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Asked by mlrivers3 to Alex, Brian, Carolina, Courtney, Paula, Richard, Sara on 7 Mar 2018.
Question: The idea of learning styles is prevalent in some education circles and popular among the general public, despite lack of evidence. What do you say to an educator who says "Everyone learns differently!" without reinforcing the idea of learning styles?
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Paula Clarke answered on 7 Mar 2018:
I would encourage them to unpack this claim. Specifically to make the distinction between learning processes and preferred learning styles (e.g. Visual, Auditory, Kinaesthetic etc.).
There is a considerable body of cognitive psychological research which evidences the commonalities in how human beings process, remember and learn. That being said there has been some research into cognitive (thinking) styles (for example in the field of autism) suggesting that some individuals may have distinct ways of learning. Importantly though this is not a preferred learning style but rather a difference in how they process information.
Individuals’ learning experiences will be distinct due to the unique histories on which they build their understandings and knowledge. People may also differ with regards their preferred learning styles, but it is important to question how stable these preferences are and therefore how valid it is to characterise someone has having a particular learning style. Reflecting on my own learning, my preferences change according to the task, the context and a whole range of other factors relating to my motivations and goals.
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Courtney Pollack answered on 7 Mar 2018:
I agree that it would be helpful to unpack the claim along a couple different dimensions. The learning styles myth purports that students have a preferred learning style that students should be taught using that style, so I think there may be room to acknowledge variability in learning, but without the notion that it can be reduced to a small set of learning styles.
I find this post informative: https://ctl.yale.edu/LearningStylesMyth. It dovetails nicely with Paula’s points, provides helpful recommendations about how to convey the complexity inherent in the learning process, and speaks to variability without reducing it to learning styles. It also has links to additional primary sources in case you’d like to read more. I hope you find it useful!
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Brian Butterworth answered on 7 Mar 2018:
Everyone will learn differently according to their cognitive capacities, life experiences, their inclinations and their relationship with formal and informal education. This does not mean everyone learns in one of a few ‘styles’ – visual, auditory or kinaesthetic. There is no good evidence for VAK, or indeed VARK.
How one learns will also depend on what one is learning. Learning maths is different from learning history. Diagrams may help one learner with maths but not with history; or vice versa.
Of course, the educational context should be adaptive to the learner’s current needs and abilities. Maths may be in the learner’s zone of proximal development, and may need slow incremental progress, while history could be racing ahead, and require a flow of new and exciting ideas. And, it could all change next year or next term. -
Carolina Kuepper-Tetzel answered on 13 Mar 2018:
I would respond that when we look how memory works, we are all more similar than we think. Researchers have found that there are particular learning strategies that work for a wide range of people and that all strategies can be accommodated in a way to cater to individual differences that really matter, such as prior knowledge, for instance.
Comments
Paula commented on :
A useful blog post on the British Council website https://www.britishcouncil.org/voices-magazine/four-reasons-avoid-learning-styles-one-alternative
Paula commented on :
And another useful summary here https://www.teachermagazine.com.au/articles/tackling-the-learning-styles-myth
zenamartin commented on :
I have read these responses with great interest. Thank you. What are your thoughts on the evidence behind multi-sensory teaching approaches? Having had prevalence in specialist teaching for many decades (multi-sensory language programmes, for example, concrete apparatus and multi-sensory ways to teach number, and so on), I have been keen to defend these methods and articulate how distinct they are from VAK (VARK). I am interested in your thoughts and understanding on this.
Brian commented on :
The best teachers of dyslexics and dyscalculics that I know, all think that multisensory methods are necessary in the early stages of learning to read or do arithmetic. In mainstream schools, typical Year 1 numeracy lessons use excellent concrete materials are skilfully deployed by teachers, and at the end of the year these materials are put back in the cupboard. Many children, but especially dyscalculics, would be greatly helped by continuing with these methods until their understanding of basic concepts is secure.
In the case of numeracy, learners need to know about sets which are best illustrated by concrete materials, which are visual and tactile , but they also need to count set members aloud – auditory language – and they need to learn the symbols that correspond to the numerosity of sets. So teaching numeracy is almost inevitably multisensory. However, the aim of these methods is to foster an understanding of the abstract nature of numbers and operations on them. Even chalk and talk is multisensory in that it uses spoken language, visual information and if learners have write, then tactile too. But I don’t think this is what you meant.
With manipulatives, such as counters, it is easy to see that 3 plus 5 is the same as 5 plus 3, and hence that addition is commutative. Without them the learner may treat these two equations as unrelated at least for a while.
Incidentally, the latest crazy idea from the Department for Education is that children must learn off by heart the times tables to twelve. This entails learning 5×3 and 3×5 as separate facts rather than using a method that shows that these are two versions of the same fact. Arrays of counters does this very transparently.
Rote recitation of tables is not multisensory learning, will not promote understanding, and will steal time from teaching children mathematical concepts and relationships in sensible way.
y737 commented on :
Rote learning of times tables enables a student to retrieve times table answers very quickly and out of sequence, thus increasing calculation speed. The vast majority of children will notice en passant that 5×3 and 3×5 have identical answers and use that knowledge too, just as they do with addition. It is but one aspect of learning what multiplication, but it’s a pretty important one. Children who, without leaning times tables, take a long time to solve a simple calculation, become frustrated and demoralised students.
Brian commented on :
Is there peer-reviewed published data on this?
Courtney commented on :
It might be helpful to think about arithmetic fact fluency and rote memorization separately, where the former is a goal and the latter is an approach. It’s important for students to be fluent with arithmetic fact retrieval, in order to calculate more effectively. How students achieve fluency is also important. Rote memorization often refers to learning arithmetic facts without conceptual understanding (e.g., understanding what multiplication is, the commutative and distributive properties of multiplication). Many see this approach as a missed opportunity and a less-effective method for developing flexibility with numbers and operations.
As one example, a student could learn that 4 x 7 = 28 and recite it many times. A student could alternatively learn that 4 x 7 = 4 x (5 + 2) = 20 + 8. The latter case provides opportunities to build fact fluency while also developing students’ understanding of the distributive property and strategies for solving other multiplication problems.
Lia - WellcomeTrust commented on :
Another useful blog from the Centre for Educational Neuroscience – http://www.educationalneuroscience.org.uk/neuromyth-or-neurofact/children-have-different-learning-styles/
Lia - WellcomeTrust commented on :
A useful blog from the Centre for Educational Neuroscience – http://www.educationalneuroscience.org.uk/neuromyth-or-neurofact/children-have-different-learning-styles/