Strategies to Help Unique Students Learn!

 Hello to all who have come to visit Plugged into Education, it is week two of my EDUC 6115 Learning Theories class.  I will be sharing two reviews of brain based learning and their respective web sites. 

Have you ever thought about the dynamics of students who come to the classroom setting and are very articulate and can answer any question posed to them but they cannot put their thoughts on paper?  These students may have learning disabilities but they are above average in intelligence, they are twice exceptional learners.  They struggle in one area of learning but extremely sharp in other areas of education. 

The article I selected to highlight is from Orion School in Atlanta, Georgia.  This school teaches students who have a learning disability in one area but are gifted in other areas.  The article expounds upon how they teach their students using different modalities and explains the need for teachers to realize that a student with dysgraphia may have to be tested in another way because writing is hard for the student.  The use of graphic organizers and other aids like calculators, and books on CD’s are just a few other ideas that are shared here as a way to teach students with weaknesses in one area but strengths in other areas.

http://the504school.blogspot.com/2012/02/strategies-for-teaching-twice.html#!/2012/02/strategies-for-teaching-twice.html

I have selected a lesson plan that will provide a way to categorize different learners by brain quadrants.  This article explains the four quadrants of the brain according to research done by Ned Herrmann.  Each quadrant does a different set of task.  The one common thread in the readings on how we learn i.e. cognitivism, behaviorism, constructivism, kinesthetic, visual, and other theories is that people do not use only one way to learn but that they learn in multiple ways.  This lesson plan is to help the teacher identify how they learn and then begin to use those ideas to begin to structure lessons that meet the needs of their learners.

http://college.hmco.com/instructors/ins_teachtech_foundations_module_thinkstyles_printerfriendly.html