Time to Process and Conceptualise

While she had got off to a slow start comprehending my verbal explanation of the planned process for our interviews, after time for reflection Danielle had found her way and by our second session together she demonstrated that she was linking the

taking of photographs with the recorded information on our mind map and had formulated a very cohesive understanding. Key aspects are that Danielle struggled to comprehend solely verbal information and that she needed time and support to make links between what she heard and other supplementary information such as visual cues and her image-based prior experience. It has been observed that Danielle behaved in a rather self conscious way during our first session, when she was unsure of what was required of her. Again, it follows that to begin with Danielle had no “picture” of what was to happen and therefore no sense of certainty as to what she needed to know. Even though the process had been explained, she had yet to assign meaning to the words. For example, the explanation of what a mind map was only began to make sense as she observed her words being written on to the map as she said them. Only then was she able to make meaning as she could “see” what was meant.

This further illustrates the overarching understanding that is required to fully

comprehend and to remediate the difficulty Danielle sometimes has in making sense of new information. She needs to be helped to create an image first so she has an ‘answer key’ as she then subsequently meets up with pieces of the puzzle. In other words, in isolation, each piece has no meaning and she has no “hook” to hang them on as she progressively formulates her own understandings (Silverman 2002). The example given in this case where Danielle’s teacher provided models of the ‘Hole in the Wall’ art work and then supported Danielle as she worked backwards to figure out how to achieve the end result is a strategy that worked well for her and could be generalised to other learning experiences.

Maths teaching is largely language-based; teachers adopt ‘think alouds’ to make their thinking visible as they step through a process. When this is done well, use is made of manipulatives, or a diagram may be drawn so that the teacher is “showing” while talking and adding visual elements to the verbal information. Reinforcing verbal information with visual is a valuable strategy for all; however for learners like Danielle the visual is more than an added extra. Being able to make her own visual image that fits with her prior knowledge is integral to her successful processing of information.

It is therefore important to ensure that sufficient time and opportunity is provided for her to assimilate the new ideas into her existing knowledge. The translation time required for a “picture thinker” to transfer, create and absorb is addressed by Mann (2001, 2005) who suggests frequent pauses in lectures/instructions and encourages the drawing of diagrams, the use of graphic organisers and note taking in pictorial form to aid recall. Also important is being very explicit about assigning shared meaning to maths vocabulary thereby avoiding making implicit assumptions about shared understanding of the terms that are used in verbal explanations (Khisty & Chval, 2002; Walkerdine, 1988; Christensen, 2004; Sullivan, Mousley & Zevenbergen, 2003).

Alton-Lee (2003) advocates that teachers should provide multiple opportunities for students to create non-linguistic representations of their understandings. Danielle demonstrated more than once when working with me that she liked to draw her understanding, and that it helps her to verbalise her thinking to be able to do so. Communicating graphically as part of everyday teaching is likely to help all of the students in the class. However beyond that, for Danielle and others like her,

providing opportunities for them to draw a picture or build a model to represent their thoughts may really help them to be able to present and share their ideas and thereby enable truly effective teaching and learning to take place (Hatano and Inagaki, 1998). Kyle indicated a preference for seeing an example in action and then setting about figuring out exactly how it worked - an inductive approach. My method for explaining the study requirements to Danielle was in contrast with her similarly preferred learning method of observing and then following the image that she creates herself once she recognises the ‘complete idea’. In other words, she forms a picture of what it will look like as it is being done, before she starts. Danielle’s Dad referred more than once to her spatial organisation, saying “she’s very spatial, you know, she’s very … she has to see things and to look at things, and when it is not presented

properly, like this to her, she … she struggles to understand” (B6:9) and “because as I said, she is very spatial, so if you tell her 1, 2, 3 and 4, in her mind, the whole thing is ready, so she is going to go there and do it, you know” (B6:12). William’s parents

before he would attempt something new; however he often proved very capable when he finally did so.

7.3.5 Experiential Contexts that Support Deep Learning

When Kyle’s gifted education programme teacher talked about the kind of inputs she employs, she indicated that in many respects his needs in this area are typical of all of her gifted students. She tries as much as possible to provide visuals, using a lot of You Tube ™ clips and similar visual stimuli, to emulate as closely as possible, real experience. On top of the manner of presenting new material, his gifted programme teacher emphasised the need for giving the students sufficient time to physically try things out. So again, her experience illustrates the need for content to be challenging and for it to be meaningful, which happens best for visual-spatial students when they encounter experiential learning.

Kyle’s mum had also commented that he works better in hands-on learning situations when he is physically as well as mentally involved in an experiential way. His father’s comment that he likes to get out his pencil and paper and “doodle” is another example of the helpful connection between a physical act, in this case drawing and the mental work of thought processing. In a research study to ascertain how effective doodling was in improving attention to a listening task, Andrade (2009) showed that

participants who doodled while listening recalled 29% more information. Possibly, a similar study that isolated gifted visual-spatial learners would show a greater effect. While Andrade considers doodling to be simply a way of filling in time when bored and asked whether it might assist cognitive performance by reducing daydreaming, this perspective is very much at odds with the idea that doodling may in fact help to activate the visualisation process that visual-spatial learners employ as they perform cognitive tasks.

7.3.6 Direct Instruction in Organisational Strategies that Utilise Visual