Natural Light and Learning Styles

If you've heard about learning styles, you know that some people prefer to concentrate in dimly lit rooms while others need bright light in order to think properly.

But that's not the whole story. Turns out, if you want a healthier child who gets better grades, let them play outside. Here's why.

No matter what their learning style, students and teachers alike can benefit from utilising natural light in the classroom. A Daystar article, Benefits of Natural Daylighting (1998), states that "there is increased student and teacher attendance, increased achievement rates, reduced fatigue factors, improved student health, and enhancement of general development. Furthermore, natural lighting eliminates noise and flickering from electric light sources and provides the best quality of light available in classrooms, gymnasiums, and corridors. Other research has shown that students in windowless classrooms are more hostile, hesitant, and maladjusted. Also, students in windowless classrooms tend to be less interested in their work and complain more."

Scientists know that the sun is a primary source of vitamin D, and increasing vitamin D intake stimulates calcium metabolism. There is a strong correlation between the amount of sunlight a child experiences and the level of dental decay. This means that day light is a crucial element in cavity prevention. Research shows that students’ rates of dental decay have decreased in schools lit by natural sunlight.

Still not convinced? The Capistrano Unified School District in Orange County, California, observed that the classrooms with the most amount of sun light had a 20% faster learning rate in math and a 26% faster learning rate in reading during one school year when compared to classrooms with the least amount of sun light (Heschong Mahone Group 1999a).

We don't know about you, but we're going to sit in the sun at lunchtime.

9 Reasons To Do Your Child’s LSA Today

Something Cool to Do

Children love doing the LSA evaluation because there are no right or wrong answers and because the questions are all about them.

3 Versions of the Report

That’s between 10 and 20 pages of easy-to-understand fully illustrated analysis of your child’s learning potential and advice. Your child gets a copy aimed at them, you get a parent copy and you get a copy for the teacher that tells them how to treat your child in class.

Reach Their Potential

Is your child word-visual, picture-visual or internally visual? Externally or internally auditory? Tactile? Internally or externally kinesthetic? Or even all of the above? Find out and you will be directly responsible for their improved performance in 2006.

Is Your Child Gifted?

These may be the signs that your child is gifted:

• can learn through several sensory modes
• has a preference for evening or early morning
• prefers to work alone or with true peers
• won’t accept authority
• is internally motivated
• never gives up
• dislikes rules
• doesn’t need help in structuring their learning.

  

Motivation

Carrot, stick or neither? Some people call it bribery, others an incentive. But do you know whether your promise of a special treat will help your child’s work or hinder it? Read their Learning Style report to see whether your child is externally or internally motivated.

  

Goodbye Homework Horrors

The Learning Style report  will tell you how to turn your child’s study area into their favourite place in the house.

Accept Your Child’s Style

You know, when they surround themselves with piles of books, papers and dirty plates with half-eaten apples, it doesn’t mean that they’re trying to annoy you. It may simply mean that they process information in a holistic way. Do their LSA to find out.

Banish Eminem

The Learning Style report  will tell you whether your child will benefit from listening to music while doing homework. But the report will also tell you (and your child) what music is conducive to learning. More importantly, it’ll tell you which music NOT to listen to during study time.

Is Your Child Safe On The Internet?

If your child has a preference for visual and tactile stimulation, if he or she prefers learning alone and structuring their own work, if he or she has a non preference for kinesthetic and auditory activities (all of these available from the Learning Style report ), then the chances are high that they will enjoy spending a lot of time on the computer - possibly in chat rooms. Internet predators look for quiet children, often those who are underachievers socially or academically.

Creative Learning Systems: Learning Styles Blog: Students Left Behind and Learning Styles

Creative Learning Systems: Learning Styles Blog: Students Left Behind and Learning Styles: The nine strong learning style needs in students who underperform are: A holistic teaching approach - overview first, depth later. ...

Students Left Behind and Learning Styles

The nine strong learning style needs in students who underperform are:

1. A holistic teaching approach - overview first, depth later.
2. Mobility at frequent intervals.
3. A variety of instructional resources from which to learn (to match students' low auditory and low visual modalities and their strong preferences for tactile/kinesthetic learning - hands-on activities - and their strong need for variety rather than routines and patterns).
4. Learning difficult content at other times, not in early morning classes.
5. Recognition of their high motivation despite their inability to learn through conventional methods; positive feedback instead of put-downs.
6. Friendly rather than authoritarian teachers.
7. Resources which introduce new and difficult information through multi-sensory methods (kinesthetic, tactile, visual, auditory) to make learning easier and more appealing.
8. Informal seating arrangements in classrooms to respond to their inability to sit on plastic or wooden chairs for more than 10-12 minutes and their strong need for mobility.
9. Soft illumination which means avoiding fluorescent lights in classrooms.

From the work we are doing with Learning Styles in New Zealand and internationally we can already see that the same features apply to underachievers everywhere. They inevitably become at-risk students and drop-outs when their learning needs are not matched over longer periods of time.

If schools had their students' learning styles assessed, trained their teachers to become more aware of diversity in the classroom and teach with matched instruction methods, as well as educate parents in their children's true learning needs, fewer students would experience frustration and the inability to succeed in academic classes. This could well be the cure for underachievement.

We at the Creative Learning are committed to helping schools eliminate underachievement. For more information contact us at: info@clc.co.nz

Save Money Or Increase Productivity?

More and more research nowadays is going into demonstrating that introverts are invaluable team members who've been sidelined for too long. You know, the people who sit quietly at their desks working while extrovert managers have one meeting after another?

We're not knocking managers or meetings. Both are crucial to the successful running of any organisation. It's just that those "backroom boys and girls" are as crucial. And they need an environment in which to operate as productively as they possibly can.

What an introvert needs when she or he concentrates on something new and difficult:

• a silent office;
• the opportunity to work uninterrupted;
• the opportunity to work alone, and to consult others when needed.

Unfortunately, too many companies try to save money by creating noisy open-plan offices which are said to aid teamwork. In fact, they aid talking instead of working, and they are the very opposite of what the introvert needs.

Next time your company is rethinking the office space, ask yourself how many of your employees would double their productivity if they were allowed to work from home, in a separate office, or with earplugs. You don't have to guess. Their Working Style profile will tell you everything you need to know.