Learning and Thinking Styleand

Multiple Intelligence

Learning/Thinking Style

• Refers to the preferred way an individual process information

• Describe a person’s typical mode of thinking, remembering or problem solving

• Denotes tendency to behave in a certain manner

Learning/Thinking Style

• Style usually described as a personality dimension which influences your attitudes, values and social interaction

Perspective about Learning/Thinking Style

1. Sensory Preferences

2. Global-Analytic Continuum

Sensory Preferences

Sensory Preferences

• Individuals tend to gravitate toward one or 2 type of sensory input and maintain a dominance on that senses.

Kinds of Sensory Preferences

1. Visual Learners

• Learners must see their teacher’s actions and facial expression to fully understand the content of a lesson.

• They may think in pictures and learn best from visual aids.

• Prefer to take detailed notes to absorb the information.

Sub-Division of Visual Learner

Visual-Iconic• More interested in visual imagery such as

films, graphic displays or pictures in order to solidify learning.

• Have good “picture memory” or iconic imagery and attend to pictoral detail

Visual-Symbolic

• Comfortable with abstract symbolism such as mathematical formulae or the written word.

• Like to read about things than hear about them

• Good abstract thinkers who do not require practical means for learning.

2. Auditory Learners

• Learn best through verbal lectures, discussions, talking things through and listening to what others have to say.

• Written information may have little meaning until it is heard

• Not easily distracted in their listening ability.

Sub-Division of Auditory Learner

“Listeners”• Remembers things said to them and make

information as their own.

“Talkers”• One who prefer to talk and discuss.

• Find themselves talking to those around them.

• They tend to whisper comments to themselves.

3. Kinesthetic Learners• Benefit much from hands-on approach, actively

exploring the physical world around them.• May become distracted by their need for activity

and exploration• Prefer “learning by doing” preferring the use of

psychomotor skills.• Tend to have good motor memory and motor

coordination.

Global-Analytic Continuum

1. Analytic Continuum

• Tend toward the linear, step-by-step processes of learning.

• See finits elements of patterns rather than the whole.

• “tree seers”

2. Global Continuum

• Tend towards non-linear thought and tend to see the whole pattern rather than particle elements.

• Attention only to the overall structure and sometimes ignore details.

• “forest seers”

• Global-Analytic Continuum is also called Left/Right-brain Continuum. (Roger Sperry)

• Left Brain dominant individual is portrayed as a linear (analytic).

• Right-brain person is one who is viewed as global, non-linear and holistic in thought preferences.

• One side may be more dominant than the other.

Successive Processor (Left Brain)

• Prefers to learn in a step-by-step sequential format, beginning with details leading to a conceptual understanding of a skill.

Simultaneous Processor (Right Brain)

• Refers to learn beginning with the general concept and then going on the specifics.

Multiple IntelligencesHoward Gardner

Intelligence• An ability or set of abilities that allows a

person to solve a problem that is valued in one or more culture.

• Different intelligences may be independent abilities

• All of us possess the intelligences but in varying degrees of strength and skill.

9 Distinct Forms of Intelligence

Visual/Spatial Intelligence

• Learning visually and organizing ideas spatially.

• Seeing concepts in action in order to understand them.

• The learners tend to think in pictures and need to create vivid mental images to retain information. They enjoy looking at maps, charts, pictures, videos and movies.

• Their skills include:– Puzzle building, reading, writing,

understanding charts and graphs, good sense of direction, sketching, painting, creating visual metaphors and analogies, manipulating images, constructing, fixing, designing practical objects, interpreting visual images.

Possible Career Interests

• Navigators• Sculptors• Visual artist• Inventors• Architects• Interior designers• Mechanics• Engineers

Verbal/LinguisticIntelligence

• Learning through the spoken or written word

• Ability to use words and language. These learners have highly developed auditory skills and are generally elegant speakers.

• They think in words rather than in pictures.

Their abilities includes:• Listening, speaking, writing, story

telling, explaining, teaching, using humor, understanding the syntax and meaning of words, remembering information, convincing someone of their point of view, analyzing language usage.

Possible Career Interests:

• Poet

• Journalist

• Writer

• Teacher

• Lawyer

• Politician

• Translator

Mathematical/LogicalIntelligence

• Learning through reasoning and problem solving

• Ability to use reason, logic and numbers. These learners think conceptually in logical and numerical patterns making connections between pieces of information. Always curious about the world around them, these learner ask lots of questions and like to do expirements.

Their Skills include

• Problem solving, classifying and categorizing information, working with abstract concepts to figure out the relationship of each to the other, handling ling chains of reason to make local progressions, doing controlled experiments, questioning and wondering about natural events, performing complex mathematical calculations, working with geometric shapes

Possible Career Path

• Scientist

• Engineers

• Computer Programmers

• Researchers

• Accountants

• Mathematicians

Bodily/KinestheticIntelligence

• Learn through interaction with one’s environment

• Ability to control body movements and handle objects skillfully. These learners express themselves through movements. They have a good sense of balance and eye-coordination. Through interacting with the space around them, they are able to remember and process information.

Their Skills Include:

• Dancing, physical co-ordination, sports, hands on experimentation, using body language, crafts, acting, miming, using their hands to create or build, expressing emotions through the body.

Possible Career Paths

• Athletes

• Physical education teacher

• Dancers

• Actors

• Firefighters

• Artisans

Musical/RhythmicIntelligence

• Learning through patterns, rhymes and music.• Ability to produce and appreciate music. These

musically inclined learners think in sounds, rhythms, and patterns. They immediately respond to music either appreciating or criticizing what they hear. Many of these learners are extremely sensitive to environmental sounds.

Their Skills Include:

• Singing, whistling, playing musical instruments, recognizing tonal patterns, composing music, rememebring melodies, understanding the structure and rhythm of music.

Possible Career Path

• Musician

• Disc jockey

• Singer

• Composer

Intrapersonal/SelfIntelligence

• Ability to self-reflect and be aware of one’s inner state of being. These learners try to understand their inner feelings, dreams, relationships with others and strengths and weaknesses.

Their Skills Include:

• Recognizing their own strength and weaknesses, reflecting and analyzing themeselves, awareness of their inner feelings, desires and dreams, evaluating their their thinking patterns, reasoning with themselves, understanding their role in relationship to thers.

Possible Career Paths

• Researchers

• Theorists

• Philosophers

Interpersonal/PeopleIntelligence

• Ability to relate and understand others. These learners try to see things from other’s point-of-view in order to understand how they think and feel. They often have uncanny ability to sense feelings, intensions and motivations. They are great organizers, although they sometimes resort to manipulation. Generally they try to maintain peace in group settings and encourage co-operation. They use both verbal and non-verbal language to open communication channels with others.

Their Skills Include:

• Seeing things from other perspectives, listening, using empathy, understanding other people’s moods and feelings, counseling, co-operating with groups, noticing people’s moods, motivations and intensions, communicating both verbally and non-verbally, building trust, peaceful conflicy resolution, establishing positive relations with other people.

Possible Career Paths

• Councelors

• Salesperson

• Politicians

• Business person

Naturalistic Intelligence

• Refers to the ability to recognize and classify plants, minerals and animals.

• Learning through classifications, categories and hierarchies.

• Naturalist intelligence picks up on subtle differences in meaning

Existential / SpiritIntelligence

• Learning by seeing the “big picture”

• This intelligence seeks connections to real world understanding and application of new meaning.

• Ability to contemplate phenomena or questions beyond sensory data, such as the infinite and infinitesimal.

Possible Career Paths

• Shamans

• Priest

• Scientists

• Philosophers