The Myth of 'Learning Styles'

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.

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 practically put me to sleep. And Kinesthetic stimuli are transitional for me. In meetings where there is just discussion or words on a chart, I find myself fidgeting, and that helps me stay focused. So I am V-K-A. (The first letter for what keeps you focsed, the second letter for the transitional mode, and the third letter for what causes you to drift into la-la-land.) The research found that the six combinations of these three types of stimuli was equally distributed in the population.

The lesson for teachers and presenters is that you should provide all three stimuli in your presentation so that all people get what they need to stay focused.

Markova wrote a wonderful book called "How Your Child Is Smart". It was fantastic resource for bringing up our children and helping them stay focused in all of the ways they actually learned.

In my own experience of studying during my life - which admittedly is a sample size of one and hugely biased, I would say that without fail, every class I've failed to gain traction in is because I was uninspired or lacked critical prerequisites in my understanding that helped my understand during the class, or some combination thereof.

I'm an X learner is a symptom of this. I'm an X learner means that I have pigeonholed myself as only being able to effectively learn when (for example) I am being taught by a highly engaging orator who exudes passion for their subject that exhibits as a charisma so drawing that I am excited by the material...

...I wonder how many teachers fit that description... looking at my history of taking classes, I'm going to reach into my farcically small data set and suggest almost none.

So... perhaps given that, I need to find a way to discover how engaging a topic is of my own accord so that I'm inspired to dig deep and understand it from the most fundamental levels required in order to absorb the material presented by my motivated, but somewhat uncharismatic teacher.

So for me, an X learner, my X is someone who absorbs material most effectively when my teacher is amazing... and I've done the leg work to understand what they're talking about before I sit down in their class and start asking stupid questions to disapproving tones of the other students.

I'm a fun learner and your class is very... not fun :P

So-called "learning styles" is only useful in that it forces the instructor to repeat the material 3 or 4 times thus reinforcing what he's already said. Repetition isn't necessarily a bad thing but wrapping it in this mythology leaves some to be desired. And this myth is alive and well at least where I go to school. One professor even has us go through a book and fill out a questionnaire to "determine" our style. And another, while not doing anything with it, brings the idea up frequently. I don't want to get a target painted on my back by going against orthodoxy so I play along. Sucks though. Feels like a real waste of time humoring this nonsense.

I’ve been in plenty of situations where I was an X and the class was a Y. But rather than complain to the teacher about it, I would just self study harder and stop attending lectures. It usually worked.

I don’t expect that teachers can solve my problems, any of them actually, and especially when they are the problem what can you do?