Monday, February 27, 2006

Herrmann

I turned to Wikipedia & the author's own site for an overview of the Herrmann Brain Dominance Instrument.
Developed by Ned Herrmann in the 1970s, the HBDI uses a 120 item questionnaire to classify "thinking preferences" into four quadrants, as shown in this graphic from the Herrmann International website's FAQs:

The quadrants are (according to Wikipedia):
Analytical
Sequential
Interpersonal
Imaginative
Although based on disputed theories about how the brain works (an example of the sort of rhetoric this topic inspires) this particular model is at least clear in its emphasis on the desirability of "whole brain thinking".

It seems directed more at learners than at educators, as a tool for self-awareness & hence self-development. In other words, it throws the responsibility for acting on the results of learning style analysis onto the learner. This makes more sense than requiring educators to tailor their delivery to an impossibly complex multiplicity of learning styles - the implicit demand ridiculed by Stahl.
Nevertheless, the Funderstanding site offers a summary of ways in which educators can take left-brain/right-brain preferences into account.

Anecdotal aside: I interrupted today's study for a coffee. On the kitchen table I found a booklet of exercises from the British Academy of Advanced Training. My 16 year-old daughter is taking part in a short programme of "thinking workshops" led by Roy Paget, British authority on "brain-based learning", which seems pretty close to what Herrmann is leveraging for profit offering.

Still sceptical....

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