind in the iPad revolution. True, they're also left behind in traditional methods of teaching, but what's the point of replacing one inadequate regime with another?

Learning Style Analysis (LSA) is a tool designed to determine a student's learning strengths and needs. Before you go to the expense of buying an iPad for every student in every classroom, spend 5% of that budget analysing their learning styles. You may discover they don't need an iPad nearly as much as they need a quiet place to concentrate or an electric fan on a hot afternoon.

"There's Only One Answer. It's At The Back. Don't Look."

At Creative Learning, we are fully behind the concept of paradigm shifts in education. Our Learning Style Analysis tools are poised to place a higher value on creativity and to challenge people's thinking about teaching our children in standard batches that resemble a factory process instead of a journey of discovery.

This is why we're delighted to bring you the video by Sir Ken Robinson about the paradigm shift in education. It's not enough in today's world, he reasons, to work hard, get a good education and a good job. A university degree no longer guarantees financial success. We should concentrate more on the individual (see his reference to learning styles on the 7th minute of the video) and on nurturing creativity in our children.

Now that you've seen the video clip, are you keen to discover your child's learning style? Click here.

The Learning Style of a Bully

Bullying is a problem in schools worldwide. Whether it has grown since our own schooldays, or is simply only now receiving the attention it deserves, is still being debated. One thing is clear, however: 20 years ago teenagers did not send threatening text messages, they did not post demeaning videos on youtube, nor did they impersonate the victim on social networks. Technology has changed the face of bullying behaviour...

... and yet the face of the bully remained the same.

It is the face of somebody who does not fit in.

While there is no excuse for bullying behaviour, it is a sad reality that once somebody is labelled a bully (or indeed typecast as a victim), it's usually too late. Children yearn to understand themselves and to be understood, and the bully-label is all too neat an excuse for venting their frustrations. "I'm a bully, so I'll just punch your face whenever you annoy me."

The solution is to be proactive...

... and to identify children with bullying tendencies before they get a chance to display bullying behaviour.

Many children become rebellious at school because they feel bored, stifled and misunderstood. The secret to their successful integration into the school system lies in satisfying the needs of their unique Learning Style.

The way in which a bully absorbs new and difficult information might not vary from his non-bullying peers when it comes to the VAK (visual, auditory and kinesthetic-tactile) needs. His or her bullying potential will come out in their non-conformist attitudes, dislike of authority and their non-preference for external motivation.

(To check a student's learning style preferences, you can start here.)

With the Anti-Bullying Week upon us (15-19 November 2010), many people make a point to speak out against the problem. This is fantastic. Four in every five pupils are not involved in bullying incidents, i.e., they are neither the bully not the victim, yet they seldom have the opportunity to do something constructive.

You don't need to analyse a bully's Learning Style to realise they are already a bully. Anybody who hurts another person:

• through a physical act,
• with shouting, intimidating gestures, pulling mean faces,
• by saying hurtful things about them,

is guilty of being a bully and should be reported.

What anti-bullying policies exist at your school? Do they use Learning Style Analysis to identify early warning systems that could imply bullying tendencies?

School Discipline and Learning Styles

Q: What do Learning Styles have to do with discipline at school?

A: EVERYTHING

 

Everybody has their own unique way of learning new and difficult information. A student whose learning style is not matched, is a student under stress. A student whose learning style is not matched, is a frustrated, discouraged and bored student. A student whose learning style is not matched will misbehave, either by playing the class fool or switching off and staring out the window. And that’s the best-case scenario!

 

Have you heard of incidents such as the following?

·        Children running around in class, not listening to the teacher?

·        Children not caring about consequences?

·        Children being violent in the playground?

 

That’s because their learning styles needs have not been met for such a long time, those children have actually lost their respect for the education system and their in-born drive to learn. Research around the world has shown a massive improvement in both behaviour and academic results following the implementation of learning styles.

 

Check out our free group profile tool to see what easy changes you could make in your classroom (such as flicking off the lights or moving a few desks) to ease your students’ stress... not to mention yours!

 

Learning Styles and Teaching Science

Question: Can you hammer in a nail using a banana?

Answer: Sure you can. If the banana is frozen using liquid nitrogen.

Lesson planning:
Try to hammer a nail with a ripe banana. Make a lot of mess.
Drop another ripe banana into liquid nitrogen for 30 seconds.
Use cryo gloves and crucible tongs to remove the banana. Do not reach into the liquid nitrogen with your gloved hand.
Hold the banana in your gloved hand and hammer the nail successfully.
Do not let the children touch the frozen banana.

Explanation for students: A banana is made up of a lot of water, and water doesn’t make a very good hammer. When frozen, the water molecules slow down and hold tight to one another, creating ice.

Now, wasn’t that a lot more fun than an ordinary science lesson?

That’s what multi-sensory teaching is all about: having fun. Creative Learning and Prashnig Style Solutions advocate multi-sensory teaching as a means of getting students to pay attention, to behave in class and to learn the curriculum.

If you’re a teacher, make things easy for yourself. Depending on the child’s Learning Style, a bored student will most likely act up in class. They may play the fool or refuse to comply with instructions or simply stare out the window and daydream. They will certainly not learn much and they will not make your day.

Determining your students' Learning Style is the first step to a stress-free fun day.
With school science results falling dramatically in many countries, it’s time to resort to tricks such as hammering nails with bananas or soap suds explosion... even if the tricks border on magic. After all, isn’t all science magical? And aren’t magic tricks simply science that we don’t understand yet?

Learning Styles and Home Education

Home education, home schooling, home-based learning - whatever you choose to call it, the definition is the same: a parent opting to teach his or her children at home instead of sending them to school. Such a situation is an ideal opportunity to showcase the full benefits of applying learning systems and of respecting children’s learning diversity, because home schooling provides a naturally nurturing environment.

(To find out more about learning styles, please click here.)

The reasons for home schooling may include:
· Parents wanting to be actively involved in educating their children;
· Parents believing the school system not suitable for their particular situation (health, special needs, values);
· No appropriate school available nearby.

While the advantages of home-based education are many, not everybody’s learning style is suitable to learning at home, just like not every student’s learning style is suitable to the classroom environment.
Learning Style elements that you should consider before you embark on home-based education include the following:
· Your child’s need for variety;
· Your child’s social preferences in a learning situation;
· Your child’s need for teacher authority;
· Your child’s attitude towards parent authority;
· Your child’s need for mobility;
· Your child’s environment needs.
· Your child’s sensory input preferences.

To discover your child’s learning style, please start here.

For example, let’s assume that your child has kinesthetic preferences and non-preferences for visual input. Showing a TV documentary on refining sugar to such a child is pointless. The child’s learning style calls for a field trip to a sugar refinery instead, so that the child can learn by doing.

Is your child tactile? If not, asking him or her to create models of geographic landscapes or water molecules is counter-productive.

Does your child prefer a set framework and guidelines from you, or does he/she need to explore the topic on their own, without an imposed structure?

Do you know your child’s learning style?

Your Learning Tools for Life

What would you do if you could learn anything in the world?

· Would you learn a new language?
· Would you go back to school to get a qualification?
· Would you learn how to program computers?

Checking your own unique Working Style Analysis (WSA), available from Creative Learning Systems and Prashnig Style Solutions, will give you the power to change. It will give you the confidence in your ability and all the practical tricks you need to turn you into a successful learner.

Your report will discuss:
· The 4 aspects of your environment that you can change to improve your brainpower.
· The 3 physical requirements you need to satisfy for your mind to function optimally.
· The 6 attitudes that can help you or hold you back.
· The best composition of your study group or project team.
· The best way for you to receive instructions and information.

Learning is 50% frame of mind and 50% technique. Everybody can learn if they have the right mindset and know a few simple guidelines suitable to their unique style of obtaining knowledge.

Let us walk you through your recipe for success.

LSA and WSA: your learning tools for life.

Learning Styles and Homework Myths

(To analyse your child’s learning style, have a look at this free online demo.)


Myth 1: Don't agree to having the TV or music playing while your child is doing his or her homework. It's nothing but distracting and teaches a habit that will be hard to break.

Truth 1: Research shows that many students think and remember best when studying with background music. Furthermore, 20% of an elementary population in a research study scored significantly higher when reading in a noisy environment.


Myth 2: Use folders, small boxes, manila folders or other types of stationery for storing school work, both past and present. This will teach a life long habit that makes achieving set goals so much easier.

Truth 2: Yes, being organised is a wonderful habit to have. However, a child whose information processing is global, will feel distressed or even threatened by a neat work area. Such children draw comfort from a less tidy and less structured homework environment and will find it impossible to function at an organised desk. And, speaking of desks....


Myth 3: Children learn best when sitting upright at a desk.

Truth 3: Sitting upright on a firm chair puts most of your weight on a very small part of your body. Many children (and adults) find it distracting to maintain such a body position for any length of time. Speaking from a learning style point of view, many learners need to sit in a less formal environment (floor, bed, sofa) in order to concentrate better, or concentrate at all. Which leads us to sitting....


Myth 4: Students who do not sit still are not ready to learn.
Truth 4: Many students need mobility when they learn because of their learning style requirements. An American study revealed that half of one school’s seven grade students needed extensive mobility while learning. When they were allowed to move from one instructional area to another while learning new information, they achieved statistically better than when they had to remain seated. Most students who are actively involved are likely to learn more, pay closer attention, and achieve higher test marks.


Myth 5: Students learn best in well-lit areas and damage their eyes when they read and work in low light.

Truth 5: Research shows that many students perform significantly better in low light environments, because bright light makes them restless, fidgety and hyperactive. Low light calms these youngsters down and helps them relax and think clearly. The younger children are, the less light they seem to need! They only need that amount of light for reading in which they feel comfortable, but their need for light seems to increase every five years.

(Does your child need bright light to do her homework? Find out here.)

The Magic of Learning Styles

Maggie is a wonderful 10-year old girl. She is bright, good at sports (athletics and basketball), plays the trumpet in the school band and has a talent for creating little animals from play dough. Sadly, Maggie is unable to study in traditional academic ways.

No, there is nothing wrong with her: she’s not physically handicapped in any way. She is not dyslexic and she doesn’t have ADHD.

So what is it that’s preventing Maggie from achieving academic progress at school? In a word (make that two words) it’s her Learning Style. Her learning style is not compatible with the way her school (and most schools world-wide) teaches academic subjects.

In traditional schools, teachers make use of the blackboard (or the whiteboard). They talk and the children are supposed to sit up straight and listen. Which is a perfectly valid method of teaching and it works for all those who absorb information through their eyes and ears, and who concentrate best when sitting up straight.

But what about those who, like Maggie, absorb information through their hands and body actions, and who concentrate best in an informal setting? Well, such students become bored and frustrated. Although academically intelligent, they don’t perform well in academic subjects. Left without help, they get used to failure. Their confidence plummets and they start believing that they are “not good” at school work, or “not clever”.

Fortunately for Maggie, he teachers are aware of her learning style and they customise their lessons to accommodate her... as well as the 16 other pupils in Maggie’s class whose learning styles diverge from the traditional.

Do you know a child like Maggie?

(To analyse your child’s learning style, have a look at this free online demo.)

Learning Styles and Creative Learning Tools

The learning tools your child needs will depend on their individual Learning Style. If they are highly auditory, their favourite learning tool will probably be a tape recorder or iPod. A visual learner, on the other hand, will like to have lots of colourful pens, pictures and educational videos.

The learning tool described below is an invaluable aid for tactile learners in particular. It makes difficult content easy to remember. It is fun and easy to make, and we encourage you to try it out in order to enhance your child’s blended learning experience… unless your child a non-preference for visual/tactile learning.


Making a Wrap-Around
1. Using thick cardboard (about A4 size), cut out a rectangular shape and then cut an equal number of notches down the long sides. Pierce a hole on the top right side of the cardboard and cut a slit in the centre of the bottom side.
2. On the left side of the cardboard sheet, write down the questions. On the right, write the answers in random order. (See Fig.1)
3. Take a length of string. Thread it through the top hole and secure it with a knot.
4. Starting at the top left hand question, wrap the string to the correct answer on the right. Then wrap the string behind the cardboard to the second question on the left and continue until all the questions have been answered.
5. Secure the string in the slit at the bottom of the board. While the string is in place, mark its path on the reverse of the cardboard (see Fig.2).
6. Your tool is now ready to use.

To analyse your child’s learning style, have a look at this free online demo.

How to deal with an exam that does not suit your learning style?

If your child has strong analytic preferences, how do you help her prepare for essay-type questions? Analytic children like facts and find it difficult to answer open-ended questions, particularly those that seek opinions and generalisations. Here are a few tips to help them cope:
· Read each question and identify which part or parts of the syllabus it can possibly refer to. For example, if they encounter a question like: “Do you think that a virus has good survival skills?”, teach them to ignore the potentially nonsensical notion of a virus having skills. Instead, ask them to concentrate on what the teacher actually wanted to know: something about rapid mutation, perhaps, or a hardy shell protecting the virus interior?
· When writing an essay-type answer, take a scrap sheet and jot down as many facts as you can remember. Now write a sentence for every one of those facts - that is your essay.
· If the question asks for your opinion, for example, was Hamlet really insane or was he just acting, again write down all the facts “for” and “against” the theory that he was insane. Can you make a decision? If you can, write your essay with that decision in mind. If you cannot, present a balanced argument and then end with something non-committal, like: “The jury is still out on that one”.


If your child has strong holistic preferences, she will not enjoy concentrating on details. Holistic children don’t like exam questions that ask to list facts, tabulate differences or fill in missing words. Some tips to help them cope:
· Learn the material by focussing on the big picture first, that way the facts will slot in more easily.
· Practice for the exam by identifying the facts and highlighting the important words (dates, names). Then cut out bits of cardboard to cover up the important words (you can stick them on with Prestik) and try to fill in the blanks.
· Remember that the purpose of the exam is to help you gain the knowledge you need.


To analyse your child’s learning style, have a look at this free online demo.

Learning Styles and Tests

If you are familiar with the concept of learning styles, you will realise that your child’s learning style will have an impact on the type of classroom test that your child prefers.

· Analytic children generally prefer questions that require factual detailed answers, typically in the form of “True/False” or Fill-the-missing-word or List 5 differences between a snail and a frog.
· Holistic children may do better in essay-type tests and more open-ended questions.
· Impulsive children will like multiple-choice type tests.
· Visual children will enjoy tests with lots of pictures: label this diagram, draw a cross-section of a plant cell, etc.

Of course, your child’s very attitude to tests will also depend on her unique learning style. If she is a holistic learner, she will need to understand the purpose of the test. Tell her tests are important to monitor learning progress and to show how well the teacher is doing his job.

Holistic children may also get more stressed in test situations. Try to remove as much of the stress as possible: ask the teacher to let them take the test in their preferred environment (based on their LSA results). Give your child a test at home every day for a month and then the test it won’t feel “special”, so the stress factor will be reduced. Removing the time factor (i.e., not letting them feel that there is a strict deadline for finishing the test) may make them perform better as well.

What motivates your child: external recognition (i.e., doing well in the test) or the internal knowledge that she understands and knows the material?

To analyse your child’s learning style, have a look at this free online demo.

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Learning Styles and Information Processing

"Impatience in search and navigation, and zero tolerance for any delay in satisfying their information needs" - does that sound like anybody you know?

University College London recently conducted a study into how people process information. The study focussed on those born after the arrival of the Internet, and it concluded that “the Google generation”, although skilled at finding information on the Internet, doesn’t know how to process the results.

On the plus side, they seem to be able to handle more inputs of information at once than the older generation. They can type an email while watching a movie and conducting three online chats. But is that true multitasking, or has the Google generation learnt how to tune out?

Your learning style is the way
in which you understand and remember new concepts.

If your learning style is that of a simultaneous multi-processor of information, you will have no trouble multitasking in our highly multitask-oriented society. If you think sequentially, however, today’s multitasking work environment will most likely make you stressed and ultimately burnt out.

Whether the Internet will make you more productive, or whether you will lose your focus and simply surf for hours without a goal, also depends on your learning style.

(To analyse your learning style, have a look at this free online demo.)

One thing is certain, however: today’s regular availability of information will have an impact on the amount of information people get exposed to and ultimately retain. And at least using the Internet is less passive than watching TV.

Learning Styles and School Discipline

Many otherwise successful countries (USA, Great Britain, New Zealand) are struggling with educating their children. That’s despite access to fabulous resources such as free schooling, the latest computer technologies, free libraries, learning tools and experienced teachers.

Why?

According to teachers who worked both in developing and in developed countries, it’s all a matter of the environment’s attitude to education. People in Korea or Thailand, just to name a few, have a lot of respect for the school system, and teachers are respected as “the other set of parents away from home”. Education is expensive there, with at least a third of the family’s income being swallowed by schooling costs, and children are appropriately mindful not to waste the hard-earned opportunity they are given.

In contrast, children in developed countries often assume it’s their right not only to have a wonderful free school nearby, but also to get educated by osmosis and without the least bit of effort on their part. If they fail, it’s the teachers’ fault for not teaching well, or the parents’ fault for not choosing the right school, or the school’s fault for... the excuses just get more creative. The result is lack of academic progress and slack discipline at school (see the news box about new measures schools are forced to adopt).

It's time we stopped passing the blame. We are blessed and privileged to have brilliant education assets at our disposal, and all we need to do is change our attitude to learning.

Learning should not be a chore.

Learning should be fun!

The human brain wants to learn: it evolved (or was designed, whichever theory you wish to follow) that way. All you need to do, is get the children’s attitude right, their learning environment optimal to their unique learning style needs and learning tools suitable to multi-sensory stimulation. If you look at the elements in the Learning Style Pyramid, you will see that Motivation, Responsibility, Conformity and Persistence are some of the Attitudes that determine a child’s success at school and their individual learning style.

Your child’s learning style is the way
in which they understand
and remember new concepts.

To analyse your child’s learning style, have a look at this free online demo.