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The Myth of 'Learning Styles'

theatlantic.com

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Re: The Myth of 'Learning Styles'

#71

Post by npudar »

npudar wrote: post #4

Around 20 years ago, I met Dawna Markova at a conference where she spoke about the work she had done in learning styles. My recollection is that the Visual, Auditory and Kinesthetic forms was not about how you "learn", but rather on how you stay "focused". Researchers found that there were three brianwave patterns that corresponded to your level of focus. For me, Visual stimuli kept me focused. Auditory stimuli pract…

Another thing I just remembered on this topic of what "focuses" you, there is a clever and interesting way to learn which of the three forms keeps someone else focused.

It is in how a person tells you they don't understand something. A visual person will say "I don't see that." An auditory person will say "I'm not hearing you" or "You need to say that again." A kinesthetic person would say "I don't get it" or "That doesn't feel right."

Interesting. And small hints.

Re: The Myth of 'Learning Styles'

#72

Post by DataWorker »

nategri wrote: post #2

Since it's an identity thing, I'm guessing people are not going to want to let this one go. Just like they won't let go of their identity as a Meyers-Briggs I-N-T-whatever-the-hell, even though there's zero evidence for it as a meaningful framework.

Tell that to Cambridge Analytica!

Re: The Myth of 'Learning Styles'

#73

Post by kolpa »

watwut wrote: post #21
leetcrew wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Writing helps because writing is an effective learning style, even if you burn the notes as soon as you write them. (Reading might help even more, but reading without writing helps less than writing + reading)

Re: The Myth of 'Learning Styles'

#74

Post by kolpa »

roywiggins wrote: post #15
iamcasen wrote: post #9

This article really just seems to be mincing words and debating what "style" means. The fact remains: some methods of presenting information is worse than others. Some students will think they hate the subject material, but really what they hate is the teacher's relationship to the subject material. The teacher understands a subject a certain way, and that way might not make sense to a student. A different teacher wi…

The myth is that everyone has a learning style, that style can be summed up as one of a few categories, the style never changes, and will be stable year to year, and once you have identified what the style is with a questionnaire, you can tailor teaching to it to target particular students. Once you weaken all those things, the predictive value of the theory is pretty well nil.

I've heard many more debunkings of learning styles than I've heard advocacies of learning styles. It's just fun to be contrarian.

Re: The Myth of 'Learning Styles'

#75

Post by kolpa »

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!"

That's how you instill memorization, not comprehension.

Re: The Myth of 'Learning Styles'

#76

Post by Nition »

turingcompeteme wrote: post #40

My SO teaches elementary math, and we've had a few discussions about this. When teaching a new concept, say the area of a parallelogram, she will present the concept in multiple different ways: - Give printouts of parallelograms on graph paper, so the students can count the number of squares in a parallelogram. Also give them scissors and see what happens. - Give students two triangles and a square (which they know h…

The best part of this is the simple fact that they're helping the students understand why the formula is what it is, and not just learning it by rote.

Re: The Myth of 'Learning Styles'

#77

Post by lopmotr »

nategri wrote: post #2

Since it's an identity thing, I'm guessing people are not going to want to let this one go. Just like they won't let go of their identity as a Meyers-Briggs I-N-T-whatever-the-hell, even though there's zero evidence for it as a meaningful framework.

If you think MB and learning styles are bad, multiple intelligences is worse. There isn't even a test for that, so it's nothing but self-judging and the definitions are all inspirations coming from the head of one individual (Gardener). That's really one made for the "everyone's good at something" false self-esteem philosophy. The irony is that it turns out mental ability is positively correlated among many areas.

Re: The Myth of 'Learning Styles'

#78

Post by Treblemaker »

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…

> 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?

Useful visual representations of bird calls do exist. For example: http://earbirding.com/blog/specs

Re: The Myth of 'Learning Styles'

#79

Post by haZard_OS »

This is an example of a myth that just won't die. The Skeptics Society (to give but one example) has been trying for years to put this nonsense to rest:

https://www.skeptic.com/insight/the-myth-of-learning-styles/

I have even made multiple visits to my children's schools and tried to explain the actual research connected with pedagogy and communication but to little avail:

https://www.psychologicalscience.org/journals/pspi/PSPI_9_3....

Like the myth that "we only use 10% of our brains", the myth about learning styles seems immortal.

Re: The Myth of 'Learning Styles'

#80

Post by jldugger »

dmix wrote: post #62
mattferderer wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I strongly agree in presenting a topic in a variety of ways since being able to relate new information to information already known is a major key to learning new concepts. The more ways a topic is presented, the better chance a person's brain can relate it to something already known. I have a strong assumption that when many people hear "learning styles", they assume it to this instead of auditory vs visual.

> I have a strong assumption that when many people hear "learning styles", they assume it to this instead of auditory vs visual. Or the assume each individual only benefits from one in all situations (being half awake, interested in the subject, etc, etc). Which is a ridiculous assumption once you really think about it.

And yet I've have teachers growing up who gave classes workshops to help them identify their learning style, as if it was as inherent as a pokemon type.
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