Learning Styles and Multiple Intelligences

Congratulations to the Great Bay eLearning Charter School’s class of 2010. Since their first graduation ceremony two years ago, the alternative school has granted 83 diplomas. This year’s group is now looking forward to college and had nothing but praise for their experiences with the school.

The Great Bay eLearning Charter School uses a blended approach to education. That means that classroom instructional strategies are mixed with online video conferencing, courseware, and other electronic means to better reach their students. According to their website:

Students will engage in a rich, differentiated program that emphasizes the depth of knowledge needed to solve “real-world” problems. Students who attend The Great Bay eLearning Charter School will find themselves participating in a project-based curriculum […] Not constrained by the limitations of the traditional comprehensive high school curriculum, teachers at the Great Bay eLearning Charter School are free to facilitate instruction based on student interest, learning and thinking styles, and student developed action plans.

What’s key here is that this approach to learning can accommodate different learning and thinking styles. This means that visual, auditory, and tactile/kinaesthetic learners are on equal ground because they have been taken into consideration at the planning stage. Unlike in a traditional classroom setting, where the instructor is often forced to choose one style of learning, eLearning can present the three different types of instruction throughout a course. This is also true for thinking styles, or multiple intelligences.

As we discover more about how we learn, we need to adjust our approach to teaching. The Great Bay eLearning Charter School should be proud to be one of the early adopters of these methods. Let’s hope that the future is full of students who benefit from this approach and go on to do great things.