One of the challenges of distance or remote education is to create significative activities that reach our pupil's different learning styles. How can we make that possible?
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| Picture Credit Marsha McGuire |
Before we address that questions let us make a brief analysis of how important is to integrate a multisensorial approach to our own teaching.
Gone are the years when students had to adapt to our teaching style. Obaid (2012) stated "teaching methods must relate to each child’s own learning preference style" (p. 76). Far from being a utopian concept it is possible to reach all the different learning styes if we use multisensorial activities (Volpe & Gori, 2019). The crux of the matter lies in the fact that how can it be achieved when doing distance or virtual learning.
Thus 3 activities that can be used both in face-to-face and virtual lessons are listed below:
1 Read and listen at the same time (For students aged 6-13)
Why is it special? When someone reads his inner voice is activated to give meaning and emotion to the reading, but if we add a different voice accompanied by significant sounds? This not only stimulates imagination and improves memory (Covaci, Ghinea, Chang-Hsin, Shu-Hsien, & Ju-Ling, 2018; Rojas, Cifuentes, Cáceres & Galindo, 2021), but also is a support for readers with learning difficulties since the reading process involves sight and hearing used at brain level allowing the encoding and decoding of words, ending up in better text interpretation. How can you do it? Whether you use a print book or e-book, instead of asking a student to read out any passage, first you try to bring that same passage to life by giving the proper intonation, while doing so, ask pupils to follow you and make sure to ask significant general and specific reading comprehension questions. Encourage student to use underlining techniques to find the evidence for their answers, thereby they will be using sight and touch. Any resource needed? If pupils use print books at home, only a pencil will be necessary to underline, apart from the teacher's voice. What about an e-book? Most platforms have underlining tools, simply get the most of it. In case you do not have any of the above-mentioned try using a digital whiteboard to put the passage. A good option I use daily is jamboard, for it is easy to share, allows collaborative and individual work, also has amazing underlining tools and the use of sticky notes to add comments.
2 Manipulatives digital materials (All ages)
Why is it special? The more manipulative materials the better, since it allows the combined use of difference senses (Drigas & Gkeka, 2016). How can you do it? Use digital and collaborative whiteboards, above all those that allows pupils to write, add pictures and draw doing individual and group work. For instance, to work reading comprehension you can use a digital interactive whiteboard to put sentences lines in disorder, so students can put every line in the right position to get a coherent paragraph (see Picture 01). Why collaborative whiteboards? Interaction stimulates greater use of sight, touch and hearing when observing peers work, correcting if necessary and above all agreeing on how to solve the task. Any resource needed? We have several options, but the ones I have been able to use are jamboard, google slides, nearpod and padlet.
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| Picture 02. Example of a manipulative activity which consists of putting in order sentences to make a paragraph using jamboard. |
3 Take a "pause" to virtual activities (All ages)
Lastly, use the reliable pencil and paper, do not feel afraid of using the conventional tools used before distance learning, although the possibility students show some reluctancy at first they will appreciate to take that pause from the virtual world, specially for the tremendous effect that the use of pencil and paper can have on generating new brain conexions due to the implicit decoding process, which helps to reinforce and to consolidate new ideas in our long term memory. (Covaci et al., 2018).
Conclusions
In sum, adopting a multisensorial approach must not be limited only to face-to-face lessons, as we see in this article, we can use different ICTs to create activities which stimulates not only the sight or the hearing. Furthermore, do not forget we can always take a "pause" to virtual activities in order to use again conventional materials such as pencil and paper.
References:
Drigas, A. & Gkeka, E. (2016). Montessori Method and ICTs. International Journal of Recent Contributions from Engineering, Science & IT (iJES), 4(1), 25-30. http://dx.doi.org/10.3991/ijes.v4i1.5481
Obaid, M. A. S. (2012). The Impact of Using Multi-Sensory Approach For Teaching Students With Learning Disabilities. Journal of International Education Research (JIER), 9(1), 75-82. https://doi.org/10.19030/jier.v9i1.7502
Rojas, A., Cifuentes, E., Cáceres, L. & Galindo, N. (2021). Estrategias de enseñanza multisensorial para docentes de preescolar mediadas por las TIC. Universitaria Agustiniana. http://repositorio.uniagustiniana.edu.co/handle/123456789/1620
Volpe, G., & Gori, M. (2019). Multisensory interactive technologies for primary education: From science to technology. Frontiers in Psychology, 10. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.01076
Versión en español: https://cuttingedgeducation.blogspot.com/2021/04/clases-virtuales-pero-multisensoriales.html
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Great article. Thank you
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