There are too many factors involved in learning and too many ways of approaching the question of how learning happens to think that any one theory can answer those questions definitively. But one person whose work has proven really fruitful for me is psychologist Howard Gardner, who has distinguished eight or nine distinct types of intelligence (he’s still adding to his list), each of which benefits from different approaches to learning and communication in the classroom. Gardner’s types have proved tremendously helpful to my own work developing teaching strategies for working with the special needs of all children in the classroom (e.g., Special Needs in the General Classroom: Strategies that Make it Work, 2nd edition. 2010).

The two most familiar types of intelligence–the linguistic learner and the logical-mathematical learner–fit in well with our dominant models of teaching and recognizing achievement. The odds are good that many teachers, themselves, are examples of these types of intelligence.

On the other hand, some of the other intelligence types may be familiar primarily as classroom problems. There are the “bodily kinesthetic” learners who are physically hyper-active and potentially disruptive; the spatial thinkers who are likely to sit and daydream; the musical kids who are continually humming or drumming; the interpersonal learners who may be chatterboxes; the introverted intrapersonal ones who keep to themselves; the naturalists who are more tuned into the world outside the classroom than to what’s on the board or in the book; or the existentialist, who is inclined to ask annoyingly fundamental questions that have no place in the world of the three R’s, questions like “For what purpose are we here?” or “How do we fit into the world?”

As long as classroom instruction is primarily geared to reach only one or two of these different intelligences, a lot of kids will struggle to process the information being offered them and experience a serious disadvantage in achieving success.

Fortunately, though each person may have a dominant style, most of us actually possess some combination of these intelligences and the learning preferences that go with them. A lesson or project geared toward one learning style is not going to be inaccessible or unhelpful to the rest of the classroom. In fact, by including different kinds of lessons for different kinds of intelligences, teachers will be helping all students develop their multiple potentials, while making sure that no one falls behind or gets lost because they don’t learn well from one type of teaching.

This offers great opportunities for the development of new and varied teaching techniques. For each type of intelligence and learning, there is a corresponding new type of teaching.

Too many classrooms still rely solely on verbal linguistic teaching methods — lectures and verbal instructions delivered by one person standing in front of a roomful of more or less attentive children. Many kids can and will learn  in this type of classroom, but too many others will lose their joy of learning and start to dread going to school.

Differentiated instruction involves a flexible, dynamic, and interactive teaching model that doesn’t expect all children to learn the same way, at the same pace, with cookie-cutter results. Students learn the same content and standards based curricula, but the path to learning is much more varied and responsive to the different learning styles and levels of the students in the classroom. Students who learn best through words or who think in more logical-mathematical ways, or those who respond to visual cues as well as the more physically and mechanically gifted students can all be engaged effectively in learning when we differentiate instruction. We reach the listeners, the talkers, and the introspective thinkers.

Once the basic concepts are understood, though, there are many simple and effective techniques for implementing differentiated instruction in the classroom. Introducing pictures and images, movement-based exercises, cooperative projects, and color-coded instruction aids are four teaching strategies that target the special needs of diverse learning styles, while still benefiting all the students in the classroom.

In the weeks to come, I hope to talk some more about the background issues and practical methods I have explored in depth in the second edition of my book, “Special Needs in the General Classroom: Strategies that Make it Work  2nd Edition (2010).”*

Though it may be challenging at first for teachers to learn these new strategies, differentiated instruction has the potential to bring much greater satisfaction, and fun, back into the classroom for the teacher who embraces it as well as the children who will benefit from it.

They provide a collection of free-loan accessible media, guidelines for educational description and captioning, and a variety of other services designed to support and improve the academic achievement of students who are blind, visually impaired, deaf, hard of hearing, or deaf-blind.

Best of all, it’s FREE!

These articles aren’t new to publication, however, I believe they still are worth reading.

From: Mirror cells’ fading spark: empathy-related neurons may turn off in autism. by Bower, B.
Source: Science News, 12/10/2005.
Via: HighBeam™ Research
COPYRIGHT 2008 Science Service, Inc.

From: WE FEEL YOUR PAIN. . . . . . AND YOUR HAPPINESS, TOO THE HUMAN BRAIN’S SOURCE OF EMPATHY MAY ALSO PLAY A ROLE IN AUTISM by Carey Goldberg, Globe Staff
Source: The Boston Globe (Boston, MA), 12/12/2005.
Via: HighBeam™ Research
Copyright 2009 The Boston Globe

From: Is the future of autism research to be found in the mirror. by Kessler, Richard J.
Source: Pediatrics for Parents, 9/1/2008.
Via: HighBeam™ Research
COPYRIGHT 2008 Pediatrics for Parents, Inc.