We went to a talk at the school earlier tonight about Individual Learning Profiles. Simon Olding from MovementInMind came into the school to talk to parents and staff about the software that the school has been trialling. He had already been working with the school with great results with the BrainGym over the past few years.
He explained that we all favour a dominant hand, eye, ear, foot and brain hemisphere. The combinations of these dominances affects the ways in which we are best able to learn. For example some people may visualise, others may be more hands on and others may need to take notes for information to be absorbed.
By using a series of tests or questions it is possible to identify fairly accurately the dominant side in each of the cases and then by entering the results into the software an Individual Learning Profile is produced for the person. All of the children at Watling are being assessed and their results entered to provide a profile for each child and also one for each class summarising the class characteristics and suggesting teaching techniques that will work best for the types of learners and best seating locations for learning. Sample reports are available on the Individual Learning Profiles section of MovementInMind.
It was an engaging talk with participation from parents as we did some of the simple tests. Simon puts a lot of importance in not just identifying the hurdles to learning but providing exercises to help improve whole brain learning and reducing stress. For one example of this, I was a volunteer. Simon had asked for people who were not overly flexible and had difficulty touching their toes. Now, although I trained in aikido for several years, I have never been flexible, so I was an ideal candidate. First he had us try to touch our toes as a benchmark,
then we did a stress reduction exercise which involved massaging our ears to increase blood flow. After we had done this exercise he asked us to try touching our toes again. I was surprised, I actually stretched a further 2-3 inches. This was after a simple exercise that lasted maybe a couple of minutes.
This looks to be a very interesting approach which will allow parents to understand how their children best learn and what exercises can be done to help improve their learning capability.
Posts 
This is a very interesting post Ian. I just hope the children are not being labelled in some way that will ultimately prove detrimental. It seems hard to believe that massaging your ears could improve your stretching ability. I’m sure you were sceptical yourself.
regards
jmb
Hi jmb,
Thanks. It’s more about obvious things like if your right ear is dominant, sitting on the left of the class so that you are better able to absorb rather than on the right where you would be ‘listening’ to the wall or having to turn to hear better.
The ear massage worked by reducing the tension in the lower skull/neck (I think that was it), this in turn allowed the spinal fluid to flow better to the brain and reduce tension there, reducing tension throughout the body.
Yes, I was initially sceptical, but when you are the subject, its difficult to deny the result.
Regards,
Ian
Hi Ian,
I joined Mark Joyner’s http://www.simpleology.com system a few months back, and was impressed at how much faster I absorbed unfamiliar ideas when they were presented in several ways (in this case, a slide presentation, a pdf, and an mp3)… so I can vouch that there is certainly some merit to the idea.
So, are they planning on selecting classes by learning style? I.e. Visual learners will be grouped together and taught in the manner that helps them learn most effectively? I wonder whether a developing child’s favoured learning system changes as they mature?
I must remember to bear all of this in mind the next time I teach a martial arts class…
Cheers,
Gary
Hi Gary,
I don’t believe the classes will be selected based on learning style. What the teachers will be trained in, is using the class summary to better understand the variety of requirements within their classes.
The profiles for both of our children were sent home yesterday and after reading through them we can see all the traits identified. For example, my son always fidgets with something in his hand when he is reading. His profile identifies movement as a natural strength and states that “the learning process is generally kinaesthetic. They will need to move (especially hands) to process new learning. Allow them to write or doodle while listening – it will keep them attentive even though they may appear inattentive.”
According to Simon, your dominant side for each are hard wired in the womb and do not change, although you can do exercises to increase the use of the other side of the brain for each.
Under stress the two side of the brain don’t pass the signals, so if your ear feeds to the logical side, under stress you only pick up on the words not the emotion, alternately if the ear feeds to the emotion side, you don’t hear the words, just the emotion. Hmm..sounds like the classic ‘you’re not listening to a word I’m saying’ moment.
Regards,
Ian
I’ve been trying to learn to do that selectively. I’m one of those people who finds myself trying to follow that interesting conversation at a nearby table at the same time as comment appropriately in the conversation I’m actually taking part in at my table.
Especially poignant in a martial arts class, when the instructor is talking about how to apply some interesting lock on a student at the other side of the class while my partner is saying, “so I’m gonna swing this big stick at your head now, don’t forget to duck!”…
Cheers,
Gary
My daughter’s natural strength for learning is auditory and is especially distracted by conversations on her left side which is her dominant ear. Maybe you have some of the same aspect.
Ah yes, the big stick at head..been there. I was doing jo kata with my wife and I remember we had changed from stepping through the kata to flowing. I remember standing there thinking “I’m supposed to be blocking this” as the shomen strike was heading for my head. Jo managed to pull the strike as she realised that I wasn’t moving; it still hit me, but at least it didn’t cause any serious injury. Not sure where my mind was at the time, but it wasn’t doing the kata.
Ian