VSL Learners: Part eight: Creating a visual-spatial classroom

Here's the assignment:

Create a blog with at least 8 entries to share resources and/or strategies with other educators, administrators, and/or parents. Be sure to include pictures, links, etc. in your blog. Make sure to describe how the resource or strategy might be useful to you and how it would impact VSLs.

We have come to our last lesson in the class.  I plan to write one more blog entry after this one, sort of  a summary of the class.

Use a variety of evaluation methods.

a prezi

• Allow students to show their learning in a variety of ways.  Papers, posters, prezis, powerpoints, movies, skits, oral tests and quizzes, and interviews are all methods of testing and evaluating.  All have their advantages and disadvantages.

Use a variety of teaching methods

• Lectures have only one major advantage.  A large amount of information can be disseminated in a short period of time.  When used, lectures should be accompanied by short quizzes (whether graded or not) that test what the students have just covered (clicker questions).  This allows for a change of pace and for a quick check on whether or not the students understand the material.  Lectures should incorporate discussion, pictures, sound and movies when possible.  Students should be allowed to stand up and move around periodically.  As a colleague says, "The mind cannot absorb what the butt cannot endure."

Keep the room comfortable and well lit and interesting.

I enjoy my room.  I try and keep the room at 70 F give or take two degrees.  If the temperature gets much over 72 F I start to feel sick.  Golon claims that this (70 F) is the optimal temperature for learning.

• Golon also claims that posting new items in the room is necessary to help retain interest.  I don't do so well  here.  I put up some posters and leave them.  Two of them (sequoia trees) have been up for years!  Golon also gives recommendations for wall colors and carpet color (p. 160).
• Natural light is preferable to artificial light.  My school was designed fairly well in this respect.  We have a lot of natural light.
• Although Golon claims that students do better listening to music, I disagree with letting students listen to ipods etc. in class.  I am listening to music now as I write this, and I have no problem in principle to students listening to music.  Many students, however, spend so much time playing with their music device that they get little work done.  
• Golon cites research as showing that certain smells such as peppermint help students learn and improve mental ability. (p. 161)

Other teaching ideas

• Present material visually as well as orally.
• Use maps, diagrams, charts, photos, etc.
• Use hands-on activities whenever possible.
• Give students enough time.
• Encourage color coding notes
• Venn diagrams
• Using fantasy  (I want to do this with my students this year by having them visualize the journey to the center of an atom.  I could do something similar as they explore a cell.)
• Use metaphors - How is a car/factory like a cell?  How is the body like a car/factory?  
• I've been thinking about having my Physical Science student create sentences, words and puns with the element symbols and names.  I usually just have them memorize the name and symbol, but results have been going down in the last few years compared to ten years ago.  Can you find He3 below?

Sources for images

• http://blogs.woodtv.com/2011/04/08/first-70-degree-day/
• http://g-o-v-t.wikispaces.com/E)+Comparison+Based+G+-+O+-+V+-+T+
• http://apreppyeducation.blogspot.com/2012_02_01_archive.html
• http://www.evidencesofcreation.com/dna02.htm
• http://chemistry-problems.tumblr.com/page/2
• http://uni-aza.blogspot.com/2011/10/forward-email-dd.html
• http://www.technospot.net/blogs/created-animated-non-linear-3d-slide-shows-prezi/

VSL Learners Part 5, Math!

Here's the assignment:

Create a blog with at least 8 entries to share resources and/or strategies with other educators, administrators, and/or parents. Be sure to include pictures, links, etc. in your blog. Make sure to describe how the resource or strategy might be useful to you and how it would impact VSLs.

Again, continuing our discussion of VS learners, (Visual Spatial Learners) we look at math.  First, a look at what our author Alexandra Shires Golon says in chapter 9 in her book Visual-Spatial Learners.  She begins the chapter by imagining a 13 x 13 grid which students will memorize with multiplication facts.  That's pretty daunting!  She makes it a little more bearable by doing the ten x tens, and the ones and zeros which takes care of a bunch from the start!  To continue to make the process easier, cut the grid in half, because there is a corresponding fact elsewhere on the grid!  Then add the twos and the fives.  Suddenly the process seems so much easier.  This is a great way to teach facts, and, I believe, to help students overcome their fear of large projects and tasks that seem daunting at first.  The students learn the patterns, and use the patterns to fill in the grid and learn their facts!  She then advocates using humor (You have to be 16 to drive a 4 x 4) and rhymes (6 x 4 = 24) (page 100).  She continues with more patterns for the rest of the multiplication table.  Again, she encourages showing the students the numbers (such as multiples of 12) and having the students look for patterns.  This is good practice for any student, VSL or not.  Dr. Silverman claims that students can learn their multiplication facts in two weeks if they are taught in a similar manner described above.  I would think that frequent review and repetition would help the students retain the material long-term.https://encrypted-tbn1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSUj9pbE1TyC554w_o6ejhnnAmr100FKOIBQSI-krcI1lvL6Wo0

For most difficult combinations she suggests using a drawing with the number of items on it.  The item should be something that the student has an emotional tie with.  They should place the drawing where they will see it last thing at night and first thing in the morning.

When I learned multiplying multiple digits, I learned the old fashioned way.  She suggests using lattice multiplication, method I am completely unfamiliar with.  (Since I don't want to run into copyright problems, here's a link to an example.)   You still have to carry in this method, so I'm not sure that it's really any better than the old method done neatly and carefully.

She also praises the use of math manipulatives.  Since I never taught math using manipulatives and don't need to worry about it now, I can't really comment on their use.  The math teachers at my school use them frequently and report that they are very helpful for students.

Whitney Rapp describes in detail the on page five the steps that a VSL must go through to follow a math lesson and learn a new concept.  At nearly every step the student can get lost.  This article also gives many suggestions for the teacher to help the student learn including games, movement, manipulatives, real life problems and others.


So in summary, I think that the aids to memorizing multiplication facts that were described above were useful for all students.  Not only are they useful for teaching the facts, but also in helping students discover, understand and remember patterns.  This is essential in science and math.  There’s no reason that VSL can’t memorize and use facts, they may take longer or need different aids in getting there.

I think new methods, patience, and consistent review are needed until the students have ingrained those facts as part of themselves, just as athletes and musicians build their skills until they are second nature.  We need to ensure that students don’t become discouraged with their difficulties and are taught and encouraged to be persistent.  Real life applications are to be encouraged in math and related topics so that students can better enjoy math and see its relevance to real life.

VSL Learners, Part 4 Handwriting difficulties

Part four:
This week we look at handwriting, spelling, and taking notes.

Here's the assignment:

Create a blog with at least 8 entries to share resources and/or strategies with other educators, administrators, and/or parents. Be sure to include pictures, links, etc. in your blog. Make sure to describe how the resource or strategy might be useful to you and how it would impact VSLs.

Before we start, one comment that might have gone better in last week's materials and that is the following quote.  For years I have wondered why some students (or people) get puns and others don't.  Here's a significant clue.  If you are a person that thinks that a word only labels one thing, then you can't get puns.

For writing to be interesting, the writer has to be able to express similar ideas in
many diverse ways. For auditory-sequential wordsmiths, this is not a problem. If they
don’t automatically come up with several different ways to express an idea, they push the
thesaurus key (shift F7) or pull the thesaurus off the shelf. There are endless ways to say
the same thing. This is actually a novel concept for the visual-spatial learner. I learned
from Gerald Grow, a professor at Florida A & M University, that visual thinkers tend to
use words as labels for pictures. Each picture bears one label. It would no more occur to
a visual-spatial learners to use a variety of ways to express a single idea than it would be
to go around and change the names of all the pieces of art in an art gallery.  (http://www.gifteddevelopment.com/PDF_files/Articles%20Archive/vsl/v37.pdf)

Handwriting is increasingly becoming a skill of the past.  Keyboarding is faster, and helps VSL students get their ideas down more quickly.  This article relates many events that can happen during birth that may lead to young people having hearing or writing problems and many ideas for helping to overcome difficulties in these areas.

So, what's one to do with difficulties with handwriting?  Try keyboarding, give more time when writing is essential, use other evaluation methods (oral, pictures, acting), and teach calligraphy.  Calligraphy?  How could this help?  In order to do calligraphy you need to slow down and learn consistent letter formation.  This helps you to write more carefully even when not doing deliberate calligraphy.  I've noticed improvement in my handwriting as well as in some students who have learned some calligraphy.  I've thought that an art class with calligraphy would be very helpful for many students' handwriting.  There are even books that have been written to help people, including adults, improve their handwriting!

Back to keyboarding.  In addition to increasing the speed of getting one's ideas on paper (so to speak), it also uses the entire brain and both hands.  Voice activated software is also an option.  Susan Jones lists many accommodations for those with writing difficulties and their teachers.  Dr. Magen has more on her site.

For those classrooms that do wish to pursue handwriting, there are methods and curriculum available.  Handwriting without tears is one of them.