Using Learning Centers to enhance Teaching and Learning
by Susan Scanlon
In the book, People Types and Tiger Stripes, Gordon Lawrence recommends that teachers
approach curriculum planning with the four "quadrants" in mind,
(ES, IS, EN, IN). According to Lawrence, the first two letters in
a person's type have the most to do with how they take in new information.
Carolyn Zeisset, a Nebraska teacher, has taken Gordon's ideas and
adapted them into learning centers with different activities
designed to appeal to the four learning styles. She's found that
since she uses these learning centers, people have noticed a drastic
change in how much the children know.
THE FOUR LEARNING CENTERS
ES Extraverts with Sensing learn best through hands-on
activities that involve more than one person. Zeisset begins by
creating activities for the ES students, since they are the majority,
yet their needs are ignored in most curriculums.
She says that ES activities should allow students to hear themselves
say something out loud or bounce an idea off someone else. This
makes the classroom noisier but the noise is more like a constant
hum than disruptive outbursts.
For an ES learning center, adapt lessons into card games like Concentration,
Go Fish and Rummy. For example, in Concentration, the object of
the game is to get as many matches as possible. Have students try
to match the name of a person or an event on one card with a description
on another card.
Or use a bulletin board for a string-across activity. Younger
children can match pictures that show two scenes from the same event
or two pictures that show two events in sequence. Older children
can match terms and definitions, a description of an event and a
picture showing it, the name of a person and a picture, or a place
name and the corresponding place on the map.
Some other ideas for bulletin board activities are pocket charts
(younger children put pictures in sequence in the pockets; older
children place a caption or title in a pocket beneath each picture),
magnetic matching (children match captions or titles to pictures
with magnetic cards rather than pockets), time lines (children match
dates and events), and peek-a-boos (write a series of questions
on the bulletin board; hide answers behind lift-up shapes).
IS Introverts with Sensing learn best through hands-on
activities that can be done alone or with one other person. For
example, crafts are basically an IS activity. Crafts are distinguished
from creative activities in that crafts follow preset patterns,
while creative activities allow students spontaneity and freedom.
Make craft samples unsophisticated so students who have difficulty
do not feel intimidated, and students whose products are neater
or more accurate than the sample have the opportunity to feel proud.
Paper and pencil activities can be adapted to hands-on materials.
Mount a fill-in-the-blank page in a file folder, putting a small
piece of magnetic tape in each blank and providing oaktag answer
strips. Students can move the answer strips from one blank to another
until they are satisfied.
An answer key on the back of the folder makes the activity self-checking.
Providing answers makes the lessons familiar; the student (especially
if an IS) tries it over and over, and as a result, learns the content.
EN Extraverts with Intuition learn best through conceptual
activities that involve more than one person.
At one EN learning center, a group can make a newspaper. The center
has a list of possible subjects to research, and the sources for
the information. Put carrels on tops of desks to become reporters'
work stations, or the students can go to the library. Students can
work one or two to a story. After they research the story, the reporters
try to write it as if they were living in that time. Then they can
type their stories at a typewriter and put them up on the paste-up
sheet.
In another EN learning center, the group can create a TV show.
The learning center provides either the pictures or the close-captioned
script, and the students do the rest. Then they can view their show
on a cardboard box with dowel rods on either side.
Another activity that is appealing to ENs is creating a poem on
a bulletin board. Zeisset likes to use the "cinquain" format.
- The first line must be a noun that defines the theme.
- The second line is two words that describe the theme
- The third line is three action words about the theme
- The fourth line is four words that describe a feeling about
the theme
- The last line is one word that refers back to the first line
IN Introverts with Intuition learn best through conceptual
activities that can be done alone or with one other person.
For example, Zeisset provides a screened-off, pillow-covered corner
where students can read books or listen to a story on a tape recorder.
Children can also write or tape record answers to questions like:
What is the difference between being alone and being lonely?
What are the things that make you wonder?
Another activity that INs enjoy is writing contracts to create
their own projects. After they describe their project, they list
the supplies they will need, the amount of time they think it will
take them, and the way they wish to share their project with others,
such as making copies and giving them to others, displays, reports
to the class or discussions with the teacher.
"You may worry that no one will visit a center because it's your
least favorite," says Zeisset, "but there is always someone who
will like it the most. It's for their sake that you need a systematic
way of reaching all the types.
Susan Scanlon, INFJ, is editor of The Type Reporter.
Go to www.TypeReporter.com or call 703-764-5370 for subscription information.
