Supporting Different Types of Learners - E121

Rachel: 0:40

In this episode, we are tackling the topic of our different types of learners and how we can support our learners who are a little bit more slow in the classroom.

Katie: 0:51

Yeah, we're gonna talk about the difference between cognitive ability and cognitive styles, as well as intelligence and how all of our students can build their intelligence in our classes.

Rachel: 1:01

Let's get started. This week Katie and I are gonna be talking about all of the different types of learners we have in our classrooms. And this is really going back to the book. Why Don't Students Like School by Daniel Willingham?

Katie: 1:22

We are going to be tackling chapter seven and eight here, and as Rachel has said, it's all about learner. And so I kind of thought of you, Rachel, as, as I was reading through chapter seven quite a bit, and I could picture all of your rants about like learning styles and, and I was like, oh, this is Rachel's kind of favorite chapter, I'm sure, because it fires her up.

Rachel: 1:43

It really was one of my favorite chapters for sure. And yes, it did fire me up and it was nice to, to kind of go through this and we'll talk, we'll talk about why in a second. But uh, it was nice to read through it and understand some of the underlying sort of brain science and different thing, different aspects about learning that really do support that. Our students are not necessarily all that different from each other.

Katie: 2:09

Yep. Which is essentially exactly what the guiding principle is. Children are more like than different in terms of how they think and learn. And so he goes into different cognitive styles versus abilities. And I think that's maybe a good place to start. So ability, so cognitive ability is like the capacity for, or the success in. Certain types of thought and thinking, whereas cognitive styles are like biases or tendencies and how you use those when approaching different things and new things. So essentially, He goes into the different types or proposals of cognitive styles, and he does actually spend a good part of the chapter talking about learning styles. So the idea of visual auditorium kinesthetic, mostly because of how prevalent it is in education especially considering studies show it's not a thing.

Rachel: 3:02

Yeah, I, I really appreciated the distinction between styles and abilities because I think that is one that we really need to think about it. There are major differences between abilities, so we can have students who, you know, have stronger abilities and say mathematical reasoning, and then other students who might have stronger linguistic abilities or. different sort of areas, right? But with styles, what, what I really um, appreciated about his argument is like, no style is really better than the other, and that they're equally useful overall.

Katie: 3:37

Yeah. And while we may have a preference, it doesn't mean. We use that preference everywhere and that teachers should have to change the way that they are presenting materials for those preferences necessarily. There. There tends to be this misunderstanding of what learning styles are and a teacher's role in kind of using those.

Rachel: 3:57

And one of, one of the big things he kind of really said there that really resonated with me is that, cognitive styles Are great when students need to be able to remember, say what something sounds like or looks like. But most of the time that's not what we're actually asking students to do. We're asking them to remember what things mean, and there's a big distinction there.

Katie: 4:22

And so he gives a couple of really good examples. For example, auditory, somebody who's an auditory learner, they may actually pick up, unlike the voice and how deep the voice was or intonation, things like that. But when we are typically talking about an auditory learners, we're saying that they need to hear it to make meaning of it and to understand it. But that's not actually. That means. and that's I think was one of the most revealing things for me, or, or the, the way that he explained it helped really make sense of it all.

Rachel: 4:52

I think the big one for me too is that it just doesn't give you an edge in situations where the meaning is important. So learning vocabulary, like, I think that was a really nice example in this chapter where, You could have a vocabulary list and you might differentiate and say, here, my auditory learners, you can listen to the words being spoken. And then my visual learners here are theca words with pictures to help you visualize those. That meaning kinesthetic. Maybe you're acting out the words like I, I don't know. the important thing to remember there is like that just learning the vocab, the vocab has meaning. And so having that meaning actually kind of shifts the dynamic and, and doesn't actually make a huge difference in terms of what learning style it's presented in. It's better to think about it as well, what is the best way to. Give this learning so that the meaning is what has become becomes important and what's really understood about learning. Say that vocabulary,

Katie: 5:58

And then he also goes into why we still have learning styles and this theory and why it's actually still around. And I actually thought it was kind of, I liked this part. Um, So we talked about how it's around because there are some learners who have excellent visual memories or excellent auditory memories, and so therefore we equate having that capacity. And, and that ability with this learning style kind of idea or theory. But then the one that um, I enjoyed the most is confirmation bias. And so once we believe something, we then interpret other situations which may not actually be attributed to this in that favor. So we, we use that bias, that belief to help guide our interpretation.

Rachel: 6:43

I have excellent visual memory ability, and so even at the beginning of a school year, I. Have my students, like wherever they choose to sit on day one, I tell them just stay in those seats for the first couple weeks of class. And then when I take attendance on the first day, I write down on a piece of paper exactly where they're sitting their names, and I can have their names memorized within a class period.

Katie: 7:07

Nice.

Rachel: 7:08

Yeah. So like I, I've got really good visual memory ability, but it doesn't mean. I need to only learn that way. I learn quite a bit just through listening. Like I love listening to podcasts and learning and consuming information that way. Or I think it really depends on the context, right? And what you're doing. And when I come back to always kind of talking and maybe ranting is probably the more appropriate term, but when I rant about learning styles, I love using the example of driving a. You don't learn how to drive a car by reading a book about it. You don't learn how to drive a car by looking at pictures at it. You don't learn how to drive a car by listening to someone tell you how to drive a car. You have to actually drive the car, so you have to do it kinesthetically like the, it's the only way to learn how to drive a car. And so I think it's more about knowing the context and knowing the meaning and setting up your learning. Activities to support the development of that meaning versus trying to differentiate and meet all these so-called, and I'm gonna use air quotes, learning styles.

Katie: 8:16

Agreed. Um, And then I also enjoyed. How he then went into multiple intelligences and, and this idea of abilities versus, or talents versus intelligence versus, how it's all kind of interpreted.

Rachel: 8:31

Yeah, so this is based on Howard Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences. And so there's eight intelligences. There were originally seven, but there was an eighth one added. They're linguistic uh, logical, so like mathematical logic. Bodily kinesthetic, interpersonal, intrapersonal, musical naturalist, and spatial. And uh, there, there were some interesting claims that were associated with this theory, that kind of, it, it almost ran away from the original work that Gardner did on the theory of, of multiple intelligences, so, mm-hmm. He basically said that the list is, is of intelligences, not abilities or talents. And that was one that he kind of stuck with. But then the other couple that kind of got added from many, many sort of other sources is that all aid intelligences should be taught in school and that many or even all of the intelligences should be used when presenting new.

Katie: 9:29

and he definitely did not agree with those two,

Rachel: 9:32

Yes.

Katie: 9:35

so I think his disbelief in them is actually quite justified. So he talks about how curricular decisions need to be based on curricular goals. Not based on the intelligences or, or talents that our students have, and that goals are based on community values. That makes a lot of sense.

Rachel: 9:50

It does make a lot of sense. And, and there's a lot of value to teaching the arts, like having that musical ability or, or sorry, musical intelligence developed within schools, you know, and, and there are strong curricular goals are related to all of these, but just because we have those goals, like it doesn't mean that we have to teach all eight of those intelligence.

Katie: 10:13

and then specifically with the third, he talks about how these different intelligences aren't actually going to help learn subjects necessarily. for example, poetry. It's not going to help somebody learn how to shoot a basketball or swing a baseball bat. And so if that's one of their skills, I mean, intelligence is, see, I intelligence versus skill. I mix it up all the time. So there, there are many situations where that's actually not helpful.

Rachel: 10:41

Yeah, I like the one quote says, you can't take one skill you're good at and leverage it to bolster a weakness. So I often think of there's, there's lots of this that kind of goes around. For example, if your kid's good at music, they'll be good at. and being able to transfer those between those two intelligences, it's kind of a myth, right? Or if you play chess with your kid, right, that they'll then be good at again, that logical mathematical reasoning, or it will go into some or good spat. Awareness. And so I think it's important to really sort of understand that you might be good at some of these intelligences, but it's not necessarily gonna transfer to other ones.

Katie: 11:25

And another thing I found interesting was that um, Gardner felt that like linguistic and logical, for example, were given more status, more value, which is part of the reason why the term intelligence was actually used. So it, it is a way to kind of bring all of them as equals.

Rachel: 11:46

Yeah. We do have to watch our language because we talk about some of the other intelligences as abilities, our talents, and even Katie and I have slipped up a couple times already talking about these. For example, a musical you don't necessarily. Automatically go, well that's an intelligence because you think of it more as a talent, but no, it is an A type of intelligence.

Katie: 12:07

Uh, Implications for the classroom, so, One of my big takeaways that he says is like, you have to treat students differently based on your experience with each of the students, so pay attention to what works for them and use that. Don't rely too much on some of these other theories that have been shown not to actually a thing.

Rachel: 12:29

I think the other sort of classroom implication that I took away from this is that we shouldn't really put a whole bunch of, I guess, like all of our eggs in, in this one basket of multiple intelligences. So having this notion of ability shouldn't undercut hard work and achievement, so. If you put a lot of weight into this, these multiple intelligences and say to a student, well, you know, you're really good at musical intelligence, but you're, lacking in mathematical logical intelligence, then that then might make the student think, well, I'm not good at it, so why even try? And we don't wanna do that because we know from. Other chapters within this book that practice and hard work does pay off and you can get better at a skill.

Katie: 13:18

and another takeaway is if you do like the idea of learning styles, think of that in terms of content versus the students themselves. So present it in different modalities as a way to kind of reach more students and, and allow for that um, preference,

Rachel: 13:34

being able to present something with multiple modalities is just gonna be beneficial for our students.

Katie: 13:41

Any other takeaways from this chapter for you?

Rachel: 13:43

I think the last one is that it's never, I, I, I wrote down this quote. I'm like, it, it, it is never smart to tell us a child that she's smart, believe it or not, doing so makes her less smart, really. So just be care. I think more careful about your wording, how you talk about learning styles, how you talk about multiple intelligences with your student. is something that you really wanna kind of be aware of.

Katie: 14:09

And now on to chapter eight, which is entitled, how Can I Help Slow Learners?

Rachel: 14:14

Yeah. And the guiding principle for this chapter says, children do differ in intelligence, but intelligence can be changed through sustained hard work. So this is just what I was talking about, that yes, you might be. Able, you might have a certain sort of baseline of intelligence, but if you put in the hard work and you do that practice, you can get better.

Katie: 14:37

And so this chapter, he spends a chunk of time looking at the whole question of nature versus nurture and, and the impact on intelligence. And I found that super fascinating and interesting. There were some studies done on twins, which I found interesting. and I think it's, it's good to kind of see that because what's kind of discovered is that it really is exposure and practice and, and nurture versus nature alone. And so while there might be a little interplay of genetics that doesn't mean that that is going to be the outcome. There are many other kind of. Factors at play.

Rachel: 15:13

Yeah. Basically it, it sums up to two things in how you can improve intelligence, so you can build knowledge and teach students the skills that they need to be successful in a broad sort of area, different disciplines and um, areas. The second way that you can improve intelligence is to convince students that intelligence can be improved, and that one is probably harder than the first one.

Katie: 15:38

Yes. And, and he acknowledges that. So this idea of helping students to develop a growth mindset is hard. It doesn't have a huge effect necessarily, but it still does have an effect. And so, so he does stress continuing with this whole encouragement of growth mindset and, making sure kids know that they can learn.

Rachel: 15:57

And that comes from the work of Carol dw. So where she talks about fixed mindsets, where students believe that they are born with a certain ability and that can't be changed, versus a growth mindset where they do believe that their intelligence can be changed and that they can improve over. I found it pretty interesting because when I was sort of reading that whole section about growth mindset, about how we can improve intelligence with my, with students, I immediately went to a mastery based learning and b, on grading and what the work that we've been doing with our grade nine science course this year and how supportive. All of that is into building growth mindsets and students, and it's not that we necessarily set out to set it up that way, but that is really what it's encouraging is that growth mindset.

Katie: 16:51

Yes, and the importance of feedback versus just saying, you did a great job. We need to tell them where the areas of improvement are. Like they need to hear that feedback so they know the next steps.

Rachel: 17:03

And I think, uh, a couple of other sort of big takeaways from this chapter for me is that slow learners are basically, they, they will differ in what they know. They'll sort of differ in their motivation. They're persistent in face of setbacks, in their self-image of students. But that intelligence can be changed because it's malleable. It can be improved.

Katie: 17:29

Yeah. And it's, and it's how we embrace that and how we make sure these slows do not feel like they're dumb because they are not dumb. And so we have to really reinforce that and help them see that change is possible.

Rachel: 17:42

I think even if it's not intentional, like those students have gotten that message for most of their schooling careers. And so changing that mindset and changing mindsets in general like that is hard.

Katie: 17:54

Yes it is.

Rachel: 17:55

And it is not gonna be done overnight.

Katie: 17:57

No, not at all.

Rachel: 17:58

So I guess that that kind of begs the question then, like what can we do in our classrooms? And I think one of the things that we can do is just really talking about intelligence as a place where we can grow. Like bringing in that terminology and talking about. How we can improve and how we can all improve. We can learn from our mistakes. We can take those risks because that is where the learning happens.

Katie: 18:24

And one of the takeaways I really liked was telling students that hard work pays off. It. It gives the students the idea that there is control and they do get to control the process of learning and, and their own intelligence, and, and knowing that putting in the time and effort will make a difference.

Rachel: 18:41

and we hear about this too a lot, but really explicitly treating failure as a natural part of the learning process. And this is why I love mastery based learning so much, because it's okay if you fail the first time. Like we don't all learn at the same pace or in the same way. So failure is just kind of a natural part of what happens almost every day in my classroom. I actually really like, sort of one, I I, I love pulling quotes because I love some of the quotes. They, they just really sort of really emphasize what's going on in this chapter. But uh, the one for around failure is, failure is no. But it means you're about to learn something. You're gonna find out something that you didn't understand or didn't know how to do. And I love that because it is, you learn so much from your mistakes.

Katie: 19:30

Another suggestion is not to take study skills for granted. We can't assume that our students know and recognize the skills that they need to access and use in order to improve their learning. So we need to make sure we are kind of telling them what to do and being more explicit and making sure they can develop those skills to become success.

Rachel: 19:53

I laughed at, uh, one of the examples where he said, you know, a student will come up to him and say, yeah, I studied for this for three or four hours and I didn't do well. And then he kind of turns around because those students who are highly successful on it have probably studied more like 20. So just even having that awareness of how much time you need to dedicate to something or the best approaches to go to your studying is, is really important and not necessarily a skill that our students know.

Katie: 20:25

No.

Rachel: 20:25

I think the last one that I really, really uh, appreciated here in terms of the classroom implications was that catching up is a long-term goal. So slow students will need to work harder than brighter students to catch up because they're already behind. And so if they just work at the same pace and work as hard as a bright student, then you're always gonna have that gap in terms of. Achievement. Right? And so your slower students are gonna have to put in more hard work in order to bring themselves up to that level. And that can be really daunting for students. So it's worthwhile thinking about, well, what kind of small goals can we set with our students? Things that are achievable, things that are concrete that they can work towards, that we know that are gonna put them on that path to catching.

Katie: 21:16

And that is chapter seven and eight.

Rachel: 21:19

Yeah, so what we'll do is include any of the resources or links we talked about here today in our show notes. You can access our show notes for this episode@edugals.com slash 1 21. That's edu G a l s.com/ 1 21.

Katie: 21:36

And if you like what you heard today, then feel free to share it with a colleague or a friend, and don't forget to subscribe on your favorite podcast app so that you don't miss out on any future content.

Rachel: 21:46

And as always, we'd love to hear from you, so especially your thoughts on learning styles and what you think about learning styles. Now that you've listened to this episode, we're curious, have we changed your mind? Not. Anyway, go onto our flip at edu gals.com/flipgrid and you can leave us a video message there, or you can go onto our website@edugals.com and leave us a written response.

Katie: 22:10

Thanks for listening and see you next week.