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[fiona]

Being of a suspicious nature, I have always suspected that "different learning styles" means excuses.

Discuss.

http://chronicle.com/article/Matching-Teaching-Style-to/49497/

The Fiona

[helpful]

If you read the article carefully it is providing a much more nuanced take on learning styles.

[lightningstrike]

Although the article casts doubt on EduSpeak masquerading as scholarship, it will do little to stem the flow of bullet points and drivel from the Power Point rangers that classify the obvious into arbitrary taxonomies and create new boldface terms.  Sadly, the article will only start another round of meaningless discourse and lead the few that are still awake to the same inevitable conclusion: there is pizza money to be made in educational consulting.

[lost_angeleno]

The other day, one of our math faculty bemoaned the fact that incoming students could not add fractions.  Just to doodle, I drew an x/y axis and did on the x-axis the simple problem he cited.  He was taken aback, since he did it another way.  I learned math thinking geometrically.  He thinks algebraically.
qed

[sibyl]

I agree with helpful.  The article suggests that learning styles may also be related to subject matter and not just to the learner.

Honestly, have you never worked with someone who had trouble understanding an idea in one way, and then you provided another way for understanding the idea, and the person understood it?  We have all done this.  In my teaching, the concept of learning styles reminds me that I don't necessarily know the best way to convey information and that I shouldn't be afraid to try others.

Obviously there is a lot of junk that is attached to the "learning styles" name.  But I don't think there's anything wrong with acknowledging that there are several ways to learn, and therefore there are several ways to teach.

[polly_mer]

I, too,  agree with the main conclusions of the article:

• Learning styles matter in the sense that no one perfect way exists to teach all material to all students
• However, some material lends itself better to some styles
• People can learn material that doesn't accord exactly with their preferred learning style
• some people do not learn at all well using some styles
• Some people have such a severe mismatch between the good ways in which to teach the material and their preferred ways to learn that they will never progress beyond a superficial knowledge and should be encouraged to choose college majors in which the good ways to teach the material match their preferred learning styles
• Consequently, the best way to teach is to try to incorporate several methods in the classroom that are appropriate to the material in an effort to reach the majority of the students in multiple ways

While Fiona is correct that some learning style talk is just excuse, some learning style things do matter.

[madhatter]

I first studied learning styles around twenty years ago. At the time, the evidence showed that they were best thought of as "learning preferences." There was no data to support that these preferences actually made a difference in the amount of learning that occurred. However, like many unsubstantiated models, it tickled the sensibilities of College of Education types and became codified into pedagogical "best practices." (For an example of another model -- with even less validation -- that has been adopted uncritically, I refer you to multiple intelligences.)

Twenty years later -- more data, same results. Expected change from the Education "scholars": zip.

[the_honey_badger]

Like most things the problem isn't with the theory and the nuanced practice/understanding of it but how it gets "popularized" even within universities.  Our *dolts* at the "learning center"  display a superficial understanding that gets promoted as "most students are visual learners!" and demand Power Point for everything or you are "not serving the students." 

Of course, in the Humanities this translates into "outline the lecture!" My complaint to them has always been "if reading text slides is *visual* why isn't reading a textbook?"  They come back with "its different!" And around in circles we go.  Students have been taught to claim that they are "visual" or "auditory" learners and so they believe that reading and listening to lectures "just doesn't work for them!"  And, again, we go in the circle of argument that you are asking for text slides and saying that "listening" to lectures doesn't suit your auditory style....what it comes down to is that the local practice of this theory often makes the promoters sound like idiots.

I like what a TA of mine did in a mandatory class. After he was admonished that *most* students can't learn by reading or by lecture but that they did learn well from "energetic power point with music and video clips" (yes, so easy to do for 17th century history!) he first asked if the issue wasn't "laziness" and when he was shot down asked:  "well, what do we do if the student claims to be a "tactile learner?"  The Education *doctorate* leading the session told him that maybe getting them to do "dioramas of historical events" might improve learning.  My TA (reportedly) laughed and was thrown out of the class.


When I took a TEACH session a decade ago the idea was *preferred* learning styles are why as a teacher you often have to think of multiple ways to explain a concept and that NOT all concepts could be rendered in all media but that you had to try.  Now its the Power Point Army mentality that insists that there is only one way to teach and it involves (in the Humanities) putting words on slides because words in books are just too confusing!  What I want to know is why these people don't seem to realize that *reading* is *visual.* 

[polly_mer]

What I want to know is why these people don't seem to realize that *reading* is *visual.*  

If you find out, then drop me a line.  I had classrooms full of elementary education majors this fall who wished to discuss the fact that they had different learning styles not accommodated by my teaching methods.  I explained that they read the book, participated in discussions, did hands-on activities, did full-body activities, listened to lectures, worked in small groups, worked in large groups, worked as individuals, and selected activities to do from a list that encompassed several of the types of learning styles including naturalistic, bodily-kinesthetic, musical, interpersonal, intrapersonal, visual-spatial, logical-mathematical, and verbal-linguistic (list of learning styles taken from edutopia.org) so that all of their styles should be accommodated on an average basis.

No dice.  They wanted me to give outlines of the material that they could memorize and then write back on the test.  Their learning style wasn't visual or auditory, as they claimed so much as lazy, rote memorization that required minimal effort on their parts.

[madhatter]

from a list that encompassed several of the types of learning styles including naturalistic, bodily-kinesthetic, musical, interpersonal, intrapersonal, visual-spatial, logical-mathematical, and verbal-linguistic (list of learning styles taken from edutopia.org) ...

Oh, for the love of ... now they can't even keep their fad theories straight. That's the list of Gardner's multiple intelligences, not learning styles. The Learning Styles Inventory (developed by Kolb) has four poles -- concrete experience, active experimentation, abstract conceptualization, and reflective observation. There's also a more simplified/face valid model that breaks it down into visual, auditory, and kinesthetic (sometimes adding reading or tactile).

[the_honey_badger]

Poly_mer nailed it in terms of what students have been taught they "need" and how that translates into one thing:  "give me the correct answer to memorize. Oh, and entertain me---thinkin' is not my preferred style of learning!"

I have two sections a year of over 250 for intro US History and World History. There have been semesters when I swear I've gotten claims of 50 different "learning styles"  I do everything but juggle live kittens in that lecture hall (and if I was co-ordinated I'd try that).   I provide music clips and art from the period, I use maps, graphs and anything I can find. What was most telling to me was a so-called "visual learner" who complained about his grade and lectured me on "visual learning"----NO, illustrations weren't enough and period music wasn't helping ("they are boring") what this lad *demanded* were "like the five major reasons for things" so he could memorize them "for the test."  And, he'd like more videos :  "but not the boring documentaries."   I wish I could say he was unusual but he was not.

Now, one surprising group was when I taught a class that fit the engineering first year curriculum schedule. I got about 70% of the large section with only engineers.  Now, you'd think they'd be "visual" learners but they were the best class I ever had. Why? Because they did the reading and the assignments.  Their gpa mattered for staying in their program (it is competitive here because of space) and they were used to "just having to get the work done."  So, they *did* it. Minimum complaints, maximum performers.   Give me 250 of them every semester and I'd be a happy, happy camper.

BTW, I plan to tell the next self-described "tactile learner" that short of digging Jefferson up and letting him touch the founder, I can't help him.

[helpful]

OK, let me give you a for instance:

A person is trying to learn to ski. One way to learn is to follow someone down the hill and copy what that person is doing. Another way is for the instructor to stand to the side and yell out instructions about what to do.

Each choice is based on how the person learning to ski learns. In one case, it involves 'modelling'. In the other it involves using the auditory instructions. There are probably other ways, ie. for example, reading in a manual what to do.

The instructor needs to figure out quite quickly how the skier absorbs information quickly enough to practice the skill.

Now, this is the case for a skill that requires instantaneous response of the body.

I am not saying this is universally transverable to the transmission of information, but it does have some application to learning.

[the_honey_badger]

OK, let me give you a for instance:

A person is trying to learn to ski. One way to learn is to follow someone down the hill and copy what that person is doing. Another way is for the instructor to stand to the side and yell out instructions about what to do.

Each choice is based on how the person learning to ski learns. In one case, it involves 'modelling'. In the other it involves using the auditory instructions. There are probably other ways, ie. for example, reading in a manual what to do.

The instructor needs to figure out quite quickly how the skier absorbs information quickly enough to practice the skill.

Now, this is the case for a skill that requires instantaneous response of the body.

I am not saying this is universally transverable to the transmission of information, but it does have some application to learning.

I don't think any decent teacher denies this and most of us try multiple examples and ways of explaining a concept. To some explaining the abstract concept works, to others they need a real-life example they can apply, but there are limits to how and how many ways some disciplines can effectively conform to all these styles. Really, what do I do with the "tactile" learner when the subject is Puritan ideas of pre-destination?  Start a fire and stick his hand in it to illustrate hell?

What has emerged as a tyranny of edu-speak is the idea that every single member of a 35 or 250 enrollment class should be individually catered to even when the disciplinary content doesn't fit various models and we only have 50 minutes to get in a reasonable amount of information in each session.

Again, it isn't that these things don't exist and good teachers don't try multiple ways of explaining but that this whole thing has become a runaway train of nonsense on many campuses---including mine.

[malcha]

Really, what do I do with the "tactile" learner when the subject is Puritan ideas of pre-destination?  Start a fire and stick his hand in it to illustrate hell?

Are you tenured?  (Is tenure predestined?  "Adjuncts in the Hands of an Angry God . . . ")

[lotsoquestions]

In my experience, the students who most want us to adapt our teaching to their learning styles are those who don't like reading.  And while I could certainly stand on my head and sing the lecture to you while shaking jingle bells, I would still expect you to show up having done the reading, having understood it and being ready to discuss it.  In my opinion, if your "learning style" doesn't happen to include reading a textbook for every class every week, I'm not sure you belong in college.  

I agree with The Fiona -- I think it's frequently an excuse.  The students who most frequently show up with excuses related to their learning styles are those who don't like to read.  And I'm not convinced that another word for "I don't like to read" isn't "lazy".