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Learning Specialist Materials

Tue, 8 Mar 2011 11:04:22 -0500

http://learningspecialistmaterials.blogspot.com/

It’s All in the Presentation

Fri, 28 Jan 2011 13:19:55 -0500

If students are subjected to boring presentations and endless practice problems, many may disengage and some may even act out. Have you ever heard the expression, “It’s all in the presentation?” The way a teacher presents new class topics can impact each student’s interest, degree of focus as well as their learning curve. For example, a teacher could announce, “We will be starting a new unit on script tomorrow morning,” or they could say, “I
have great news! Tomorrow we will be starting one of my favorite activities, rollercoaster letters!” The second presentation will surely create a greater sense of excitement and anticipation. However, teachers are not only contending with the constant challenge of making their lessons engaging, but they also have to accommodate diverse learning styles. For instance, some students need to see examples, others are aided with manipulates, still others may need to process ideas aloud or make connections through webs or a sequence of steps. Clearly, presenting materials in a multisensory way is key so that all students can learn to their best of ability. But addressing all these issues can be overwhelming and exhausting.

This month Good Sensory Learning released its newest product, Place Value Golf, Hockey, Bowling, Shuffleboard and Stair Toss. This product was created to help make learning fabulously fun. Students can now learn about place value through interactive, multisensory games that are easy to make.

Executive Functioning Video

Wed, 1 Sep 2010 00:20:09 -0400

Dr. Erica Warren offers a definition for executive functioning, she explains how this difficulty impacts learning and then she presents strategies for success. It is based on her CD book, Planning, Time Management and Organization for Success: Quick and Easy Approaches to Mastering Executive Functioning for Students.

Learning Styles Video

Sat, 21 Aug 2010 21:47:26 -0400

Accommodating Individual Learning Needs

Sat, 8 May 2010 12:37:59 -0400

Understanding the different ways of learning is crucial before one can truly accommodate diverse learning needs. One must understand that it’s not a matter of fitting a student into a teacher’s or parent's best learning modalities; it’s creating strategies that accommodate the student’s unique ways of learning. To do this we need to first understand the different ways of learning.
I.                 VISUAL – Visual learners learn optimally through observation. They like to see visual stimuli such as tables, graphs, and pictures.
II.          AUDITORY – Auditory learners understand information best through listening.
III.        TACTILE – Tactile learners prefer to touch objects or manipulate things.
IV.          KINESTHETIC – Kinesthetic learners need to move their bodies. Activities and movement help them to engage in information.
V.                VERBAL – Verbal learners like to think aloud. They need to talk about their thoughts and academic material to themselves and others.
VI.          SEQUENTIAL – Sequential learners like information to be presented in a series of steps or specific order.
VII.       SIMULTANEOUS – The simultaneous learner wants to see “the BIG picture.” It’s important for information to be related and connected.
VIII. INTERACTIVE – The interactive learner needs to work with others. They like to brainstorm their ideas and get feedback from peers and teachers.
IX.           INDIRECT EXPERIENCE – The indirect experience learner enjoys vicarious experiences.   They acquire knowledge from the shared experiences of others.
X.             DIRECT EXPERIENCE – The direct experience learner wants to encounter or practice what they are learning.   They prefer hands on experiences that allow them to interact with the material.
XI.           REFLECTIVE/LOGICAL – The reflective learner needs to think about and analyze material that they encounter. They like to think things through and create concepts or models.
XII.    RHYTHMIC/MELODIC – The rhythmic learner is inclined to think in rhythms or patterns. They respond to music - either appreciating or criticizing what they hear. They may walk to a beat and some find that music blocks distractions.

Second, one must assess the learning profile of each student. This will uncover the best and most empowering approaches. To do this, one can observe and question the student. Also, one can offer them strategies from each of the ways of learning and assess success. Finally, one can give them an inventory, such as the Eclectic Learning Profile, which will reveal their unique learning style. It will offer strategies too, that will assure comfortable and successful approaches from the start.

Third, to accommodate individual learning needs, one must offer the student strategies that are in line with their best ways of learning. For instance, to "speak the language" of a kinesthetic learner, one must offer learning activities that incorporate movement, whereas a verbal learner, would need the opportunity to process their ideas aloud.

By stepping out of one’s own learning needs and accommodating the unique needs of each individual, every student can maximize their learning potential.

Erica Warren :: learningtolearn.biz

Under a Mammoth Bag of Books: Helping the Overburdened Student

Sat, 8 May 2010 12:34:44 -0400

Academic expectations, pressure and competition continue to physically and mentally overwhelm our children. The personal and reflective time, once so plentiful, becomes more and more scarce. Standardized testing, homework, extracurricular activities and course requirements grow as we loose sight of our dear ones behind a mammoth bag of books. The weight of these forces can create enormous angst (not to mention back problems), thus robbing our youngsters of a childhood. How can we help our children carry the academic cargo pressed upon them? How can we help unlock the potential to contend with these ever growing forces? Our children await the code, a reservoir that can unlock the needed information as swiftly as a laser at the local checkout counter scanning a Universal Bar Code.
The answer for each student’s academic success is as specific as the address on a letter. All packages have distinct destinations, but our school’s ability to deliver our children’s personalized education is akin to the old US Mail service of the Pony Express, along the path most traveled. Package delivery has certainly come a long way since then. How about the fundamental approach to education? Are our children in touch with where they are going and how to get there?
Shouldn’t schools be teaching individual methods, instead of a uniform approach to education? Many people would say yes. However, the old system of serving all at the cost of the individual presides. If there’s an ill fit in the classroom, teaching methods can be woefully inflexible. For some students, it’s a much greater distance to the world of knowledge and learning, as their couriering service is unable to meet them even halfway. What is ultimately lacking is the frequency to which students’ are gaining access to their own personal ways of learning or important tools such as how to study, manage time, organize, cope with stress, enhance memory and be socially savvy. These are the skills that decipher the codes, hence liberating each student’s true abilities.
But what are we to do when we see them buckle under the weight of the academic freight, and we lack the control to change their teachers, academic requirements or academic assignments? The answer rests on survival skills that show individual students the best pathways from their particular vantage point and provide them the power and confidence to plan and execute new learning expeditions. A relatively quick and easy passageway to learning results when the corridors of personal understanding are illuminated and understood.
The bottom line is that everyone learns differently, and few students are aware of their unique talents and optimal ways of processing academic material. Comprehensive educational evaluations can help to uncover some of this information, but someone must show these students specific metacognitive strategies; metacognitive strategies that help the student to organize and encode information in ways that support his or her learning preferences and strengths. And when students learn how to use their inclinations and follow their abilities to work around areas of difficulty, their academic self-esteem and grades improve. They learn to access their own Universal Bar Code. With this kind of personal awareness, there’s cohesion and optimal potential.
How can we help them access their own deciphering code? Who are the professionals that can help unlock your child’s reservoir of perceptive acuity? On the one hand, tutors can be beneficial, if they’re knowledgeable, sensitive, and flexible enough to tailor individualized methods of learning. However, they often teach in the same ways that they themselves learn, which may be of little consequence if the student does not learn in this way. In this fashion, understanding new and difficult material then remains doubly challenging as the student must still compensate and accommodate the tutors ‘own’ style of teaching. This is not providing the source code for handling the ever-tilting towers of books and information that must be processed.
On the other hand, counselors, psychologists or psychiatrists may be of some assistance if there happens to be some kind of emotional baggage or if the problem rests in unresolved conflicts. Additionally, they can help the student that may have mood or personalities disorders as well as some attention difficulties with use of therapy and/or medications.
However, if the primary problem manifests as learning difficulties, nine out of ten times, the student requires the help of a learning specialist who can provide one-on-one attention. A well-educated professional that believes that the only true source code for the student’s achievement is his or her ‘own’ source code.

Learning Multiplication and Division is Now a Breeze for All Types of Learners

Sat, 8 May 2010 12:34:31 -0400

Rote memorization and endless drill is still a common and often ineffective teaching tool for simple multiplication and division facts. Many students spend much of the third grade and beyond trying to deposit these facts into their memory banks only to find that much of this information bounces. A grueling and often stressful process for children and many parents, feels much like repeatedly throwing a rubber ball against a hard wall.  If we want to assure that "no child is left behind," the encoding of these necessary facts can be accomplished with relative ease, if an individual’s best learning approach is addressed.”

So a challenge was presented. How can a teaching approach meet the needs of all learners? For ten years, I researched the theories of cognitive (learning) styles, information processing, multiple intelligences, and multi-sensory learning and finally uncovered 12 different ways of learning.   In 2005, the Eclectic Learning Profile was published. The next step was to apply these principles to specific academic challenges. Finding that many of the students I was assisting in one-to-one sessions struggled with multiplication and division, I reflected upon my students diverse needs and designed a multisensory teaching tool. Both me and my students’ tweaked the system over a two year process.

With great excitement, my students entered the recording studio of Ossining’s Bicoastal Music in December of 2006. Here we recorded multiples to public domain melodies. As one of the vocalists, Daria Gross reflected, “I love to sing, but I hate to do math. So, I sing my facts!” Next, I worked with another one of my students, Matt McMorrow of Ossining, who has extraordinary abilities in the arts and recruited him to create the cover design. As I tested the emerging process on new students, other creative learners helped to inspire multisensory tools. Ardsley’s, Jenna Marks, relished in performing dance routines while singing along with the audio tracks, while Kelly McMorrow and friend Zoë Holdorf, of Ossining, enjoyed playing catch with a multiplication, touch-math ball, singing their way through mazes and then teaming up to create hand clapping activities. What blossomed was an audio CD, text manual and multisensory handouts that could be used by teachers, tutors and parents. One Chappaqua parent remarked, “If this opportunity were available to me as a child I might not have suffered through many humiliating years of trying to hide that I did not know my multiplication tables which then slowed my ability to grasp other concepts and closed my mind to math for many years. It's been a great relief to see that my daughter, who has suffered similarly, was able to master the 3s in one day and have fun. This well thought out, multi-sensory approach is so catchy, the facts really stick.”  An Ossining, teacher stated, "What I love the most is the combination of activities and creative ideas. Some of my students love the songs; others are engaged with the physical activities, the coloring handouts, the mazes, or times table searches. There are tools to grab the attention of my most challenging students.”

The release of Multisensory Multiplication and Division to Melodies CD, (MMDM) which includes audio tracks, a manual and handouts, has enabled all types of learners to have fun while quickly learning their multiplication and division facts. To learn more go to www.goodsensorylearning.com