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The visual-spatial learner model is based on the newest discoveries in brain research about the different functions of the hemispheres. The left hemisphere is sequential, analytical, and time-oriented. The right hemisphere perceives the whole, synthesizes, and apprehends movement in space. We only have two hemispheres, and we are doing an excellent job teaching one of them. We need only become more aware of how to reach the other, and we will have happier students, learning more effectively.
I’d like to share with you how the visual-spatial learner idea originated. Around 1980, I began to notice that some highly gifted children took the top off the IQ test with their phenomenal abilities to solve items presented to them visually or items requiring excellent abilities to visualize. These children were also adept at spatial tasks, such as orientation problems. Soon I discovered that not only were the highest scorers outperforming others on the visual-spatial tasks, but so were the lowest scorers. The main difference between the two groups was that highly gifted children also excelled at the auditory-sequential items, whereas children who were brighter than their IQ scores had marked auditory and sequential weaknesses. It was from these clinical observations and my attempt to understand both the strengths and weaknesses that the concept of the “visual-spatial learner” was born.
Visual-spatial learners are individuals who think in pictures rather than in words. They have a different brain organization than auditory-sequential learners. They learn better visually than auditorally. They learn all-at-once, and when the light bulb goes on, the learning is permanent. They do not learn from repetition and drill. They are whole-part learners who need to see the big picture first before they learn the details. They are non-sequential, which means that they do not learn in the step-by-step manner in which most teachers teach. They arrive at correct solutions without taking steps, so “show your work” may be impossible for them. They may have difficulty with easy tasks, but show amazing ability with difficult, complex tasks. They are systems thinkers who can orchestrate large amounts of information from different domains, but they often miss the details. They tend to be organizationally impaired and unconscious about time. They are often gifted creatively, technologically, mathematically or emotionally.
Characteristics
Visual-spatial learners perceive the interrelatedness of the parts of any situation. Their learning is holistic and occurs in an all-or-none fashion. They are most likely to experience the "Aha!" phenomenon, when all of the sudden they "get it." This type of learning does not take place through a series of steps, and if these people are asked to retrace their steps in the learning process, they usually cannot. From the time they can talk, children of this orientation arrive at surprising conclusions. When they are asked how they got there they often shrug their shoulders and say they don't know. They may create visual models of reality that are two dimensional, three dimensional, or even more multifaceted.
As toddlers, these children like to see how things work, and they tend to pull apart everything they can get their hands on. To the surprise of their parents, sometimes they even put the things back together again correctly. But as often as not, they enjoy restructuring the elements into something new. Some of these children never see anything as it is but only as a conglomeration of parts that were meant to be reconstructed into something else. Their parents remark about their amazing imaginations.
Imagination is a key element in the mental processing of visual-spatial learners. As preschoolers, they may have several imaginary playmates and a rich fantasy life. If they are introverted (which many of them are), they will rehearse everything mentally before they attempt it: walking, talking, reading, riding a bicycle, etc. Some of these children never learn to walk one step at a time like most children: they just start out running. Some begin talking much later than others, but their first "word" is a 14-word sentence. One girl watched others riding their bicycles and practiced mentally until she knew how to balance herself, then got on the bike, and rode without difficulty.
These children are unusually fascinated with puzzles and mazes and have expert facility with them. They will spend endless hours building with construction toys (blocks, Lego sets, Tinker Toys) or other materials (sand, sticks, cardboard boxes), and their constructions are often quite sophisticated and intricate in design. If they are interrupted, they will probably become "deaf," and if their buildings are destroyed, they become enraged. They get very attached to their creations. When given an ordinary toy, they will play with it long enough to figure out how it works and most likely never touch it again. They enjoy novelty and challenge.
Spatial abilities underlie both mathematical talent and creativity. A spatial child may manifest one or both of these talents. Given the opportunity, these children often begin quite young to have a lifelong love affair with numbers and numerical relations. Creativity may be evidenced in artistic talent, inventiveness, or imagination applied to any field. Despite these strengths, visual-spatial children often have a great deal of difficulty with school and social relations. They may do fine until they reach school or preschool and have to fit into time schedules, routines, and other children's games. They are likely to be elaborate doodlers, movie buffs, or computer fanatics, while regularly forgetting their homework.
Frequently observed strengths and potential weaknesses of visual-spatial learners are listed in Table 1.
Most of the strengths listed are observed in the entire group of visual-spatial learners, including the majority of highly gifted children in our sample. The potential weaknesses are found only in a subset of this group: the underachievers. These are the children who appear to be gifted to their parents but not to their teachers (Silverman, Chitwood, & Waters, 1986). They suffer from a form of "6-hour retardation" that often disappears when they are placed in gifted programs. Their learning style is best suited to the instructional techniques, pace, and complexity characteristic of classes for the gifted. Yet they are the least likely to be placed in gifted programs because they do not get teacher recommendations. When achievement in the rote learning of sequential material is used as the basis for selecting children for gifted programs, these children lose out. Those in most danger of being overlooked are the introverted visual-spatial learners.
Introversion
We have noted an interesting linkage among IQ, visual-spatial abilities, and introversion, measured using a scale we have developed (Silverman, 1986). The higher the child's IQ, the more likely are both visual-spatial abilities and introversion to be present. At this point we are uncertain as to the nature of the relationship between introversion and visual-spatial processing, but we can see several common characteristics of introverts and spatial learners. Children in both groups are reflective, needing extra thinking time before entering into tasks; both groups need time to observe others; both groups have some difficulty with risk taking. There are other parallels, but it is also possible to be one type and not the other.
Introverts start school by screaming for Mommy not to leave them. Then they stand on the periphery and watch the others, without talking to or interacting with anyone (Keirsey & Bates, 1978). When they finally muster up enough courage to enter into the other children's activities, they try to redesign everything to fit their own vision of the way things should be. When the extroverts do this, they often become leaders: they have a charming way of getting everyone to do things their way. But the introverts are not as fortunate: they are seen either as "bossy" or "weird" and are rejected by the others. Since they tend to be supersensitive, they may withdraw into their own worlds after this type of rejection.
Introverts gain their energy from themselves and find people very draining. After long periods of time with people, they need time alone in order to regroup. They are very private and are often perfectionistic. If one of their mistakes is made public, they become intensely humiliated. They prefer to go through their growing pains in private and show the world their finished products (Keirsey & Bates, 1978; Myers, 1962). This is why they mentally rehearse so many of their activities before actually attempting them. They often have tremendous difficulty with risk taking, and so teachers tend to think of them as "uncreative." However, many introverts are highly creative in private, just not in public.
Like the visual-spatial orientation, introversion is an inborn characteristic that remains fairly stable throughout life (Myers, 1962). Some introverts may appear very outgoing to others in their adult lives, but this appearance is like a Sunday set of clothes that they don around others. Basically, they retain their need for privacy and are known only by a very few trusted friends throughout their lives. Unfortunately, since the greater part of our society is extroverted, introverts are not well understood, and well-meaning parents and teachers often try to remake these children into extroverts, unwittingly damaging their self-esteem. Like any other minority group, these children may learn the language and behavior of the majority, while feeling different from, and possibly inferior to, others. Again, as with the visual-spatial style, introversion must be respected by others in order for these children to learn to respect these qualities in themselves.
School Performance
The spatial style of learning is not well suited to school tasks. The school curriculum is sequential; the textbooks are sequential; the workbooks are sequential; the teaching methods are sequential; and most of the teachers are sequential. Time is important in school - being on time, turning in work on time, finishing activities in a timely fashion, and moving on to new activities in a set schedule. Rote memorization, drill, and practice are all designed for the incremental learning style of the sequential learner. All of this seems quite foreign to spatial children, and they often retreat into their own worlds. Teachers perceive them as "spacy," inattentive, or uncooperative. They are often late for school, behind in their work, or reluctant to move on from one activity to another. They usually feel out-of-step with the other children and with the expectations of their teachers.
These children despise routine, repetitive tasks. They do not learn by means of rote memorization. In order for them to learn, they must see how the parts are related to the whole. If the learning is doled out in small increments, they don't understand what is going on. They may ask a great number of questions because they can't grasp the meaning of an isolated fact or activity until they have grasped the whole structure. Once they understand the basic concept, the learning is relatively permanent, and they are ready to go on to something new. They balk at drill and practice because such exercises do not enhance their understanding.
For example, if division is taught by means of a series of steps, spatial learners may not catch on at first, but once they understand the procedure, they may not see the point of doing a series of practice problems. They may refuse to do the work or do it sloppily so they can go on to something more interesting. If they make computational errors, it does not seem important to them because they are more concerned with understanding the conceptual structure.
One area in which spatial abilities and introversion interact is risk taking. Spatial learners are often reluctant to take risks until they have all of the pieces of information in hand and see how they fit together. Sequential learners can devise step-by-step strategies to approach new tasks or skills, but spatial learners cannot make such plans. In their all-or-nothing learning style, they have either discrete bits of information that do not add up to anything or a complete understanding of the entire system. When they only have pieces, they become afraid because they do not know now to weave them into the patterns needed for understanding. Then, suddenly and without warning, the pieces come together and weave their own pattern. The children are never quite sure whether this will happen, when it will happen, or how it happens, so they have to rely on faith alone that the pattern will form itself if they are just patient. This way of learning does not instil confidence in their ability to handle new situations, and it often leads to low evaluations by their teachers; researchers have found that teachers tend to underestimate the abilities of children who hold back in new situations (Chess, 1968; Gordon & Thomas, 1967; Thomas & Chess, 1977).
Behavior Problems of Nonsequential Learners
One type of spatial child may present behavior problems. This is the child who not only has spatial strengths but also several sequential weaknesses. Spatial dominance does not automatically imply sequential weakness; rather, it means that the children tend to lead with their dominant spatial abilities first and to use their sequential abilities only if all else fails. But some children have few sequential abilities to use as a backup system. These children tend to be more volatile because their reactions are not mediated by a clear understanding of consequences.
Sequential children are able to plan ahead, delay gratification, and inhibit aggression because they can organize step-by-step strategies for getting their needs met. When they become angry, instead of reacting, they can think ahead in time and predict what would happen if they retaliated aggressively. They learn to stop and think, come up with alternative plans of action, and implement their plans. All of this requires sequencing ability.
By comparison, a spatial child with sequential deficits lives in the moment and does not take the future into consideration. He may lack the ability to see the consequences of his behavior. When angered, he may not be able to mediate his behavior by means of planning an alternate sequence of events. He may simply react. At that moment, all he understands in his anger, and he becomes that anger.
Many of these children can be helped to bring their behavior under control through a combination of counseling and placement in small classes with individualized instruction. An individualized program reduces the amount of frustration with which the child has to cope. Another useful technique is computer-assisted instruction. The computer is a natural tool for a spatial learner, and temper tantrums rarely occur when the child interacts with a computer instead of people.
In terms of discipline, both at home and at school, spatial children respond much better if they understand reasons for the behavior requested of them. They will also be more cooperative if they have some input into the decision-making process and some legitimate choices. Discipline must be private, as these children are highly sensitive and easily humiliated. If they are respected, they will learn to treat others with respect.
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