Children learn differently

Researchers are now telling us what every teacher knows: people learn differently. When Howard Gardner coined the phrase “multiple intelligences” to suggest that there are many different ways to learn, and that some of us favor one style over another, he was confirming what teachers had long noticed: that each child comes to learning in his or her own particular way.

We now can talk about “ear-learners” and “eye-learners” or kinesthetic learners. Brain research shows that different ones of us have different areas of our brains that are more developed than other areas. It is obvious that the differences go deep, and the implications for teaching are immense: educators everywhere are realizing that differentiated learning and multi-level class activities are necessary to teach today’s learners.

If we do our job right, we should be creating a learning environment that accommodates individual learning styles through differentiated learning opportunities. The outcome then is graduates who are satisfied, because their needs have been met, their own learning style has been used, and they have become validated for the individual thinker that they are. This is what we are aiming for.