MODULE 4

INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES

OBJECTIVES:
In this module,
the students should be able to:

1. Identify the different factors that bring about diversity in the classroom.
2. Demonstrate a positive attitude towards diversity as an enriching element in the learning environment.
3. Come up with teaching strategies that consider student diversity.

INTRODUCTION

Probably, you have heard someone say, “Everyone is unique.” Though it sounds really like a cliché, one cannot
ignore the truth in it. As a facilitator of learning, the teacher is tasked to consider the individual differences
among the students in planning for effective instruction.

COURSE CONTENT

FACTORS THAT BRING ABOUT STUDENT DIVERSITY

In all learning environments, individuals interact with others who are in some ways different from them. This
diversity also comes from other factors like the following:

1. Socioeconomic status – The millionaires’ lifestyle differs from that of the middle income or lower
income groups.
2. Thinking / learning style – Some of you learn better by seeing something, others byjust listening, and
still others by manipulating something.
3. Exceptionalities – In class there maybe one who has difficulty in spoken language comprehension or in
seeing, hearing, etc.

HOW STUDENT DIVERSITY ENRICHES THE LEARNING ENVIRONMENT

A teacher may be “challenge” to handle a class with students so diverse. There may be students having
different cultural background, different language abilities, different attitudes and aptitudes and behaviors. A
more reflective teacher may see a diverse classroom as an exciting place to learn not just for her students, but
for herself, as well. A wise teacher may choose to respect and celebrate diversity.

1. Students’ awareness is enhanced by diversity. Exposing students to others with diverse backgrounds
and experiences also serves to help students focus on their awareness of themselves.
2. Student diversity contributes to cognitive development. The opportunity to gain access to the
perspective of peers and to learn from other students, rather than the instructor only, may be especially
important for promoting the cognitive development of learners. Supreme Court Justice, William J. Brennan
said: “The classroom is peculiarly the market place of ideas.”
3. Student diversity prepares learners for their role as responsible members of society. Suzanne Morse
argues: “The classroom can provide more than just theory given by the teacher in a lecture. With student
diversity, the classroom becomes a “public place” where community can be practiced.
4. Student diversity can promote harmony. Through student-centered teaching strategies, diverse
students can be encouraged to interact and collaborate with one another on learning tasks that emphasize
unity of effort while capitalizing on their diversity of backgrounds.

Some Tips on Student Diversity

1. Encourage learners to share their personal history and experiences. Students will be made to realize
that they have something in common with the rest. They also differ in many ways.
2. Integrate learning experiences and activities which promote students’ multicultural and cross-
cultural awareness.
* You can encourage or even initiate co-curricular experiences that are aimed at promoting diversity
awareness. Activities such as: Disability Awareness Week, Linggo ng Wika etc.
* Students interview other students on campus who are from diverse backgrounds.
3. Aside from highlighting diversity, identify patterns of unity that that transcend group differences.
Clyde Kluckholn, an American anthropologist concluded from his extensive research that, “Every human is .at
the same time like other humans, like some humans, and like no other humans.” His observation suggests a
paradox in the human experience, namely: We are all the same in different ways. One way to promote unity
along with diversity, is to stress the “universality “of the learning experience by raising students’
consciousness of common themes that bind all group of people.
4. Communicate high expectations to students from all subgroups. Make a conscious attempt to call on,
or draw in students from diverse groups by using effective questioning techniques that reliably elicit student
involvement. Other strategies for “drawing in” and involving students: Assigning them the role of reporter in
small group discussion or paired discussion with other classmate. Also learn the names of your students,
especially the foreign names that you may have difficulty pronouncing.
5. Use varies instructional methods to accommodate student diversity in learning styles. *Diversify the
sensory/perceptual modalities through which you deliver and present information (e.g. , orally , in print,
diagrammatic or pictorial presentations or “hands on “ experience.
* Diversify the instructional formats or procedures you may use in class. (student- centered e.g. class
discussion, small group work: teacher-centered e.g. lectures, demonstrations), (unstructured e.g. trial and
error, discovery learning; structured e.g. step by step instruction), Independent learning e.g. independently
completed projects; interdependent learning e.g. collaborative, learning in pairs or groups)
6. Vary the example you use to illustrate concepts in order to provide multiple contexts that are relevant to
students from diverse backgrounds. Specific strategies for providing multiple examples and varies context
that are relevant to their varied backgrounds.
* Have students complete personal information cards during the first week of class and use this information to
select examples to illustrations that are relevant to their personal interests and life experiences.
7. Adapt to the students’ diverse backgrounds and learning styles by allowing them personal choice
and decision-making opportunities concerning what they will learn and how they will learn.
*Promotes positive student attitudes towrd the subject matter.
*Foster more positive interaction among students
*Students working more consistently with leaser teacher intervention.
*Experience less anxiety or stress while performing the task.
8. Diversify your methods of assessing and evaluating student learning. You can accommodate student
diversity not only by varying what you do with your teaching, but also by varying what you ask students to do
to demonstrate learning. One potential benefit is that the variety of options exercised may be a powerful way
to promote student awareness of the diversity of human learning styles.
9. Purposely, form small-discussion groups of students from diverse backgrounds. You can form groups of
students with different learning styles, different cultural background, etc.
Small peer-learning groups may be effective for promoting student progress to a more advanced stage of
cognitive development.
* Instructor is removed from center stage, thereby reducing the likelihood that the teacher is perceived as the
ultimate or absolute authority.
* Students are exposed to the perspective of other students.

Note: Topics presented are excerpts from the book Facilitating Learning: A Metacognitive Process by Maria
Rita D. Lucas, Ph. D., Brenda B. Corpuz, Ph. D.
 MODULE 5

LEARNING/THINKING STYLES AND MULTIPLE INTELLIGENCIES

OBJECTIVES:
In this module,
the students should be able to:

1. Describe the different learning/thinking styles and multiple intelligences.

2. Pinpoint own learning/thinking styles and multiple intelligences.
3. Plan learning activities that match learners’ learning/thinking styles and multiple intelligences.

INTRODUCTION

One factor that brings about student diversity is thinking/learning styles. Individuals think and learn in distinct
ways. Some would absorb the lesson better when they work with their hands than when they just listen.
Others would prefer to watch a video about a topic. Students, likewise, have preferred ways of expressing
their thought s, feelings and ideas. Some would prefer to write, others would even draw or even dance and
sing. These preferences involve thinking/learning styles and multiple intelligences.

COURSE CONTENT

LEARNING/THINKING STYLES

Learning/thinking styles refers to the preferred way an individual processes information. They describe a
person’s typical mode of thinking, remembering or problem solving. Furthermore, styles are usually
considered to be bipolar dimensions. For instance, your particular learning/thinking style would lie at a point
in a continuum. Having a particular learning/thinking style denotes a tendency to behave in a certain manner.
Your style is usually described as a personality dimension which influences your attitudes, values and social
interaction.

There are several perspectives about learning-thinking styles. We shall focus on sensory preferences and the
global-analytic continuum.

Sensory Preferences. Individuals tend to gravitate toward one or two types of sensory input and maintain a
dominance in one of the following types:

Visual Learners. This learners must see their teacher’s action and facial expressions to fully understand
the content of a lesson. They prefer sitting in front so no one would block their view. They may think in
pictures and learn best from visual aids and often prefer to take detailed notes to absorb the information.
Visual learners can be:
Visual-iconic. More interested in visual energy such as film, graphic displays or pictures to
solidify learning. Would like to read a map better than to read a book.
Visual-symbolic. Feels comfortable with abstract symbolism such as
mathematical formulae or written word. Prefers to read a book than a map and would like to read about
things than hear about them.

Auditory Learners. They learn best through verbal lectures, discussions, talking things through and
listening to what others have to say. Auditory learners interpret the underlying meanings of speech through
listening to tone of voice, pitch, speed and other nuances. Written information may have little meaning until it
is heard.

Auditory learners also fall in two categories:

“ Listeners”- More common type. They most likely do well in school and out of school they
remember things said to them and make the information their own.
“Talkers” - They are the ones who prefer to talk and discuss. Tend to whisper comments to
themselves when the instructor is not asking questions.

Tactile/Kinesthetic Learners . Are learners who benefit much from a hands-on approach and
actively exploring the physical world around them. They prefer “learning by doing”, preferring the use of
psychomotor skills to, say, abstract thinking skills.

Global – Analytic Continuum

Analytic - Analytic thinkers tend toward the linear, step-by-step processes of learning. They
are the “tree seers”. They are more comfortable in a world of details and hierarchies of information.
Global – Global thinkers lean towards non-linear thought and tend to see the whole
patterns rather than the particle elements. They are the “forest seers” who gave attention only to the overall
structure and sometimes ignore details.

Several theorists have tied the global-analytic continuum to the Left brain/right brain continuum. Left-
brained dominant individual is portrayed as the linear (analytic) while the rightbrained person is one who is
viewed as global, non-linear and holistic in thought preferences. A successive processor (left brain) prefers to
learn in a step-by-step sequential format; a simultaneous processor (right brain) prefers to learn beginning
with the general concept and then going on to specific.
 MULTIPLE INTELLIGENCES

Gardner defines intelligence as “an ability or set of abilities that allows a person to solve a problem or fashion
a product that is valued in one or more cultures”. Gardner believes that different intelligences may be
independent abilities – a person can be low in one domain area but high in another. All of us possess the
intelligences but in varyingI degrees of strength.

There are nine distinct forms of intelligences. In order to facilitate learning effectively, teachers should use
strategies that match these kinds of intelligences.

1.Visual/Spatial Intelligence (Picture Smart) – Learning visually and organizing ideas spatially . Seein concepts
in action n order to understand them. The ability to “see” things in one’s mind in planning to create a product
or solve a problem.

2. Verbal/Linguistic (Word Smart) – Learning through the spoken and written word. This intelligence is
always valued in the traditional classroom and in traditional assessment of intelligence and achievement.

3. Mathematical/Logical (Number Smart/Logic Smart) – Learning through reasoning and problem

solving.

4. Bodily/Kinesthetic (Body Smart) – Learning through interaction with one’s environment. This
intelligence is the domain of “overly active” learners. It promotes understanding through concrete experience.

5. Musical (Music Smart) – Learning through patterns, rhythms and music. This includes not only auditory
learning but also the identification of patterns through all the senses.

6. Intrapersonal (Self Smart) – Learning through feelings, values and attitudes. Learning through which
students place value on what they learn and take ownership of their learning.

7. Interpersonal (People Smart) – Learning through interactions with others. This intelligence promotes
collaboration and working cooperatively with others.

8. Naturalist (Nature Smart) – Learning through classification, categories and hierarchies. Picks up on
subtle differences in meaning. It is not simply the study of nature; it can be used in all areas of study.

9. Existential (Spirit Smart) – Learning by seeing the “big picture”. This intelligence seeks connections to
real world understanding and application o fnew learning. “Why are we here?” , “What is my role in the
world?”,

TEACHING STRATEGIES GUIDED BY THINKING/LEARNING STYLES AND MULTIPLE INTELLIGECE

1. Use questions of all types to stimulate various levels of thinking from recalling factual information to
drawing implications and making value judgments.
2. Provide general overview of material to be learned so that students’ past experiences will be associated
with the new ones.
3. Allow sufficient time for information to be orocessed and then integrate using both the rightand left-brain
hemispheres.
4. Set clear purposes before any listening, viewing or reading experience.
5. Warm up before the lesson development by using brainstorming, set induction, etc.
6. Use multisensory means for both processing and retrieving information. (Write directions on the board and
give them orally)
7. Use a variety of review and reflection strategies to bring closure to lerning (writing summaries, creating
opinion survey)
8. Use descriptive feedback rather than simply praising.

Note: Topics presented are excerpts from the book Facilitating Learning: A Metacognitive Process, by Maria
Rita D. Lucas, Ph. D., Brenda B. Corpuz, Ph.D.