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The Myth of 'Learning Styles'

theatlantic.com

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Re: The Myth of 'Learning Styles'

#21

Post by watwut »

leetcrew wrote: post #13
VyseofArcadia wrote: post #3

If I had a nickel every time a student came up to me and said, "I'm an x learner and your class is very y," I'd have a lot of nickels. Every single time what they really mean is, "I'm doing terrible in your class, and even though it's probably my attitude or study habits or preparedness, I'm going to blame you."

i do actually learn best by reading. if the professor produces a set of authoritative notes for the class, i will get an A on every exam. as long as the professor makes it clear exactly what sections of the text are important, i will learn everything and still get an A every time. if the professor says important stuff during lecture that cannot be read somewhere, i have no chance of retaining that information.

Writing own notes help in situation where informations is only said. Then you can read it. Pretty much no one is able to consistently remember heard information after single hearing, overwhelming majority of people need to revise it.

Re: The Myth of 'Learning Styles'

#22

Post by watwut »

unit91 wrote: post #20

So glad to see this article. From time to time, my wife will ask me "how do I get the kids to learn X?" My answer is always the same: "Forget about the 'learning styles'. Drill baby, drill!"

Except that pedagogy matters and the way you teach things matters. Learning style don't exists research is not in opposition to that.

Re: The Myth of 'Learning Styles'

#23

Post by moate »

Learning and Teaching are hard. Maybe learning styles are a "myth", maybe there just infinitely more complex things going on in a classroom/school than can be controlled for.

Also, some people are smart (read: have preexisting understanding of the concepts that precede the material being taught, typically combined with a desire to learn the material) and some people are stupid (read: the opposite of smart) and that can create its own set of hurdles.

Re: The Myth of 'Learning Styles'

#26

Post by lr4444lr »

Every time someone someone tries to sell me on this tired idea, I ask them: if you had to teach someone the difference between different bird calls, e.g. that of the robin vs. the sparrow, and you're told that person is a "visual learner", do you mean to tell me you'd opt to show them the oscilloscope representation of the sound wave that each bird makes rather than playing them an actual recording of each call?

It's a patently reductionist and limiting idea that human beings have a stronger modality for learning any information regardless of the type. Yes, there may be a nugget of truth that some people will have profoundly more tactile sensitivity for example, and will thrive in activities like dealing cards, or juggling, or wrestling where that modality is embedded in the purpose of that activity. But the overgeneralization to say that this person will, for example, learn how to read better by touching words and letters rather than proven phonics methods is ridiculous.

Re: The Myth of 'Learning Styles'

#27

Post by reitanqild »

It only take one real counterexample to disprove something, so let me take a stab at this:

If learning styles were not real then why would people waste time making boooring videos when text is so much easier to both create an consume?

Or am I right that some people actually like those long winded videos? What about podcasts?

Spoken as someone who would sometimes skip the lectures, read the book and get best in class grades.

Re: The Myth of 'Learning Styles'

#28

Post by reitanqild »

lr4444lr wrote: post #26

Every time someone someone tries to sell me on this tired idea, I ask them: if you had to teach someone the difference between different bird calls, e.g. that of the robin vs. the sparrow, and you're told that person is a "visual learner", do you mean to tell me you'd opt to show them the oscilloscope representation of the sound wave that each bird makes rather than playing them an actual recording of each call? It's…

> Every time someone someone tries to sell me on this tired idea, I ask them: ...

Now it might be time to turn the table and ask: is it equally easy for everyone to learn bird calls?

Or maybe people have different abilities?

Edit: my point is not that this hasn't been used to sell a lot of useless ideas but rather that people are actually different.

For your bird call example the obvious way to learn it is by listening.

Other times it is less obvious. A kid with severe dyslexia will probably learn history easier by listening while other kids will prefer to read it at my own pace (i.e. fast).

Re: The Myth of 'Learning Styles'

#29

Post by sudosteph »

The learning styles thing always confused me, because I would take the test to see which type I was, and get a different answer each time. I think it's because the way that you process different subjects just isn't necessarily consistent.

Ex: - Anything related to music is auditory. I learned to read sheet music, but I can never "visualize" the sounds from that. I would just have to play it and see what comes out. If I heard the first couple notes of a song I've heard before though, I can easily hear the entire song in my head and then figure it out on an instrument.

- Foreign languages, by contrast, I needed good printouts for. I'm slow at processing streaming sounds in real time, and even more so for unfamiliar languages. I think my brain just has to do a lot of post-processing with full context to make sense of verbal language. But I could read and write the languages just fine, and if the language is somewhat phonetic, I can lean on my spelling knowledge to speak it halfway decently.

- anything technical or mathematical requires that I solve some sort of problem with it to understand

- Any "softer" subject (psychology, history, economics) is best reinforced when I learn via interesting stories. I like that so many textbooks have those "real world application" sections or whatever to tie things into history or things I've seen in real life. A good orator though can also tell a compelling story to keep my attention engaged on the subject.

The absolute worst though is when an educator makes a slide show, prints those slides out and hands them out before class starts, then reads the slides and answers questions. That pretty much guarantees I have no investment in the class, as I don't really have incentive to take notes or listen, and I won't be surprised by anything because it only takes like 3 minutes to actually skim everything and see it's just bullet points pulled from the text book.

Re: The Myth of 'Learning Styles'

#30

Post by rdiddly »

Even if there were distinct styles, seems like it would be better to develop the ones you're not good at, than the one you're already good at. Specifically this should be biased toward, and I say this in all seriousness, the teaching style that is cheapest. Because that is going to be the default not only in school but throughout life, and wherever people are concerned about costs, which is most places. Get good at that, and you've got it made.
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