The Myth of Learning Styles - 0 views
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. While many of those scientists seek to discover general principles of learning, we all acknowledge that there are differences among students. Understanding these differences and applying that understanding in the classroom can improve everyone's education
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First, whether we call it talent, ability, or intelligence, people vary in their capacity to learn different areas of content
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Second, and often intertwined with ability, students differ in their interests. If a student loves the piano, or basketball, or chess, or the biology of frogs, that student will no doubt learn material related to that subject faster than another one who does not share that fascination.
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Third, students differ in their background knowledge, and that difference influences their learning
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Many students will report preferring to study visually and others through an auditory channel. However, when these tendencies are put to the test under controlled conditions, they make no difference—learning is equivalent whether students learn in the preferred mode or not
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The emphasis on learning styles, we think, often comes at the cost of attention to these other important dimension
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just as our social selves have personalities, so do our memories.
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Finally, some students have specific learning disabilities, and these affect their learning in specific ways.
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The proof that the learning-styles theorist must find is that for some sort of content—whether it be math, poetry, or dodgeball—changing the mode of presentation to match the learning styles helps people learn. That evidence has simply not been found.
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While such evidence of learning styles would serve as a proof that they exist, the lack of evidence does not prove definitively that they do not exist
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Teachers should take into account the differences in learners' abilities. And adjusting a lesson not just to be appropriately pitched at the students' level of ability but to take into account their background knowledge and interests is surely an important first step in fostering learning.
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if a student believes she is a visual learner and therefore disengages and daydreams when a lecturer turns off the PowerPoint and tells a story, this will prevent her from learning the concept through a compelling narrative. And while these beliefs may not have as direct an impact on performance reviews as they do in K-12 settings, a belief in learning styles occasionally shows up in student evaluations of teaching:
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(can the auditory learner learn geography through hearing it? Can the visual learner become better at music by seeing it?)
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Third, learning-styles theory has succeeded in becoming “common knowledge.” Its widespread acceptance serves as an unfortunately compelling reason to believe it
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econd, learning-styles theory is sometimes offered as a reason to include digital media in the classroom.
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. We shouldn't congratulate ourselves for showing a video to engage the visual learners or offering podcasts to the auditory learners. Rather, we should realize that the value of the video or audio will be determined by how it suits the content that we are asking students to learn and the background knowledge, interests, and abilities that they bring to i
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Assessment of student interest can also be a useful tool for deciding how to approach the material in a given class
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Students differ in their abilities, interests, and background knowledge, but not in their learning styles. Students may have preferences about how to learn, but no evidence suggests that catering to those preferences will lead to better learning. As college educators, we should apply this to the classroom by continuing to present information in the most appropriate manner for our content and for the level of prior knowledge, ability, and interests of that particular set of students.
