Kyle Phoenix, Writer and student & Instructor at Columbia University
Yes, along Foucault's suggestion I use art in a variety of forms---written, visual, museums, media as a form of both learning and assessment. I give a broad spectrum testing of MBTI, temperament and MI in one compact form then I further explain teach a lesson to students and teachers on the assessment itself and the theories plus the applications of such info. With teachers I then go into training how to use various content to draw out and teach too MI strengths and preferences.
I say preferences because there's a whom lot of debate over Gardner's theories so I preface it that we're seeing preferences for information intake and designing lessons to accommodate VARK, not to teach exclusively to it. To students, this is your language/super powers now I'm going to show you how your power accesses say drawing or composing a story or a mural or a play, which are an expression of drawing and writing but geared differently.
The key is lead time for teacher to recognize they've been leaning in their personal preference and school is geared towards readers/logical/sequential, yet in my casual surveying of my work---40% of Black and Latino students are Kinesthetic so a mandatory seating class is asking for madness, instead pockets work better. Noise is natural, talking is how Kinesthetics express giftedness and engagement. Art as in hands on doing, moving around, sharing, building is their natural forte. If you suss out five ways to teach a film, you'll capture everyone.
For one final listening exam, I use the Matrix Reloaded highway chase scene. (Visual). Handout has ten questions---what did you hear? (Visual/Linguistic). Read first. I only play media in fifteen minute bursts, shorter than a sitcom to disrupt the social/cultural psychological unconscious non-engagement passivity expectation of TV though I using that medium. I explain I will play the clip twice. Once to pay attention, the second time you've marked your answers but switch papers to be graded by another student. Second time clip is played I put on the closed captioning so language is visible and it becomes a passive reading exercise for non-Visual learners, this also engages both sides of the brain again as its movie, check paper, read captions---all of this disrupts just watching a film but the action keeps the Kinesthetics engaged because movement, action, energy is occurring.
With reading I use song lyrics that are deeply descriptive and preface with lots of pictures and stories. Meshell Ndegeocellos Hot Night is great because it's a great beat (Kinesthetics) but Visual in reading and I can talk about historical events and mark them from pictures on my screw to textbooks. Sometimes we'll play the song a dozen times in class as I purposefully hit it from every VARK angle. Having the students aware of deeper assessments I can then charge them back with point out your super powers perception of this because my power only only allows me to Visualize it.
I do a lot of layer planning and forethought to my curriculum ahead of time and then bring in an artifact and launch students at it rather than teach how I or others perceive it.
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