Multi-sensory Learning

Multi-Sensory and Interactive Education:  classes teachers enjoy as much as their students…

Nigel Davies - Medieval Education

Any child can enhance his or her comprehension, processing and retention rates through the use of multi-sensory education.  ‘Problem students’ (anyone who does not cope well with ‘traditional’ techniques’), particularly benefit from using tactile, cross-lateral, rhythmical and aural processing.  This helps the rest of their schooling in an easily measurable way.

So if we want to make a very straightforward difference to our students’ engagement, a few simple tricks can improve the classroom experience – for them and us.  This is particularly easy and applicable in subjects such as History.

Multi-Sensory learning

Part of the problem is an inherent preference in our society for ‘single sense’ learning.  When you watch a teacher write on the board and then start talking, most students will focus on either the sight input or the sound input, to the exclusion of the other.  Usually only a few have the capacity or inclination to process both forms of information simultaneously. 

By contrast, research reveals that a good mix of different inputs will increase involvement and retention enormously - for all students, not just the ones who would have made it anyway. However many schools are not very open to multi-sensory learning.  Many teachers who attempt it receive funny looks in the staffroom (and sometimes from their principals). Yet the more multi-sensory education becomes, the more students are engaged, and the better they retain information.

One of my programs takes medieval and ancient historical activity days into schools.  Two years ago one of my presenters was handed what the school described as a ‘difficult’ class: sixteen level 7 boys, including two integration boys and apparently all the problem students (grouped together because that class would always have teaching aides present?).  She was told (by four separate teachers!), that if she could get the students to sit without throwing the furniture, the class would be considered a success.  She looked nervously at her props – six overheads, four drop spindles, two weaving frames and some raw wool.

Does it surprise you to discover that what these students craved was tactile education?  The more ‘blackboard’ learning was force fed to them – presumably to keep them quiet – the more they were bored and inattentive.  But given wool and spindles and weaving frames, they not only turned out some of the best craft we have ever had from level 7 students, they also discovered an interest in process which led to sensible and insightful questions.  (They began to pay attention to the overheads and whiteboard notes – possibly for the first time.)  Picture it:  troubled adolescent boys, weaving and learning!

In your classroom

Many classroom teachers tend to deal with issues by simplifying, usually in a way that makes us most comfortable.  If we are sight learners, we try to make all our students sight learners.  If we are hearing learners or tactile learners, ditto.  Most of us fail to realise that using what is easy for us will only work for the other people who prefer to learn that way, and will often make no sense to those who most need our help. 

Every single sense approach will work for many people (though certainly not everyone), to a varying degree.  However nosingle sense system can work for everyone. In fact students who achieve only a limited result with their studies and then stop from frustration or disinterest (or dislike), must also count as failures of the education process they were ‘put through’.

A better technique to overcome roadblocks on the path to learning is changing the sense through which information is given.  If they can’t process the written information, then they need tactile, audio-visual, physical movement, or theoretical role-play: or preferably all of the above. 

The conclusion is simple.  If you want all of your students, even the ‘difficult’ ones, to learn:  then you need to provide information in a variety of ways, so that everyone can process it.  If you repeat the same information with visual, oral, and tactile clues, you will get better results. Good teachers use these techniques automatically, and usually unconsciously, to overcome problems.

But making every class an all singing, all dancing multi-media spectacle will not work either.

Avoiding Multi-Sensory overload

Effective learning relies on effective teaching: not just in individual classes, but also through the series of classes that make up a topic, and through the series of classes that make up a day.  Too much multi-sensory learning overloads students.  If it is all too similar, they just stop processing.  Or worse, the best-presented multi-sensory class in the world will have reduced impact at the end of a long and tedious day of other classes, which failed to engage the students. 

Let me give examples of what I mean.

Our Medieval Education incursions could be a series of very exciting and interactive sessions one after another:  Archery, Games, Tournament, Dance, Juggling, etc.  An unfortunate number of incursion companies think this is good education. (I did myself, when I started in the late 80’s – I apologise to some of those early schools).  Students have a great time, but do they learn?  In our experience, and according to the responses from schools, the answer is either no, or, not much.

If you put students through too many too active sessions in a row, two things happen.  First is hyperactivity, and the resulting bad behaviour – not a nice thing to do to students, or to the teachers who may get them back after lunch!  The second thing that will happen is that they will not remember much of the detail, only that they had fun.

Alternatively, our sessions could be much calmer: much more information intense, and much more like straight lectures with pretty props.  Far too many incursion companies use this approach (and we overcompensated in this direction at one stage – again, I apologise). Students get an enormous amount of information, but do they retain much?  The answer appears to be, not really.  Boredom will lead to even more behavioural problems (the worst being snoring), and little retention.

Achieving a balance

The key for teachers is not making every class an identical amalgam of sight, sound, action and process – no matter how exciting the mix. The key is offering a balance of different mixes, and making the whole flow more supportive of the learning process.

I will admit that most schools and most school resources are not designed for this… yet.  But some are making strides towards it, and I have had some very interesting discussions recently with some teachers about the VELS guidelines concepts of integrating topics.  Some of it sounds very exciting.

Unfortunately it is simply not possible to make every class a multi-sensory environment with the flexibility to deal with every student’s individual needs… yet.

However we can improve many students’ lives, and improve our teaching: by valuing multi-sensory interaction for its demonstrated benefits, and accepting that it is superior to merely spoken, or merely written, communication - in establishing a healthy and stable learning environment.  We can solve classroom problems simply by ‘changing senses’.

The effects of this are straightforward.  The classes are more varied.  The students pay more attention.  Less students struggle with processing the information.  There are less behavioural problems.  There are better results across the board.  Hopefully, even the teacher starts enjoying the class!