The idea that teachers should present material to children in modes that best fit their "learning styles" is being disputed. As Yogi Berra famously said: It's déjà vu all over again.
The debunking is hardly new. A 2009 study from the University of South Florida found that there is no scientific evidence to support the popular idea that teaching should be differentiated according to whether a child is a visual or auditory learner, or absorbs ideas best when she's up and moving around while learning. (There are other learning styles, too, of course.)
The fact that the study is two years old didn't stop National Public Radio from airing a story about it today, though. They bring in cognitive psychologist Dan Willingham, who suggests that teachers are far better off learning about the cognitive processes human brains have in common rather than focusing on how they might be different.
It's not entirely clear to me what prompted NPR to call attention to the study now, but the "learning styles" theory, and what teachers do with it, is interesting and potentially significant enough to be worthy of a go-round whenever it crops up.
It certainly sparked some strong feelings when we wrote about the study in 2009. See here for a piece by a teacher who argues that the study contradicts all her classroom experience, and here for a spirited rejoinder to that.
Monday, August 29, 2011
"Learning Styles" Debunked (Again)
This from Curriculum Matters:
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5 comments:
If true, it does seem to make one wonder what in the world we are doing when it comes to many of the special education "interventions" and gifted student "enrichments".
Conservative critic, and my personal hero, E.D. Hirsch, questioned the legitimacy of this theory some time ago. He also has some harsh words for schools of education, too!
I must chuckle because this flawed theory (that we have told is research-based) is the gospel in Fayette County Public Schools.
If you believe, as I do not, that some can be an auditory learners, why teach kids who have this "learning style" to read?
Plain and simple, teachers must use diverse teaching methods, but at test time, it all boils down to what kids can do with pencil and paper.
Hirsch has his own problems (as I recall, he needed a big kick in the pants to expand his essentialist world view a while back) but that doesn't mean he's always wrong.
I'm an Ed School guy and I teach my students the theory - then I teach them the arguments against the theory and ask them to think for themselves. (That is the big thing that seems to be missing from too many schools these days - teachers actually thinking critically instead of simply following directions.)
Meanwhile, Willingham estimates that 90% of teacher educators teach learning styles and the attendant differentiation. I suspect he's about right.
The point is not how students prefer to learn. Rather it is the nature of the information to be learned that ought to dictate how it is taught. You can try to explain to students how to recognize the shape of Kentucky (auditorily) all day long but I doubt you'll succeed. The nature of the task is visual.
In the end what matters is the nature of the information and the meaning students are to gain from any given lesson.
Allowing students different options for demonstrating what they have learned does make sense to me, however. It all comes down to two questions: "What do you want students to know or be able to do?" and "What will you accept as evidence that they know or can do it?"
But get this: there is a factual mistake in Willingham's video. Did you catch it? I did (and I think of myself as auditory) but only one student in my class of 90 caught it yesterday. He "tested" as a visual learner but was also a social studies guy. The error in the video has to do with the "shape of Algeria." In the video, the country Willingham identified as Algeria, is in fact, Chad.
Who among us is perfect?
Good points, Richard.
But, as you know, even if you buy into this theory, the tests used by the Kentucky Department of Education do not allow students to demonstrate their knowledge in any way but pencil and paper. Come spring, students will still be writing open response-type answers or blackening in bubbles.
True.
I would remind you, however, that educators generally resisted dumping writing portfolios and other non-bubble kinds of testing for a long while. It was only when the weight of NCLB on top of CATS got so great and the heat was turned up on teachers (losing support from the KEA) that the educational establishment" came to love SB 1. It's first couple of incarnations were strongly resisted.
To paraphrase Chuck Colson, When they've got you by the balls, your heart and mind will follow.
I suspect that motivates much of
the education reform community. If you want to improve your schools you have to find the resources to do it. He folks with the money get to say how it's spent. He who pays the fiddler calls the tune.
A correction: Above I indicated that Willingham said "90% of teacher educators" believe in learning style theory. He actually cited "90% of U Va students..." Apologies. Although, the number sure felt right for teacher educators, too.
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