Channels
Your students learn by SEEING things, HEARING things and THINKING about things. These are the three primary ‘channels’ we use to acquire new information. While there are others such as tasting and balance, most of our academic learning is acquired through these primary channels. We call these INPUT channels.
Your students demonstrates what they learned in various ways. The most common way is through spoken language, that is SAYING an answer. WRITING an answer, and MARKING an answer are the three most frequently used methods of demonstrating that learning has occurred. We call these OUTPUT channels.
We will identify a task as a SEE/SAY task, a SEE/WRITE task or a HEAR/WRITE task, identifying the channels used for each lesson. We want students to use a number of channels for various reasons. Transfer of learning assures learning is used in differing settings. A child who demonstrates learning through more than one channel will use those learned skills more fully in life, that is, those skills will transfer. Learning through more than one input channel and demonstrating that learning through more than one output channel will enhance and strengthen the overall learning of the task, leading to more complete mastery.
No doubt you have heard that one person is more of an auditory learner while another person is more of a visual learner. You will probably find that many students may be an auditory learner in one area and a visual learner in another area. You may discover a channel strength with your students. Learning a math task through the student’s strong channel e.g. seeing then writing , will facilitate the learning of the task through a weaker channel e.g. seeing then saying.