If you really want to establish rapport with someone, it is first necessary to step into the world they inhabit. True communication begins with a small act of empathic imagination…
Modalities are very involved in how we structure education.
The modalities have been used in theories called learning styles--visual, auditory, or kinesthetic. There are even taxonomies of learning that roughly correspond to each area. These theories have faced growing questions about their validity. For learning to happen, there has to be some sort of coding of the perception and that is where the simplicity unravels.
Coding ends up confounding the simplicity of the learning styles. A concept is coded and stored in the our "embodied mind" differently depending on its presentation. If it is solely in a written form--a code for the spoken language--it is stored differently than if it first appeared in a lecture--auditory--or a combined technique. Add movement, which is what skilled teachers do, and there is a third component to the coding and storage.
The simplicity of learning styles is further confounded by what is called retrieval and re-coding. As we recall or retrieve something, perhaps through reading a passage aloud, doing a presentation, answering a series of Socratic questions, etc., we re-code the same knowledge differently. If the cycle is repeated, the knowledge moves from short-term to long-term memory and becomes subconscious actually in a different part of the mind. Adequately spaced retrieval and re-coding is the key technique used by skilled language acquisition teachers.
A great book on this is Benedict Carey's "How we learn." It is available as an audio book for those of use more inclined to auditory learning.
Within educational design there is a movement called Universal Design for Learning which seeks to present material in different modalities. The process of structuring learning for effectiveness is quite involved and more than just have some smart person talking in front of a room.
Modalities are very involved in how we structure education.
The modalities have been used in theories called learning styles--visual, auditory, or kinesthetic. There are even taxonomies of learning that roughly correspond to each area. These theories have faced growing questions about their validity. For learning to happen, there has to be some sort of coding of the perception and that is where the simplicity unravels.
Coding ends up confounding the simplicity of the learning styles. A concept is coded and stored in the our "embodied mind" differently depending on its presentation. If it is solely in a written form--a code for the spoken language--it is stored differently than if it first appeared in a lecture--auditory--or a combined technique. Add movement, which is what skilled teachers do, and there is a third component to the coding and storage.
The simplicity of learning styles is further confounded by what is called retrieval and re-coding. As we recall or retrieve something, perhaps through reading a passage aloud, doing a presentation, answering a series of Socratic questions, etc., we re-code the same knowledge differently. If the cycle is repeated, the knowledge moves from short-term to long-term memory and becomes subconscious actually in a different part of the mind. Adequately spaced retrieval and re-coding is the key technique used by skilled language acquisition teachers.
A great book on this is Benedict Carey's "How we learn." It is available as an audio book for those of use more inclined to auditory learning.
Within educational design there is a movement called Universal Design for Learning which seeks to present material in different modalities. The process of structuring learning for effectiveness is quite involved and more than just have some smart person talking in front of a room.