Academic content (or any other content, for that matter) should be taught in the manner most conducive to conveying the content, not to any particular student's preferred learning mode:
Are you a visual, auditory, reading/writing, or kinesthetic learner? For millions of students, this question has become so familiar that they already have an answer ready to go. Some identify as visual learners, which means that, in theory, they learn best by seeing concepts in pictures and diagrams, perhaps on a blackboard or in a video. Others identify as auditory learners, which means they learn best by hearing, or reading/writing learners, which means they learn best by reading books and taking notes. Still others identify as kinesthetic learners, which means they learn best when they can physically engage with things, such as in a chemistry lab.
For most of us, the idea that different people have different learning styles is so obvious that it is simply common knowledge. But there’s a problem here, a big problem. No matter how hard scientists have looked, they haven’t been able to find any good evidence for the learning styles theory. Indeed, many academics who study this for a living consider learning styles to be one of the biggest myths in education.
“There is no credible evidence that learning styles exist,” write psychologists Cedar Riener and Daniel Willingham in a 2010 paper titled The Myth of Learning Styles. “Students may have preferences about how to learn, but no evidence suggests that catering to those preferences will lead to better learning.”
Read the whole thing. And toss in so-called Multiple Intelligences, too, while you're resting.
6 comments:
Argh...people are STILL tossing the "learning modes" myth around?!
But then again, it's the true believers from the "education" schools who believe full-heartedly in this claptrap.
I used to have a 'disagreement' with my principal at evaluation time because he insisted that I wasn't utilizing these so-called learning styles. Every year I gave him a copy of the research showing it was baloney. He didn't mark ne down for it because I think he knew I'd fight it. Is there any field so prone to adopting unresearched ideas than education? Teaching the basic structure of our language(grammar), phonics, how to structure an argument-- oh, no, can't have that! After 35 teaching years and retirement, when I meet former students, they always mention that those skills helped them in their careers and life.
I found that a lot of simple things have helped me in life. For example, knowing Greek and Latin roots, suffixes, and prefixes is knowledge I wish *every*one had.
During the Covid year, I had a charming student who was in danger of failing Physics even though expectations had been lowered appallingly. For two-thirds of the year, we were in-person for two days per week. This student was intelligent and engaged while we were in class, but did almost nothing beyond that. She knew that she wasn't trying, and was okay with that.
As I was explaining what she absolutely had to do to pass, she said, "Yeah, I could have done much better this year. I'm a visual learner, so remote doesn't work for me."
She noticed that I looked skeptical.
She added, "I know the research refutes learning styles, I just said that because some teachers believe it. I'm lazy, and my parents think physics is hard, so they don't push me."
She would say funny shit like that all the time, and I really would like to have had her in a regular year. I'm not proud of myself for dragging her carcass across the finish line. She did a little bit of work and I did a little bit of fudging the grades to get her a 'D' for the year.
Actually a good teacher will use multiple ways to demonstrate a skill so that all students are engaged. Teachers who only lecture are going to end up talking to a wall. I know a district near me, one of the few I would return to work in, is making moves to have students put their cell phones in magnetic pouches during the day. That would go a LONG way to improving everyone's focus.
Of course we do that, Ellen K. There is a difference, though, between showing different ways to do something and encouraging people to believe they as individuals have a primary method of learning something.
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