When I was a student one of my favorite classes was Anatomy and Physiology. The reason it sticks out in my experience is the instructor had a method where he made us color every muscle in the body with colored pencils. I now know the reason I remember so well is he used multiple senses in helping us study.
Cameron,
Yes, a physical touch, visual image, sound of working and non-working parts, perhaps even the odor of an item can provide lasting and memorable instructional points that can benefit from use of senses.
Barry Westling
I find it helpful to have parts on hand to pass around the class depending on what is being taught. Such as having transmission gears to look at, see how they slide into eachother and discover the power flow. Having that hands on time adds to the learning experience.
Lawrence,
This is a great example of being a little creative and coming up with supplemental ways to help your students learn, especially by way of using senses in the instructional process.
Barry Westling
It,s easy to employ sight and sound in learning situations the other sense,s are usually more challenging. Being in the mechanical field I am considering bringing to class some parts that have failed and can be identified by thier smell and touch for example a failed clutch pack when burnt gives off a distinctive odor.
Richard,
Wonderful examples of the use of senses and the creative methods instructors can implement in their classes when there is a desire to do so.
Barry Westling
We have played games in the Introduction to Computers class to help the students get acquainted with the different pieces of hardware. Games like Jeopardy, What's My Line, and Wheel of Fortune let the students use sight, sound, and touch. Also, the competition gets them excited and involved. All together it creates an environment that helps them learn.
Deborah,
Yes, students tend to have one or two more dominant styles, so learning which strengths a student already possess and then teaching to that strength can help students, especially the ones that tend to struggle a bit.
Barry Westling
Rebecca,
You bet. More senses involved means students relate to the teaching concepts being presented. Also, usually there is more variety in the activities when more senses are used.
Barry Westling
The 3 main learning styles are visual, auditory and kinestetic. As an instructor, I believe you have to address all three of these styles every time you are in class. A good mix, will engage every student and will elicit a more productive learning environment. Every student becomes engaged and productive either on their own or in a group.
Knowledge retention is greatly enhanced by adding sensory materials in the learning environment.
John-Howard,
I think most work of any significance has some degree of higher level decision making. In the training of students, more senses used will improve retention and recall of needed information. It's true that some training areas may have fewer opportunities to add multiple senses, but then instructors are very creative people and with a little thought can think of ways to help their students.
Barry Westling
If your teaching field of study is IT, the sensory range available for instruction is sharply limited, because IT itself is mainly a cognitive field. The exception is what I call "Button-pushing Monkeys" -- that is, low skill workers who are trained to implement fixed responses to fixed situations.
In this latter case, simulations are an excellent way of training students, since their senses of sight, touch, and to some extent, hearing, will all be engaged.
For the more generalized IT instructional field, engaging visual senses will be by far the most important component [tacticle feedback is a very distant second, and sound even more distant as a third]. Using PowerPoint is an obvious strategy -- conducting reviews where the situation is either presented through the projector [e.g. how to set up a permanent IP address for a NIC], or through a fill-in-the diagram using the chalkboard.
Giving the students ample opportunity to try things for themselves is a very good strategy to allow students to integrate all of their senses in completion of specific tasks. Encouraging note-taking means that kinestetic senses are engaged with visual and auditory senses.
One of the strategies I suggest for students who have difficulty recalling is for them to read their notes/papers/books aloud when they study -- hearing themselves speaking acts as an additional reinforcement. In some cases, actually singing the facts, or making up a poem about them engages both cognitive and sensory elements to help drive the nail of knowledge more firmly into the students' heads.
Cheryl,
I think visual and auditory are senses most students depend on the most. But adding exercises or activities that use the other senses helps students remember and retain essential information.
Barry Westling
It is important that all senses are used in learning. For example, an teacher could draw diagrams on the board to help students visually understand a process. A student could practice doing a skill and use all of the senses; sight, touch,hearing and smell. Students have different learning styles so incorporating all of the senses will help your students to grasp the material.
rebecca,
More senses adds more variety and a better opportunity for improved retention of essential information.
Barry Westling
Allowing students to apply hands on learning is critical for learning.
Jennifer,
These mental mind maps or images can do much in terms of retention of key information, and it makes learning fun and the instructional setting more enjoyable too.
Barry Westling
I teach a very hands on profession.... The majority of my students are very visual and tactile learners.... I use several visual aides such as powerpoint, skeletons & flip charts.... Hands on is the greatest teaching tool that i have. If my students can visualize the location of a muscle & then find it on a real person, the connection is made.
Eunita,
Certainly more senses used contribute to better retention and memorable learning experiences. Sometimes we have to be creative, but that's what makes planning classes and facilitating them fun!
Barry Westling
