After
we meet a new student, our first task is to administer a Learning
Styles Inventory. Many of our students don't know how they learn
best, so it's enlightening for them and us to see if they are visual,
auditory, or kinesthetic learners – or a combination of any of
those three styles. Having an understanding of each student's
learning style helps us avoid a "one-size-fits-all"
approach to tutoring, so we can customize how we teach the student
how to best learn the material. As we get to know our students, we
also learn about their "intelligences," which are different
intellectual abilities that we all possess. This differs from
learning styles, which are the ways an individual approaches
different tasks; our intelligences are different ways of processing
information.
There
are eight different intelligences: verbal-linguistic,
logical-mathematical, visual-spatial, musical, naturalistic,
bodily-kinesthetic, interpersonal, and intrapersonal. Although we
usually don't administer an intelligences inventory, we and our
students generally get a sense of their intelligences fairly quickly.
Our goal is not to label a student, but rather to obtain as much
information as we can to understand who our students are as human
beings and how we can help them learn.
An
example: Many
years ago, an out-of-state friend shared that her granddaughter was
struggling with learning her multiplication tables. When I
questioned her about the girl's learning style and intelligences, she
had no clue. I sent her electronic versions of the Learning Style
Inventory and the Multiple Intelligences Inventory. In a fairly short
period of time, they had identified her learning style and
intelligences and, with a few suggestions from us, the girl learned
all of her multiplication tables rather by dancing to and singing all
of the tables. There were no flash cards - no fights - no complaints!
She had fun memorizing the tables in a way that suited her learning
style and intelligences!
