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Sadly, he is right about there being no concrete evidence supporting learning styles. I have been following this for quite some time, both my Egorg products an

by dhimes 11y ago

Sadly, he is right about there being no concrete evidence supporting learning styles. I have been following this for quite some time, both my Egorg products and (soon to be) Study Swami are based on the idea that students differ in how they learn. The interesting thing, though, is that any teacher with a decent amount of experience (I taught physics for 15 years, both as a TA and as a community college professor) sees that students do seem to learn differently. Some students need a clear, verbatim explanation of something. Others need to dance around the concept first, getting a feel for it, before they able to even parse such an explanation. I'm not sure what it is linked to. I suspect that our 'bins' of learning styles are too narrow, or somehow else incorrect. The obvious ones came first, more-or-less 5 senses with each sense being aligned with a 'style' (I learn math better by smell...</s>). The students in the studies are categorized into different learning styles (usually) based on a survey (which, I would argue, really amounts to learning preferences rather than styles). It would be interesting to see tests of actual learning done with different presentations for forming the baseline assignments to a particular style. But even then the problem is that the bins are pre-decided (verbal or visual? global or sequential?) I think this is a little too simplistic. So while I suspect that there is actually something to the idea of learning differently (rather than just 'g'), for the moment, anyway, learning styles seem to be bullshit.

pumblechook 11y ago
Perhaps it has to do with someone's dominant behavior style? Someone who is naturally gregarious probably doesn't enjoy sitting still for an hour during a lecture, just like someone who is naturally analytical might not enjoy a lot of group work. If each person's brain learns the same way, but the effort required to cope with the format of delivery is different, it could lead to differences in the amount learned.
devindotcom 11y ago
Yeah, we have to be careful not to take this debunking too far. It seems pretty clear that the formalized definition of 'learning styles' as codified in various teaching manuals and classroom planning tools is bogus. But students do learn differently, and likely can be grouped into different general styles for which different approaches may be more or less effective (how effective they would be compared to, for example, just having smaller class sizes or more resources is another question). The bathwater's bad, but hang onto that baby.
deleted 11y ago
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Kluny 11y ago
I really think it's more about repetition than anything else. If a student has been "primed" for the topic at hand by some prior exposure, like overhearing their parents talk about it or encountering a similar situation on a different subject and being able to draw parallels, they'll be ready for straightforward explanation and be able to internalize it. If it's their first exposure to the topic, they'll need to dance around it and see it from different points of view before things start to make sense. For example, at age 12 I read a book that made no sense to me whatsoever. I somehow finished it but didn't get much out of it. 12 years later at age 24, I read Terry Pratchett's book, the Lost Continent, and gradually realized it was the same book. In 12 years I had gained enough background understanding of concepts such as Evolution, Australia, Satire, and Wizards to get the jokes and the plot, so that time the book stuck with me. Learning style had nothing to do with it - it was me that changed.
Nadya 11y ago
>Some students need a clear, verbatim explanation of something. Others need to dance around the concept first, getting a feel for it, before they able to even parse such an explanation. Different experiences. Memories thrive when connected with other memories and most everyone will have different memories. So it stands to reason different ways of providing the same information will have different results based on each individual's lived experiences. If I can relate an unknown X to a known Y - or even an unknown X to an unknown Y - I always learn better than if I learned about an unknown X that I'm not able to relate with. Mnemonics play a large role in things - unfortunately I can't find any studies offhand to that prove mnemonics actually help.

by dhimes 11y ago

pumblechook 11y ago

Perhaps it has to do with someone's dominant behavior style? Someone who is naturally gregarious probably doesn't enjoy sitting still for an hour during a lecture, just like someone who is naturally analytical might not enjoy a lot of group work. If each person's brain learns the same way, but the effort required to cope with the format of delivery is different, it could lead to differences in the amount learned.

devindotcom 11y ago

Yeah, we have to be careful not to take this debunking too far. It seems pretty clear that the formalized definition of 'learning styles' as codified in various teaching manuals and classroom planning tools is bogus. But students do learn differently, and likely can be grouped into different general styles for which different approaches may be more or less effective (how effective they would be compared to, for example, just having smaller class sizes or more resources is another question). The bathwater's bad, but hang onto that baby.

deleted 11y ago

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Kluny 11y ago

I really think it's more about repetition than anything else. If a student has been "primed" for the topic at hand by some prior exposure, like overhearing their parents talk about it or encountering a similar situation on a different subject and being able to draw parallels, they'll be ready for straightforward explanation and be able to internalize it. If it's their first exposure to the topic, they'll need to dance around it and see it from different points of view before things start to make sense. For example, at age 12 I read a book that made no sense to me whatsoever. I somehow finished it but didn't get much out of it. 12 years later at age 24, I read Terry Pratchett's book, the Lost Continent, and gradually realized it was the same book. In 12 years I had gained enough background understanding of concepts such as Evolution, Australia, Satire, and Wizards to get the jokes and the plot, so that time the book stuck with me. Learning style had nothing to do with it - it was me that changed.

Nadya 11y ago

>Some students need a clear, verbatim explanation of something. Others need to dance around the concept first, getting a feel for it, before they able to even parse such an explanation. Different experiences. Memories thrive when connected with other memories and most everyone will have different memories. So it stands to reason different ways of providing the same information will have different results based on each individual's lived experiences. If I can relate an unknown X to a known Y - or even an unknown X to an unknown Y - I always learn better than if I learned about an unknown X that I'm not able to relate with. Mnemonics play a large role in things - unfortunately I can't find any studies offhand to that prove mnemonics actually help.