The Skillful Teacher

Mixing Modalities
The most obvious response to encountering educational diversity is
to employ the widest possible mix of pedagogic approaches and learn-
ing modalities within the classroom and to include the broadest pos-
sible racial and cultural diversity on the teaching team. As we know,
this is much easier said than done. First, all the teachers on a teach-
ing team may belong to one racial group. Second, external pressures
may force us to move students through the curriculum at a prescribed
pace that eliminates any experimentation with pacing. Third, as more
and more students are placed into fewer and fewer classrooms, the
possibilities for individualizing instruction or for temporarily group-
ing students by learning style, race, ability level, or focus of interest
simply disappear. Nonetheless, we cannot do nothing. With some cre-
ativity it is possible to work towards including two or three different
learning modalities into many of our lessons.
A helpful approach is to think of the different instructional
choices open to most of us in our teaching. Teaching can be 
predominantly visual or oral, silent or speech filled, emphasize
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instructor demonstration or student experimentation, focus on
abstract conceptualization or practical implementation, favor
teacher talk or student talk, rely on teacher direction or student self-
direction, be kinetic or static, and prefer independent study or group
projects. Mixing activities along each of these axes is complicated
and can sometimes appear confusing to learners. But if the rationale
for our instructional choices is explained to students as part of our
attempt to try to address as many different identities and styles as
possible, and if our experimentations are monitored by the CIQ,
then this confusion can be kept to a minimum.