Introduction
The current learning system has encountered a major change as it puts into account the concept of multiple-intelligence, thus giving room to children who display different kinds of learning abilities. This is because learning occurs through the performance of thought, and it is characterized by different levels of understanding, hence producing different dimensions of intelligence.
The purpose of this paper is to administer an inventory to five students and analyze their responses in order to determine whether they exhibit characteristics that promote or inhibit learning within the context of a content area classroom.
Report
First student
- This student uses the words that follow in order to figure out the meaning of the words, which he is not conversant with.
- Whenever he fails to understand the meaning of a sentence, he reads it over again.
- He normally skips parts that are hard to understand while reading content entailing social studies and sciences.
- He never makes plans prior to reading since his main aim is to complete his assignment.
- Whenever he fails to understand a whole passage, he reads it over again.
- Whenever he fails to understand a sentence in a passage, he notices that he is not conversant with the new words or the concepts that used in the sentence.
- While reading a textbook, he normally adjusts his pace depending on the complexity or the simplicity of the content.
- He normally takes note of the ideas that he knows as well as the ones that he does not know as he reads a textbook.
- Whenever he comes across a confusing part of the content, he keeps on reading it.
- He assumes that all sentences are important since they are already in the content.
This student exhibits characteristic that promote learning as well as characteristics that inhibit learning which are neurological in origin. A student suffering from these shortcomings normally has a problem of processing of information, thus affecting his learning process and especially learning of new content.
This is because neural connection is responsible for stimulating the appropriate learning style, which is experienced when current passes along the nerve cells (Vacca & Vacca, 1999). This student thus lacks the ability of taking complex words and putting them into proper sentences.
He therefore expresses incoherent paragraphs as he skips the content while writing or reading a narrative. However, being aware that he is not conversant with new words by taking note of the concepts used in the sentence is vital since it enable him to take charge of his own learning style.
Second Student
- This student echoes the words, which she is not conversant with.
- She echoes the difficult words in a sentence whenever she fails to understand a particular sentence.
- She takes note of the important ideas whenever she fails to understand content entailing social studies and sciences.
- She carries out a self-reflection analysis by thinking about her knowledge on the subject prior to reading the content.
- She takes an approach of trying to clarify the content by using a supporting idea whenever she fails to understand a whole passage.
- She holds a critical analysis concerning the author’s capacity to convey the intended message whenever she fails to understand a sentence in a passage.
- She usually reads a textbook at a constant and a balanced pace.
- She takes account of what she knows and tries to relate it with what she reads.
- To avoid confusion in the text by reading ahead and does not hesitate to look back in order to affirm clarity.
- She perceives the most important sentences as the sentences that contain facts.
This student exhibits characteristic that promote learning as well as characteristics that inhibit learning. One of the characteristics that promote learning is taking into account of what she knows and trying to relate it with what she reads.
The experiences of this student are paramount since they help her to take an open-minded approach while reading, thus making her lesson interesting as she is not threatened by new concepts in the content.
This student activates her prior knowledge using schema theory, which takes three forms that include using text or pictures that remind her of her past life, using text or pictures that reminds her of a passage in another book, and using text and pictures that remind her general information relative to the world (Vacca & Vacca, 1999).
Third student
- Whenever this student encounters words that are hard to define their meaning, he takes an approach of ignoring them until he finds a clarification.
- He usually thinks about the next sentence whenever he fails to understand the immediate sentence.
- While reading content that entails social studies and sciences, he only endeavors to memorize one point of the content.
- His preparation for reading the content entails thinking of the reason that makes him read the content.
- He reads a passage over again in order to memorize it.
- Whenever he fails to understand a sentence in a passage, he concludes that two sentences have the capacity of contradicting each other.
- While reading a textbook, he puts less emphasis on the parts of the content, which he does not understand.
- He normally takes note of the ideas, which he knows as well as the ideas, which he has little or no knowledge about while reading content.
- He keeps on reading the content whenever he comes across a confusing part of the content.
- He evaluates the rationale of sentences by examining the correlation between the sentence and the main idea of the content.
This student exhibits characteristic that promote learning as well as characteristics that inhibit learning. One major characteristic this student exhibits while reading is enhancing memory. Willingham (2004) affirms that the brain has several parts, which are used to store different types of memories.
For case in point, lyrics of a song can be stored in a different part of the brain from the part that stores the melody. The work of the brain is to restructure the memory that has been recalled by the learner at the appropriate time. However, retrieval of information is affected by individual learning style. Thus, students should be given an opportunity of repeating the content as this facilitates build up of the memory.
Fourth Student
- This student echoes the words, which he does not know their meaning
- She disregards a sentence completely whenever she fails to understand its meaning.
- While reading materials entailing social studies and sciences, she relates the parts of the content that she does not understand to something that she already knows.
- Her main aim before reading is to make sure that the she finishes reading in the shortest time possible.
- She reads the content over again with an aim of summarizing the topic.
- She does not understand the necessity of finding the real meaning of the content since it makes reading slow.
- While reading a textbook, she prefers predicting the content.
- She acknowledges that several learning strategies can be used to facilitate understanding of the content.
- She normally checks the consistency of the ideas expressed in the content whenever she comes across a confusing part.
- She evaluates the rationale of sentences by the number of details the sentences hold.
This student exhibit characteristic that promote learning as well as characteristics that inhibit learning. Acknowledging the existence of several learning strategies is paramount since it examines closely the content area by trying to compare facts, as well as evaluating errors in the content.
This brings to our attention that our brains comprise of neurons, which tend to blaze after certain kinds of neurons blaze, thus resulting to critical thinking (Vacca & Vacca, 1999).
Fifth Student
- This student uses an outside source for the words, which he does not know their meaning.
- He takes an approach of reading the difficult words over again whenever he comes across a difficult sentence.
- While reading content that entails social studies and sciences, he relates the parts of the content, which he does not understand to something that he already knows.
- He carries out a self-reflection analysis by thinking about his knowledge on the subject prior to reading the content.
- He takes an approach of reading a passage over again whenever he fails to understand it in order to memorize it.
- Whenever he fails to understand a sentence in a passage, he notices that he is not conversant with the new words or the concepts used in the sentence.
- He prefers predicting the content while reading a textbook.
- He understands that several learning strategies can be used to facilitate understanding of content.
- He normally checks the consistency of the ideas expressed in the content whenever he comes across a confusing part.
- He evaluates the rationale of sentences by examining the correlation between the sentence and the main idea of the content.
This student exhibits all characteristic that promote learning. This is because he demonstrates multiple-intelligence as different parts of his brain have the capacity of demonstrating different abilities (Willingham, 2004).
These abilities result from accommodating cognitive conflict with the concepts that the student knows, hence making the student to search for facts in the content. His learning style entails accommodating of variety of models that calls for high level of thinking, thus enhancing multiple- intelligence.
Conclusion
As illustrated above, the findings show that four students exhibit characteristics that promote as well as inhibit learning. This can be explained by the fact that every student possesses different abilities, some being weak while others being strong.
Whereas, the fifth student who exhibits all characteristics that promote learning helps to explain that a student has the potential of exhibiting multiple intellectual abilities since to some extend, these abilities have a correlation.
References
Vacca, R. T., & Vacca, J. A. (1999). Content area reading: Literacy and learning across the curriculum. New York: Longman.
Willingham, D. (2004). Reframing the mind. Education next, 3, 1-15. Retrieved from https://www.educationnext.org/reframing-the-mind/