Running Head: LEARNING STYLES INVENTORY Learning Styles Inventory Assignment Madeline Webb Ivy Tech Community College – Central Indiana 1 LEARNING STYLES INVENTORY 2 Psychologist, Howard Gardner, created the theory of multiple intelligences. He proposed that a person’s intelligence could not be considered a fixed or measurable attribute. Rather a person is intelligent in many areas. Examples of the different intelligences he proposed included musical intelligence, spatial intelligence and linguistic intelligence. By highlighting people’s intelligence types you can begin to see their strong and weak intelligence areas. By understanding someone’s learning habits, the teaching methods best for them can be identified. The purpose of Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences is to encourage teachers to incorporate different teaching methods into the classroom so that every student can perform to their maximum potential. My strongest intelligences are interpersonal and spatial intelligences. Interpersonal intelligence means someone is able to communicate well with people and understand them. Interpersonal intelligence can also be referred to a being “people smart”. I am very personable and have always been able to get along with people easily. Spatial intelligence refers to the ability to use physical space to understand patterns and relationships. When I am learning, I draw diagrams, construct graphs and make models to help me learn. My weakest areas are musical and logical intelligences. Logical intelligence means to solve problems logically like math and science. Although I am not terrible at maths and science, I find it harder to learn those subjects. Musical intelligence refers to the ability to be able to recognize different musical elements. I enjoy music and like to listen to different genres when I am studying but pay little attention to the elements within the music and don’t use them to help me learn. LEARNING STYLES INVENTORY 3 Understanding the theory of multiple intelligences for a learner has many benefits for a teacher. A learner may not be very logical so, they might struggle with math and science. However, if a teacher realizes a student is particularly good with music, incorporating the two together like a rhyme the student might be able to pick up the knowledge needed to succeed. Every student is different and learns in different ways. By knowing each student’s different intelligences, a teacher will be able to better educate each student. Teachers need to be able to instruct classes in multiple ways to ensure each student, no matter what type of intelligences they have, are able to succeed and not be left behind. Teachers in the past focused teaching more through the linguistic and logical intelligences. This works well in testing circumstances as you can easily judge whether or not a child’s grade is good or bad. However teaching students, whose strengths are not in these areas, are being ignored. The theory of multiple intelligences encourages teachers to use multiple teaching methods to meet the different intelligences of all their students. Another focus on how students learn effectively is the idea of learning styles. The three learning styles are auditory, visual and kinesthetic learners. In my personal learning styles inventory, I was recognized as a visual person. This means that I learn better when things are displayed through visual aids and by looking at the teacher’s facial expressions and body language. I also draw diagrams, flow charts and graphs to aid my learning. I also use highlighters, visual diagrams, pictures, videos and draw pages down from memory. A teacher who understands different intelligence types and learning styles should never repeat the same to educate a class. This may be beneficial to some children who LEARNING STYLES INVENTORY 4 share the same learning style or intelligence that the subject is being taught. But for someone else who does not share this style will struggle with the material being presented and fall behind. By presenting material in multiple forms encompassing different learning styles and intelligences, a teacher is giving all the students a chance to succeed in the subject. After learning about the different types of intelligences and learning styles of students the assignment has taught me how important mixing the styles will help my future students. By using the whole range of different styles and intelligences I am ensuring that each of my students will be able to grasp the concepts I am teaching. To be successful as a teacher, my responsibility is to teach each child the concepts needed to progress and succeed in school as well as life. If I only teach these concepts in one or two ways I am not supporting every student’s different learning abilities. This is what I believe the author is trying to put across with the comment that teachers must know how to “access all types of intelligences so that all students can learn to their maximum potential” to successfully teach their students.