What learning styles suit online learning? (IT Assignment 2)

Assignment 2 for ED4134 demonstrates the ability to enrich a blog while at the same time demonstrating an understanding of how the blog can be used as an effective cognitive e-tool in the electronic classroom. The assignment requires a conscious connection between the design of the blog and educational theory. Aspects of the blog are to be related to Hattie, Vygotsky, Bloom and Gardner.

This "post" holds the theory for Assignment 2. All entries of the blog are to be taken into consideration, and the text here refers to posts within the blog in order to fulfil the requirements of Assignment 2 for ED4134.

The Assignment has at core text blogs. The text posts in the blog have obvious appeal to linguistic intelligence. However, the neat blocks of texts that peel off the keyboard have a spatial quality about them lending clarity to thinking. The computer has made me a much better writer because each paragraph is tactile through the keyboard. Each paragraph is like the room of a house in an architect's blueprint. It has shape and thus the concept takes shape as it finds form through each sentence and paragraph. Thus, text is visual representation of an idea and relates not only to linguistic intelligence but also to logical-mathematical and spatial intelligences. The keyboard's tactility appeals to bodily-kinesthetic intelligence. If the content of the text is thought-provoking, through discussion of the text in class, interpersonal intelligence will be brought into play. Existential and intrapersonal intelligences will be provoked by the philosophical core of the text. Text remains paramount.

Where the text is used as a stimulus for discussion in the classroom, meaning is assimilated by both student and teacher in a socially constructed learning context (Vygotsky). Each individual has an individual "zone of proximal development" and the discussion, if effective, acts as a scaffold extending each learner to a further stage of understanding.

Important Note (an "anti-thought"):

Like so much of educational theory, Vygotsgy's ideas are arm-chair philosophy because of the difficulty in providing empirical evidence within the general field of Social Science. Vygotsgy's zone of proximal development is hardly original. Only his term is original. In effect, his proximal development theory is an "inch-worm" theory of learning that states that individuals learn bit by bit. This is fairly prosaic as an insight - that each learner learns at his/her own rate and in stages built on a previous stage. It could be claimed that this is observable every day in the classroom - except of course for those individual learners in any classroom who do not progress whatever the theory of learning being applied at the time. It may be Piaget's theory, not Vygotsky's, that is validated by "inch-worm" learning because it is natural that as children age, learning naturally progresses...unless it does not, of course. And there is the difficulty - to explain why learning does not progress for some in any classroom where the teacher uses any particular cognitive theory.

Just as observable in classrooms is the huge jump in understanding that can occur when students meet a teacher who introduces them to something totally new and utterly beyond the ken of their knowledge and understanding. This sort of dramatic discovery-learning facilitated by a teacher who confronts student assumptions in a headlong manner happens every day. Some students respond to this in the most dramatic way and make great leaps of understanding. They do not proceed in a Vygotskian inch-worm manner. Of course, some students fail to see the point and do not progress - as is the case in any classroom. The reason for their failure to "learn" may not be that they were extended beyond their zone of proximal development. Students also fail in a Vygotskian classroom. Perhaps this is what Gardner's Theory of Multiple Intelligences is approaching when it is considered in terms of students' different learning styles within a single classroom. For some students, behaviourism will work; for others social constructivism; and for others again, a cheeky controversion of their current assumptions about a topic. It would be nice to think that the variety of teaching and learning activities available concurrently (that is, at the same time) in an e-learning classroom could accommodate different student learning styles within a single classroom.

The Assignment asks for a selection of graphics and images - these can be seen passim but particularly in the post - "E-Journal JS423: Liberation Theology" for Michael Elphick's course. The slide show provides a more kinetic display of images - in this case, images of my "private self" as compared to the image of my "professional self" that begins my "Biography" post: a useful post to introduce my educational curriculum vitae. But, of course, we all have many selves dependent on the multiple contexts in which we live our lives (see Shakespeare's famous speech in As You Like It).

The inclusion of graphics and images in an e-text is just another way to connect to learners' multiple intelligences. It is not exclusively related to Gardner's Multiple Intelligences. Were we to make a connection with Gardner, perhaps it would be with his term "bodily-kinesthetic intelligence", because the images embedded in the text help remove the idea from the abstract realm to a more physical representation of concepts. Still, newspaper editors have long known the power of the image and acknowledge that it is the initial reader-focus on any print-media page. Advertisers also exploit the power of the visual.

The video clip comes from "You-Tube" features Lou Reed. I play Lou Reed songs whenever I head up bands on guitar and vocals rather than my current role in my current band where I play bass. Lou Reed is to me the guts of Rock 'n' Roll at its best - clever, understated, with music that has space for lyrics that penetrate the cranium like a crystal bullet. He is sophisticated and dangerous at the same time - a social critic but a baby-boomer entrenched in New York's counter culture. He has a stake in society as it is; is old enough to know better; yet still takes risks.

The "You-Tube" video clip obviously connects with musical intelligence. The concept of social criticism implicit in Lou Reed's lyrics allows linguistic intelligence to cross-reference with spatial intelligence because it represents the ideas of Lou Reed's song in three dimensions (even though this is virtual three-dimensionality since the computer screen is a two-dimension phenomenon that tricks the eyes). It may initially contact Bloom's revised taxonomy only at an understanding level as it is viewed by a student-learner. Used as a stimulus for analysis of Lou Reed's message, or as the basis for creation of an original song by the student, it becomes a higher order task.

Related to the video is a very strange sound file featuring a blue-grass version of Neil Young's "Keep on Rockin' in the Free World". It is a people's redaction of a rock icon's definitive social sting. It is Liberation Theology as an MP3 file. The sound file obviously appeals to musical intelligence, and it lends itself to Bloom's taxonomy in the classroom by asking a student to evaluate this quaint, backwoods version of the song with the Neil Young original. All this comes through an open access source (Sonific).

The graphic organiser is my Inspiration mind-map of Prensky's Digital Native/Digital Immigrant binary opposition that began this course. It registers my scepticism about the equal efficacy of all learning styles.

Anti-thought: I do not believe that messy thinking is quality thinking. Focus is a clear imperative for deep thinking and deep learning. I do not believe that digital natives will be able to make the same contribution to the world of knowledge as logical, sequential thinkers. There is no empirical evidence on hand to prove the efficacy of hyper-linked thinking - a thought train that flits from a slither of information to a slither of other information. There is no research or empirical evidence to prove Gardner's learning styles theory (contact Prof. Paul Ayres in the Education Faculty at the University of New South Wales - he spends much time making this point in his lectures). On the other hand, there is research to suggest that focussed, multi-sensory linear and sequential thinking is a prerequisite for effective study skills.

The graphic organiser - the Prensky mindmap - appeals to spatial intelligence as well as the logical-mathematical. The concepts it raises focus thought on a tension, and this could promote deep self-analysis for intrapersonal intelligence. The discussion it could provoke works well in a classroom based on social constructivist theory.

The link to the Nuclear Disarmament game provides the assignment's requirement for an on-line game. The game teaches historical background through interactive prompts. It tries to capture the rapt involvement of a teenage gamer and steer it to a key social/historical/political and moral issue.

Here we have the ideal ICT tool for the Year 10, 11 and 12 e-classroom. The game appeals to linguistic, spatial, bodily-kinetic and existential intelligences. It combines text, location in world geography, inter-active tactility and deep philosophic/moral and ethical consideration. It is a best practice new medium, open access, and a collaborative platform. It creates social networks through the common interest of students who play the game, utilises end-user controls, and allows individual student progression in the e-classroom. The on-line game is congruent with John Hattie's observation that expert teachers are more effective in representing knowledge in ways accessible to students"(Hattie 2003) - and some students deaf to a discussion based approach on the issue of nuclear disarmament may find themselves able learners through the new learning opportunities offered through teh on-line game.

The following comment was made in a Tuesday night workshop to promote bloggers' e-dialogue with fellow student bloggers. I place it here as an example of social connectivism - an extension of Vygotsky's social constructivism into the realm of cyberspace. Two comments have been made in response:

I wrote: A linguistic learning style could suit an on-line learning environment, even though at first this seems unlikely. The online learning could be merely the posting of transcripts of lessons. Comments could be invited. Hence, a dialogue could occur - teacher to student - where the teacher/student relationship was blurred so that the resultant dialogue could produce co-learners.

Logical mathematical learning styles could relish mind-mapping through "Inspiration".

A musical learning style could enjoy digital composition...the "Garageband" program on a Macintosh computer.


Hence, Assignment 2's technical and theoretical requirements have been fulfilled.

Reference List

Gardner, H. (1998) “A Multiplicity of Intelligences: In tribute to Professor Luigi Vignola” published in Scientific American and retrieved from http://tonymcarthur.edublogs.org/ed4236-resources/

Gardner, H. (date unknown) “MI after Twenty Years” retrieved from http://tonymcarthur.edublogs.org/ed4236-resources/

Hattie, J. (2003) “Teachers Make a Difference: What is the Research Evidence?” – a paper delivered at the ACER Annual Conference on Building Teacher Quality held at the University of Auckland October 2003. The text is retrieved from http://tonymcarthur.edublogs.org/ed4236-resources/

http://www.learning-styles-online.com/style/physical-bodily-kinesthetic/ retrieved 20.05.07

http://www.marcprensky.com/writing/Prensky%20-%20Digital%20Natives,%20Digital%20Immigrants%20-%20Part1.pdf retrieved 20.05.07

Shakespeare, "All the World's a Stage" http://www.artofeurope.com/shakespeare/sha9.htm retrieved 20.05.07