Lesson 2

Understanding Learning Styles:

Multi-Sensory Approach

Dr. Lo Khin Yee

 Four Types of Modality Styles in Learning
Fleming: http://vark-learn.com/introduction-to-vark/the-vark-modalities

Modalities Learning Characteristics

Visual (V) • picture/illustration; flow chart; visualize a

picture

Aural/ • heard or spoken; group discussion; talking out

Auditory loud to oneself; say it themselves; learn through
(A) saying
Read/Write • visual information; text based; reports, essays
(R) and assignments; PowerPoint
Kinesthetic • concrete personal experience; practice or
(K) simulation; demonstration, applications
Multi-modality for Music Learning
Wanless (2012)

Understanding learning styles

Five basic aspects for understanding learning styles:

1. Environment

2. Talent

3. Interest

4. Disposition

5. Sensory modality
On disposition (p. 10):
1. 1. Which phrase best describes
you?
• I’m spontaneous, playful and
outspoken; I respond to
challenges.
• I like order and efficiency; I
respond to plans, schedules,
routines and lists.
• I ask many questions;
competent, focused and
experimental.
• I love teamwork; I’m interactive,
cooperative and empathetic.
• I need to contribute to new
ideas; I love to think.
 On disposition:
2. In what ways does
your disposition affect
your music learning and
your preferred music
activities?
3. Any implications to
you as a teacher?
Five dispositions:
performer, producer,
inventor, relater/inspirer,
thinker/creator
 Reflect:
Do I offer a variety of musical
activities for my students in order to
cater to their needs?
 Discuss:
On sensory modality:

1. Do you learn better by reading or listening to lectures?

2. To figure out some musical features of a piece of music (e.g.,

sequence, hemiola, Neapolitan 6th), do you find it easier to
read from the score or to listen to the music?

3. How do you learn to memorize a piece of music? By

analyzing the chords, remembering the sound, visualizing
the notes (just like taking a photo of the musical notes in
your mind), memorizing the physical movements, or other
methods?

4. Any implications to you as a teacher?

Audio: Learn through noise, sound, music, song,
verbal explanation, oral stories; hear the world around
them; listening & verbal learner.
Visual: Learn through visual images; see the world
around them; picture & print learner.
Tactile (small muscle): Learn through touch,
experience, expression, hands-on; feel the world
around them.
Kinesthetic (large muscle): Learn through movement;
play, sway, dance and move; whole body learner.
Combination modality
Based on the chart on p. 11:
1. Which modality/modalities do you
always use?
2. Knowing the preferred sensory
modality of my young students,
how can I adjust my teaching to
cater to their needs?
3. How can we develop our students’
sensory modalities?
 “As a teacher, your preferred
learning style may affect your
methodology!”
Please refer to p. 12.
“The more sensory-motor experiences
young children have, the more easily they
learn to successfully function in everyday
life” (Miller, 2007, p. 53).
Using kinesthetic:
Dalcroze Eurhythmics
Dalcroze’s observation: Music students had a mechanical
understanding, instead of musical comprehension.

Students are trained to feel musical concepts through body

movement.

Cultivation of musical sensibility (to hear, feel, create, imagine…) by

eliminating the conflicts between the mind and body, feeling and
expression.

The child only becomes aware of the development of thought after the
experiences of physical sensations.

“Eurhythmics is based on the joint mobilization of mind and body –

especially on those faculties which enable us to act, react, and adopt to
the surrounding world in order to cope with it to best advantage”
(Dalcroze Today, p. 21).
 Video: Dalcroze Eurhythmics

➢ Arhythmic – hard to follow

➢ Errhythmic – lifeless

➢ Eurhythmics – everything starts

to come together
Dalcroze Eurhythmics

❖ Rhythmos = Flow or River

❖ Rhythm comes through Motion

❖ Rhythm : Varieties of flow through time-space

❖ Music: The art of moving sounds through

time-space
Eurhythmics activities
Uklad ruchowy – Dla
Elizy
Uklad ruchowy –
Kukulka

Dalcroze Eurhythmics
with Anne Farber

Rhythmic Movement
Routines created by 4th &
5th graders
DeepBlue String
Orchestra
Using Movement vs. Gesture
For choir:
Rehearsal of the Children’s Chorus of San Antonio

G. Scott Barton – Teaching Demonstration/Choral Rehearsal

CCC Vocal Warm-up Techniques

 Please read:
Liao & Davidson (2016). The effects of gesture and
movement training on the intonation of children’s singing
in vocal warm-up sessions.

❖ They suggested that movement training will deepen and

strengthen the physical experience. Through movement
training, every activity or exercise is designed to enhance
the gesture sensation. As a result, the singing gesture
will become more effective. Eventually, voice quality is
also enhanced.
 Children with sensory integration
challenges
Sensory Processing Disorder (SPD) can affect people in only
one sense – for example, just touch or just sight or just
movement – or in multiple senses. A person with SPD may
over-respond to sensation and find clothing, physical contact,
light, sound, food, or other sensory input to be unbearable.
Another might under-respond and show little or no reaction to
stimulation, even pain or extreme hot and cold (from website:
search Sensory Processing Disorder).

Sensory Integration Therapy – Pediatric Occupational

Therapy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=02JlnqUhXeU
 Discuss:

❖ How can we teach staccato by using

audio, visual, tactile and kinesthetic
approaches?
Articulation “Inside Out” Association Suggested Activities/Approaches
for Sensory Modalities
Audio:
“Hopping”: • Play a five-finger pattern in staccato style – the child simply listens.
• Children understand the concept of • The child plays a sequence of notes with the 3rd finger in staccato
hopping. style while singing “hop, hop.”
• Explain and discuss the manner in which • Avoid visual images in the beginning – allow the ear to hear and the
the feet move while hopping. hand to feel.
o Both feet are either off the floor or together
on the floor. Visual:
o Air space exists between hoops. • Play a sequence of notes with the 3rd finger in a staccato style while
the child watches.
Staccato General Activity: • Include a visual image such as the staccato dot or hopping picture.
• Play a short melody or five-finger pattern in • The child plays a sequence of notes with the 3rd finger in staccato
a staccato style (in crotchets) and ask the style – encourage the singing of “hop, hop.”
child to move about the room to the music. • The visual image stimulates a mental picture of how the hand will
(Wanless, • The child’s response will assist in selecting look and feel.
2012, p. 62) the best keyboard approach – audio, visual,
tactile or kinesthetic. Tactile:
• Expand the exercise by playing the same • Play a sequence of notes with the 3rd finger in staccato style while
material with varied articulation – legato or the child’s hand rides on the back of the teacher’s hand.
staccato. • The child plays a sequence of notes with the 3rd finger in staccato
• Watching the child will help you with style focusing on the feel.
understanding exactly what the child is
hearing and how he physically reacts to that Kinesthetic:
sound. • Play a sequence of notes with the 3rd finger in staccato style while
the child hops – keeping time to the music.
• The child plays a sequence of notes with the 3rd finger in staccato
style imagining the “hoping” concept as he plays.