Four Modalities of Learning

Learning modalities are the sensory channels or pathways through which individuals give, receive, and store information. Perception, memory, and sensation comprise the concept of modality. The modalities or senses include visual, auditory, tactile/kinesthetic, smell, and taste. Researchers, including Reiff, Eisler, Barbe, and Stronck have concluded that in a classroom, the students would be approximately:

  • 25-30% visual
  • 25-30% auditory
  • 15% tactile/kinesthetic
  • 25-30% mixed modalities

Therefore, only 30% of the students will remember most of what is said in a classroom lecture and another 30% will remember primarily what is seen.

Visual learners are those who learn by seeing. They need to see overheads, diagrams, and read text books, etc. to understand a concept.

Auditory learners must hear what they are learning to really understand it. They enjoy listening, but cannot wait to have a chance to talk themselves. These students respond well to lecture and discussion.

Tactile/kinesthetic learners need to feel and touch to learn…these learners also learn better if movement is involved. They may be those students who are not doing well in school. Instruction geared to the auditory learner can be a hindrance to these learns, causing them to fall behind. One key reason at-risk children have trouble with school is that they tend to be these types of learners. About one-third of students do not process auditorially and are educationally deaf. Students with a tactile strength learn with manipulatives such as games, the internet, and labs.

An effective means to reach all learners is modality-based instruction; this consists of organizing around the different modalities to accommodate the needs of all learners. Most students learn with all their modalities, but some students may have unusual strengths and weaknesses in particular modalities. For example, students strong in the visual modality will be frustrated or confused with just verbal explanations.

The following chart describes each modality and can help you determine your learning style; read the word in the left column and then answer the questions in the successive three columns to see how you respond to each situation. Your answers may fall into all three columns, but one column will likely contain the most answers. The dominant column indicates your primary learning style.

Read more

The Economics of Education

It has been argued that high rates of education are essential for countries to be able to achieve high levels of economic growth. Empirical analyses tend to support the theoretical prediction that poor countries should grow faster than rich countries because they can adopt cutting edge technologies already tried and tested by rich countries.

However, technology transfer requires knowledgeable managers and engineers who are able to operate new machines or production practices borrowed from the leader in order to close the gap through imitation. Therefore, a country’s ability to learn from the leader is a function of its stock of “human capital”. Recent study of the determinants of aggregate economic growth have stressed the importance of fundamental economic institutions and the role of cognitive skills.

At the level of the individual, there is a large literature, generally related to the work of Jacob Mincer, on how earnings are related to the schooling and other human capital. This work has motivated a large number of studies, but is also controversial. The chief controversies revolve around how to interpret the impact of schooling. Some students who have indicated a high potential for learning, by testing with a high intelligence quotient, may not achieve their full academic potential, due to financial difficulties.

Economists Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis argued in 1976 that there was a fundamental conflict in American schooling between the egalitarian goal of democratic participation and the inequalities implied by the continued profitability of capitalist production.

Read more

A Brief History of Education

Education is the process of facilitating learning. Knowledge, skills, values, beliefs, and habits of a group of people are transferred to other people, through storytelling, discussion, teaching, training, or research.

Education frequently takes place under the guidance of educators, but learners may also educate themselves in a process called autodidactic learning. Any experience that has a formative effect on the way one thinks, feels, or acts may be considered educational.

Education is commonly and formally divided into stages such as preschool, primary school, secondary school and then college, university or apprenticeship. The methodology of teaching is called pedagogy.

A right to education has been recognized by some governments. At the global level, Article 13 of the United Nations’ 1966 International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights recognizes the right of everyone to an education. Although education is compulsory in most places up to a certain age, attendance at school often isn’t, and a minority of parents choose home-schooling, sometimes with the assistance of modern electronic educational technology (also called e-learning). Education can take place in formal or informal settings.

Read more

Making Real-World Connection

Curriculum, multimedia, real-world connection, assessment, collaboration, extended time, and student decision making—seven dimensions of project-based multimedia projects may seem to be a lot to think about; but if you have a multimedia project with a strong real-world connection, you can hardly go wrong. Student engagement is just about guaranteed. This is a project your students will work hard on now and remember for a long time.
Multimedia is like any other practical art form—it makes sense only when it is part of a context. In wood shop, students don’t make joints, they make birdhouses with joints. In sewing, they don’t make seams, they make clothing with seams. We don’t just combine random media elements, we make multimedia that communicates something. In creating a real-world connection, you are embedding multimedia in a rich context in which students will learn and practice skills, gather and present information, and solve problems. Indeed, the real-world connection is a strong distinguishing element of this learning approach that makes it so motivating for students.
A real-world connection means that students see a reason to do this project, other than the fact that you assigned it and they will get a grade on it. There are so many ways to connect to the real world that even beginners to the multimedia approach can design a project that students will find worthwhile.

Read more

Survive on Your College Costs

College can be expensive, but it’s possible to both save on costs and make your money go farther once you’re enrolled. Here are 10 big and small ways to cut college costs.

  1. Stay in state—or nearby
    Going to an in-state college can amount to huge savings. The average tuition and fees for in-state students tallied $7,635 in 2011-2012, compared to $17,785 for out-of-state students, according to U.S. News data. If you don’t plan to stay in state, consider regional tuition breaks, which can cut costs, too.
  2. Consider community college
    When money is tight but college is a priority, a community college might be a good option. If you plan to attend a four-year university, consider taking community college courses during high school or the summer before college to start accruing credits early.
  3. Look local
    Scholarships are a great way for all kinds of students to get money for college, and local funding opportunities tend to be less competitive. Don’t overlook small scholarships in your hometown. Odds are, you’ll have a better chance of securing one, and every little bit helps.
  4. Stay on track
    Nothing can cause your college costs to overrun like having to stay in school an extra semester, an extra year, or more. Take full class loads, keep up with your graduation requirements, and focus on earning good grades in every course.
Read more

Most Diverse Black Colleges

Teens interested in attending a historically black college can expect to be challenged academically and learn skills that will one day lead to a professional job.

What they can’t expect is to always be surrounded by black peers. Some historically black colleges, or HBCUs as these schools are often called, are predominantly white, while others have more mixed student bodies.

At Bluefield State College, for example, more than 85 percent of students were white in 2013.

While Bluefield State, which was once dubbed the “whitest historically black college in America” by NPR, has an especially low percentage of black students, a number of historically black colleges have undergraduate populations that are racially mixed, according to U.S. News data.

African-American students who attend a historically black school that isn’t predominantly black may be surprised if they are expecting the traditional HBCU experience, says Daniel C. Moss, the chief people person of HBCU Connect, which hosts boutique recruitment events and publishes information online and in print for black college students and alumni. Their campus’ culture, for example, may differ from schools that are historically black and the vast majority of students identify as African-American.

What students learn, though, should remain the same no matter what the ethnic breakdown is for the institution’s students.

“In the ideal scenario, a student will still receive a quality education,” says Moss, a graduate of Claflin University in South Carolina.

Read more