We Can't Learn the Same Way

There are approximately 8 billion people in this world. As we can not oppose to the idea of those people being different in terms of personality, looks, characteristics, etc. We are naturally accepting that there is possibly more than one learning style. Logically, that must be true since every student does not learn the same way another does.

Many people suffer a lot by not meeting the expectations that IQ tests bring to our world, for example, being good at mathematics, having extremely high grades in school, etc. in different areas of the world. The reason for all this is that different learning styles have not been emphasized and appreciated in the classrooms enough.

Howard Gardner who is a psychologist at Harvard, has a theory called the Multiple Intelligence Theory which proposes that every individual has a different intelligence type. He compared intelligence types to different branches; visual-spatial, linguistic-verbal, logical-mathematical, body-kinesthetic, musical, interpersonal, intrapersonal, and naturalistic. The theory emphasizes that individuals' intelligence can not be measured through a singular standard like IQ tests offer.

Having different intelligence types means that the sense of understanding something also differs. Hence, different learning styles occur.

Every people have their own strength in life. Some people can be musically talented, or some can be a genius in literature, etc. Not fitting into a singular standard that today's world brought to our world, does not mean that an individual is not intelligent.

Having talked about all of the things mentioned above, I am going to talk about how we can adapt this theory to education.

Generally, state schools implement the curriculum that the government prepares, and teachers are expected to fulfill the learning objectives defined in the curriculum. When fulfilling these objectives, it is important to have alternatives for students who have different intelligence types.

It starts with the teachers. They first must be aware of these styles because the teacher is the one who facilitates learning. For teaching to be effective for all kinds of learners, the teacher should pay attention to the students one by one. This can be extremely hard considering the number of students within a class in some contexts. However, it is not impossible.

Here is the smallest example:

When preparing activities for a class, teachers can adapt those activities to different kinds of learning styles. For example, if you want to teach numbers, for teaching to be effective to visual learners, you can prepare posters or videos. Along with posters, you can prepare activities that require physical movement for kinesthetic learners, etc.

I talked about the minimal ways of incorporating the theory into the classrooms.

It is harder to change standardized rules, all we can bring to the table is creativity!

Can you remember the times your teacher represented different intelligence types in activities?

You can share your experiences in the comment section!