Wall Charts, Classroom Charts, Educational Posters, Whiteboard Software, and School Worksheets

• Math
• Wall Charts
• Pocket Posters
• Whiteboard Software
• Worksheets
• Science
• Wall Charts
• Pocket Posters
• Worksheets
• Art and Design
• Wall Charts
• Business
• Wall Charts
• Design and Technology
• Wall Charts
• Drama
• Wall Charts
• English
• Pocket Posters
• Wall Charts
• English Literature
• Wall Charts
• French
• Wall Charts
• Geography
• Wall Charts
• History
• Wall Charts
• Music
• Wall Charts
• Spanish
• Wall Charts

• Computer Studies
• Motivation
• Physical Education
• School Essentials

Everyone can learn, but everyone learns in different ways

20 Jul 05

“All teachers recognise that a uniform way of teaching and testing is very unsatisfactory when everyone is so different” (Howard Gardner, Author of “The Unschooled mind: how children think and how schools should teach”).

For many years teachers have tried to understand each child’s preferred learning style and adapt their teaching practice accordingly. Now there are ways of assessing these individual needs and supporting them in practice.

Assessment systems on the market support teachers in discovering how students learn, work and study effectively. The systems are designed to identify the way a student learns, concentrates, thinks, absorbs and remembers new information, and solves problems.

These systems generally focus on assessing and identifying whether each individual child responds better to visual, auditory or kinaesthetic stimuli. A broader and currently popular system though is “Learning Styles Analysis™ (LSA) supplied by The Network Educational Press http://www.networkpress.co.uk/. Learning Skills Analysis goes beyond visual, auditory and kinaesthetic by also considering cognitive, biological, physical and social style aspects. The result is a very detailed description of a child or teacher's preferences, flexibilities and non-preferences in the learning process.

Once a pupil’s preferred learning style has been established, teaching can be put into practice to embrace it. It has long been recognised that children are more capable of consistent performance if their working/learning conditions suit their individual style preferences. When human diversity is taken into account and respected during the learning process, in training situations or in skills acquisition, the results are always positive.

Barbara Prashnig, founding director of Creative Learning Co. in Auckland and author of The Power of Diversity describes the impact of colours and lighting on the learning ability and emotional state of students. She comments: “The more I hear and read about the successes of educators in implementing learning styles in their classrooms, the more I have realised not only the importance of light levels, but also the importance of the ‘right’ colours for enhancing students’ learning.” She continues: “It is important to distinguish between the different properties of light and colour: the human being’s need for light seems to be very personal, depending on preferences for brightness or dimness, but the way people react to colours seems much more universal, based on the strong emotional qualities of different colours. Light levels stimulate brain activity in different ways and often generate physical reactions, whereas colours impact on human emotions and undoubtedly have spatial effects in rooms.”

Margaret Brooks, teacher, Holy Family School, Cardiff carried out her own in class research with her pupils. The broad range of educational wall charts supplied by DayDream Education had supported Margaret’s teaching for years. “To ensure I was matching my teaching styles to the children’s preferred learning styles, I would surround them with appropriate visual, auditory and kinaesthetic resources. The colourful and fascinating wall charts evoked tremendous interest from many of the children. I also used DayDream’s interactive eLearning versions which attracted all the children, by supporting all three preferred learning styles. My concern was that I was cluttering their minds with learning stimuli, so I cleared the walls of all the wall charts. The response was staggering. If excitement, hunger to learn, and motivation could be measured, there would have been a noticeable drop in the score”.

Prashnig’s advice to teachers supports Margaret’s decision; “Most often classrooms are either too cluttered or walls are stark and monotonous. The best would be a comfortable middle ground.”

Prashnig also suggests that in combination with colour, lighting is of utmost importance and natural light and full-spectrum lighting is the best. The ‘blackboards’ ideally should be green and not black.”

Of course these days the Government’s funding means that there are probably more interactive whiteboards then static blackboards. The advantage of these interactive whiteboards is that they do not have to have a white screen, but can use any colours on the display. While nearly every interactive whiteboard offers colour display, some brands limit the direct interactivity with the boards to the electronic pens.

One example of an interactive whiteboard which can support those with visual and kinaesthetic learning styles by responding to finger touch or any other implements is the SMART Board. Rushall JMI School, in Walsall have explored art on a SMART Board using paint brushes. Austin Cheminais, head teacher at Rushall comments: “Using paint brushes to interact with the board, the children “paint” over their projected photographic image to enhance the picture and convert it to a digital painting. Art is a very physical and creative activity. Using an interactive whiteboard in Art and Design lessons helps to unleash the student’s physical, interactive and mental creativity.”

What is clear is that moving forward teachers are being encouraged to be more creative in the way they deliver lessons. When teachers consider the challenge of teaching in a way that appeals to students’ with a range of individual requirements this can seem daunting. However, by realising that a difference can be made by something as simple as visual engaging classrooms or by considering the inclusion of touch and sound through ICT they will appreciate that a difference can be made easily.

Depending on each child’s preferred learning style some children understand topics better if they are represented visually, therefore we believe that interactive whiteboardwall software can be used on large screens and can work as an excellent support tool for teaching ICT. Ultimately students and teachers appreciate the way in which they can make explaining and understanding complex concepts easier by bringing the subjects to life.

Daydream Education offers this new element of learning through the adaptation of their wall charts. The user-friendly wall charts use clear vibrant images and a simple format that allows the teachers and pupils to easily interact with text and animations. Further to this, the interface of the interactive wall charts by their nature can be used to explore the subject in further detail. The chart can be shown in full or sections of the chart can be revealed building up the concept and thus developing the comprehension of the pupils. Teacher and Student can interact with each individual item while particular text and images can be turned on and off. This has proven to be particularly effective with SEN pupils.