There is a student who has trouble remembering something you told him when there is lots of noise in the room. One student seems to concentrate only if there he taps his fingers on the desk. Another student can review his lectures even if there is an earphone plugged into his ears and he listens to music.
These things happen because each one of us has specific stimuli that can help us learn. In a process such as learning where there are six possible thinking processes, one process or two work best for us. It is recommended to check how your students learn best if they get bad grades or have trouble paying attention to lessons or classroom activities.
According to Markova (2010), one of the biggest miseducations suffered today is the notion that all human utilize the same process for thinking. Many schools and educators usually assume that children’s minds do or work in the same ways as their teacher’s mind does. This is dangerous if the children’s learning pattern is different.
She further stipulates in her book, How Your Child is Smart, that everyone processes information differently. It is helpful to know how your students learn best. There is no student that is unintelligent, only that each one has stimulifor learning that works best for him. She posited three channels and three stimuli that trigger one of three channels in a child’s brain. These channels and stimuli results to focused attention, put ideas together, and foster creativity.
The first is the conscious channel where a child easily pays attention. It is easy to absorb information and express thoughts and ideas comfortably. The child is logical and organized. The conscious channel is a short-term memory storage where thought is stored and sorted out for immediate use.
The next is the subconscious channel where children start to filter ideas and suit them together to be used in appropriate manner. They are knowledgeable the inputs from their environment and their own choices. Children “conceptualize” and there is an easier flow of conscious to unconscious thinking.
The third is the unconscious channel which is responsible for relaxation, creativity and seeing the big picture. This is the storage for long-term memories. This is the light zone where children play, compose songs, and invent games.
Using these three channels, children learn more effectively. At the conscious channel, a student absorbs information. At the subconscious, that information is figured out, and the unconscious channel, the information is made as part of the student’s reality and becomes long term information.
References:
Callahan, C. (2012). The 6 Perceptual Thinking Patterns: How Does Your Child Learn Best? Retrieved from http://www.education.com/download/article/109422/perceptual-thinking-patterns.pdf on January 3, 2016.
Gardner, H. (1993). Creating minds. New York: basic Books.
Markova, D. (2010). How Your Child is Smart? University of Massachusetts Press.
By: Ms. Mary Ann B. Calma | Teacher III | BEPZ Elementary School | Mariveles, Bataan
