Are more encouraged by praise that is delivered physically rather than verbally -- such as by a handshake or a pat on the back rather than by a verbal "good job."
Kinesthetic learners also tend to absorb information when given a great deal of tactile stimulation. I will explore this in greater detail below.
Kinesthetic learners are generally better at expressing themselves in concrete ways. This includes expressing emotions. When kinesthetic learners interact with people who are primarily visual learners there may be significant gaps between the two in how emotions are expressed and understood. For example a kinesthetic learner might offer to change the spark plugs in her boyfriend's car while he (a visual learner) might well prefer to have gotten a card with a romantic poem in it from her.
It should be easy to see from this brief overview of the traits of a kinesthetic learner why students with this learning style can find it so difficult to learn in a traditional classroom that privileges visual learning and sitting quietly at one's desk. Teachers who do not understand that some students truly cannot learn at their best when they are sitting still for long periods of time will misinterpret the natural physicality of kinesthetic learners as disobedient or even having learning disabilities.
There is some evidence that teachers may misdiagnose a kinesthetic learning style as a form of ADHD or ADD, since children with these learning disabilities also usually have problems sitting still for a long period of times. However, of course, kinesthetic learning and ADHD are very different in etiology as well as in appropriate response. It is therefore essential that the two are distinguished from each other.
Labeling a child as having ADHD as opposed to being a kinesthetic learner not only can result in the wrong pedagogical approach but can also result in significant stigmatization of the child given that ADHD is identified as a learning disability -- rather than as a special form of learning ability. For this reason along with many others it is essential that educators learn to recognize and honor kinesthetic styles of learning. Gardner's model provides a straightforward and intuitive way of doing so.
... The theory validates educators' everyday experience: students think and learn in many different ways. It also provides educators with a conceptual framework for organizing and reflecting on curriculum assessment and pedagogical practices. In turn, this reflection has led many educators to develop new approaches that might better meet the needs of the range of learners in their classrooms. (Kornhaber, 2001, p. 276)
It should be clear that there are important reasons why teachers should both recognize this style of learning (and more generally the presence of multiple learning styles and forms of intelligence) while also resisting them. With the many tasks (and even burdens) that teachers must carry in today's classroom, the requirement that teachers present every piece of information in a range of different styles may seem simply the final straw. Gardner himself understood how his paradigm might well be seen by educators.
At first blush, this diagnosis would appear to sound a death knell for formal education. It is hard to teach one intelligence; what if there are seven? It is hard to enough to teach even when anything can be taught; what to do if there are distinct limits and strong constraints on human cognition and learning? (Gardner, 1993, p. xxiii)
Gardner cautioned that teachers did not have to adopt his ideas without modifying them, acknowledging that his brief was psychology rather than education, and that while educators could in some cases find themselves guided by psychological research, psychologists are not (or should not) be mandated or dictating pedagogical policy. Rather, research such as his that helps educators (as well as students and their parents) better understand cognitive processes "merely helps one to understand the conditions within which education takes place" (Gardner, 1993, p. xxiii).
While not demanding that schools institute his ideas and his model, Gardner was clearly interested in having teachers use his ideas and so wanted to reassure teachers that his ideas could make their work easier, more intuitive, and more rewarding rather than the reverse. He wrote:
Seven kinds of intelligence would allow seven ways to teach, rather than one. And powerful constraints that exist in the mind can be mobilized to introduce a particular concept (or whole system of thinking) in a way that children are most likely to learn it and least likely to distort it. Paradoxically, constraints can be suggestive...
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