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Projects

Learning Awareness Series

The Learning Awareness Series is a collection of exercises designed to help learners understand themselves as learners. For learners with learning disabilities self-awareness can be an empowering tool in helping them come to grips with their disability, and adapt to an ever demanding world that challenges the abilities directly affected by LD.

While this series can provide LD learners with the understanding they need to "work around" their disability, these exercises can be equally effective for any learner, with or without a learning disability, raising their awareness of their styles and abilities, developing "expert learners."

Teachers are encouraged to develop lesson plans around these exercises, providing students with the contextual information they need to link together their experience with theory, to understanding the styles and abilities that come together to create a learner's "Learning Profile." Learners can complete the various exercises to develop their own understanding of themselves, and review results of others to learn about individual differences in the way people think and learn.

NOTE: The Stencil Stacking and Scanning Tasks only require a user to register once. The username and password created for one will work with the others. The MI-Inventory and the Sternberg-Wagner Thinking Styles Inventory require users to register individually for each.

Also note that these exercises may not be suitable for preadolescent learners.

Online Exercises

1. Multiple Intelligence Inventory

The MI-Inventory is based on the work of Howard Gardner, who in 1983 published "Frames of Mind". Since then multiple intelligence theory has had a strong impact on our understand of how people learn. His theory states that intelligence is not a single construct, but rather is a collection of intelligences that vary from person to person. Understanding multiple intelligences can raise learners' awareness of their own abilities and the tasks that complement or challenge those abilities.

Multiple Intelligence's Project Page

Take the Multiple Intelligence Inventory

Read about Eight Styles of Learning




2. Sternberg-Wagner Thinking Styles Inventory

The Sternberg-Wagner Thinking Styles Inventory is similar to the MI-Inventory, though it probes a different set of learning preferences. Results from this inventory can help learners understand functional aspects of thinking styles, as well as various forms, scope, and leanings of thinking style. This inventory is based on a "Theory of Mental Self-Government" and uses a government analogy to add structure to components of thinking style, helping learners understand various aspects of style and the interactions that may occur when individuals with complimentary or opposing styles work together.

Thinking Styles Project Page

Take the Sternberg-Wagner Thinking Styles Inventory

Read about Variation of Thinking Style




3. The Stencil Stacking Tasks

The Stencil Stacking Tasks have been created to help learners understand metacognition. Metacognitive behaviours, or executive functioning as it is sometimes called, are often conscious strategies learners apply in problem solving or learning situations, that manage lower level cognitive processes, such as perception, memory, or other information processing abilities. The Stencil Stacking Tasks look specifically at the metacognitive behaviour of attending to errors. They help learners understand the behaviours associated with "learning from one's mistakes," perhaps one of the most powerful learning strategies.

Understanding Metacognition Project Page

Try Stencil Stacking 1 (standard task)

Try Stencil Stacking 2(difficult task, if you scored over 90% on Stencil Stacking 1 you should try this version)

Read Understanding Stencils Stacking Behaviour

Review Stencil Stacking interview result to learn about strategies people use on the tasks




4. The Scanning Task

The Scanning Task is an exercise that demonstrates perceptual processes associated with skilled reading. While there is strong evidence to suggest that readers process text one letter at a time, this is not always the case. As learners become expert readers, they begin to process words as visual "chunks," rather than individual letters. It is the processing of individual letters, rather than visual chunks, that is at the root of most reading disabilities. There is preliminary evidence to suggest that some disabled readers may adapt by overdeveloping their visual processing abilities.

Perceptual Processes in Reading Project Page

Try the Scanning Task(javascript must be enabled in your browser)

Read Understanding Scanning Task Results

Review Scanning Task interview results to learn about strategies people use on the task