.The presentation gives us an overview about using flexible learning tools and materials that support the three brain systems involved in learning to reach learners of varied backgrounds, interests, abilities, and levels of expertise.

1. INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES –
MEDIA-BASED TEACHING APPROACHES
Dr. GEETHA JANET VITUS
Hon. Director
Centre for Learning Disabilities and Difficulties (CLDD)
&
Assistant Professor
Dept. of Education, University of Kerala
Ph. No. (Office): (0471) 2303718, Mob. No. +91 9995283337
E-mail: andrew.geetha@gmail.com

2. OVERVIEW
Rapid advances in science have helped reveal
many of the secrets of how our brain works.
These new insights have given us new ways to
understand individual differences in learning.
In order to reach learners of varied
backgrounds, interests, abilities, and levels of
expertise, learning “tools” and materials must
be flexible in ways that support the three
brain systems involved in learning.

3. Some ways to achieve this include the
following approaches:
• Multiple representations of content, providing
options to suit varied recognition systems.
• Multiple means of expression and control,
providing options to support different
strategic systems.
• Multiple options for engagement, which act
upon the affective systems, providing
alternative ways to attract and hold students'
attention and motivating them to learn.

4. Are Learning Disabilities Related to
Differences in the Brain?
People with and without learning disabilities are
observed to have certain differences in the
structure and functioning of the brain.

5. Reason
According to new research, there may be
variations in the brain structure called the
planum temporale, a language-related area
found in both sides of the brain.
In people with dyslexia, these two
structures were found to be equal in size
whereas in nondyslexics, the left planum
temporale was noticeably larger.

6. Every learner is unique
Labelling students as disabled, average or gifted
make broad assumptions about the similarities
of learners within categories (missing the
differences) and about the differences between
learners across categories (missing the
similarities). The kinds of learning for which
each brain network is specialized demand
different approaches to teaching and different
uses of media.

7. Individual Differences in Recognition
Systems
It is that part of the brain that identifies
patterns, such as objects, voices, faces, letters of
the alphabet, and words, as well as more subtle
patterns such as author style and nuance.
Recognition processes occur in the back half of
the brain - including the occipital, parietal and
temporal cortex - but not in any one place
(Farah, 2000).

8. Parallel Processing
Parallel processing allows for quick recognition of
complex material. Learning to recognize colour, location,
orientation or shape within a larger context like word
recognition is a demanding task that becomes almost
effortless for the experienced individual.
PET studies show that the processing necessary for
recognition of the letter A involves different processing
areas for recognizing colour, shape, orientation, and
location. These occur simultaneously in parallel
processing.

9. Curricular materials are developed in
many media to adjust for individual
recognition systems
 Students find recognizing patterns easier with certain
educational tools than with others. Some thrive by
listening to lectures; others obtain information
effectively from texts, whereas still others learn best
through visual media like diagrams, charts, videos, or
illustrations.
 More profound learning differences within the
recognition systems may manifest as a learning
disability, like dyslexia, or as a sensory disability, like
blindness, both of which may limit learners in their
abilities to successfully acquire information from
traditional technologies like text.

10. Pattern Recognition
 Pattern recognition is an act of categorization
requiring awareness of the critical features that
identify that particular pattern in many different
contexts.
 Teaching pattern recognition involves helping
learners identify patterns in varied contexts,
remember them, use them when learning new
related patterns, and apply them.

11. Media flexibility for Recognition
Networks
To adjust to different recognition networks,
appropriate learning materials provide multiple
representations of target patterns so that
learners can select the medium or media of
preference, or elect to use multiple media
simultaneously.

12. Individual Differences in Strategic
Networks
Individual differences in frontal networks
account for individual variation in fine motor
skill, physical coordination, and capacities for
planning, organization, strategic thinking and
expression.

13. Teaching Strategic Skills
Learning a skill is a different kind of process than
learning to recognize a pattern. The components
of apprenticeship learning are:
• active models of skilled performance
• scaffolds to support the learner
• ample opportunities to practice
• on-going, immediate and relevant feedback
• opportunities to demonstrate skill

14. Media flexibility for Strategic
Networks
• Media flexibility can support apprenticeship
learning by providing models of skilled
performances like:
• A set of sample introductory paragraphs when
teaching how to write a research paper
• A video demonstration of dissecting a frog
• A digitally recorded reading of a difficult word
• A recording of a skilled violinist playing an
arpeggio

15. Feedback can include
• A student practicing word decoding can record
himself reading the word, then play back the
original version plus his own version and compare
• Using text-to-speech allows students to check
and see if their writing “sounds right” or to
compose an assignment orally first
• Digital rewind and playback allows students to
compose orally and check their work by listening

16. Demonstrating skill can include
• Drawing and other graphics tools can help students
generate ideas and organize their work visually .
• The use of a digital camera or standard camera with a
scanner enables students to build a composition around
images .
• With digital media and networks available, students can
demonstrate their skills and knowledge by writing an
illustrated paper, creating a video, designing a web site
with links to relevant materials, or composing a piece of
music using a midi system.

17. Individual Differences in Affective
Networks
Individual differences in affective networks
are reflected in differences in what attracts,
motivates, and engages us.
The same task, book, or teaching approach
may build competence and confidence in some
students while frustrating or boring for others.

18. Teaching to Support Engagement
Because different students become or fail to
become engaged in learning for very different
reasons, teachers need to have multiple
approaches to engagement at their disposal.

19. Media Flexibility for Affective
Networks
Digital materials and electronic networks have
the potential to provide the required flexibility
for affective learning but developers,
researchers, and educators will have to ensure
that sound pedagogy guides the development of
new digital curricula.

20. CONCLUSION
• A better understanding on how brain learns has
individual, community and societal implications.
• How we learn provide insight into how we interact with
the environment, what lessons we glean, and how these
experiences change subsequent behaviour and attitudes.
• Individually, we can either consciously change these
things, or appreciate how much of whom we are, is
already rooted in the nervous system awaiting the
opportunity for expression.

21. CONCLUSION
continued…
• Media assisted learning enables students and
educators to assess individual learning styles and
to tailor strategies and experiences accordingly.
• Understanding the neurobiological aspects of
learning could provide critical insight for issues
such as learning disabilities contributing towards
understanding inequalities in the educational
system that make educational reform a more
attainable goal.

22. REFERENCE
• Cytowic, R.E. (1996). The neurological side of neuropsychology. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
• Damasio, A.R. (1994). Descartes' error: Emotion, reason and the human brain. New York: G.P.
Putnam & Sons.
• Farah, M.J. (2000). The cognitive neuroscience of vision. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers.
• Fuster, J. (1997). The prefrontal cortex: Anatomy, physiology and neuropsychology of the
frontal lobe. New York: Lippincott Publishers.
• Gardner, H. (1983). Frames of mind: The theory of multiple intelligences. New York: Basic
Books.
• Meyer, A. & Rose, D.H. (1998). Learning to read in the computer age. Cambridge, MA:
Brookline Books.
• UNESCO (1994) The Salamanca Statement and Framework for Action on Special Needs
Education , adopted by the World Conference on Special Needs Education: Access and
Quality (Salamanca, Spain, 7-10 June, 1994), Paris, UNESCO, 1994.
• www.cast.org
• www.wikipedia.org
• www.google.com
• www.eric.edu
• www.casio.com