The Myth of Learning Styles

After viewing our learning style poll, I noticed that most of us identified as visual learners (72%). I have been asked this question before, as have many educators and students. I remember learning about the different learning styles in undergraduate school. It is very interesting the see that there is no evidence to support this idea. I appreciate that the chapter we read on this topic talked about confirmation bias, because I think many beliefs around education and learning are affected by this. If we could start over from scratch and begin again, I do not think we would build the same system. To me, it makes sense that different topics would be better to present/teach in different ways to different learners. Our teaching should change depending on the context of our lesson, the needs of our students, and our intentions for learning.

I like that the chapter encouraged teachers to mix it up, and incorporate a variety of styles in our lessons in order to engage students in a variety of learning experiences. Of course we should differentiate our instruction, because students do differ in their abilities, but we do not need to group students into different types of learners based on their preferred learning style. Some concepts, like fractions or maps, are better taught with the use of visuals.

I think in our culture, we like to see each child as a unique learner, and assign specific special labels to them. At my school we have data teams. It would not be surprising to me if we were given the task of grouping students based off of learning styles and then constructing a lesson that addresses each different learning style (visual, auditory, kinetic). This sounds very familiar to assignments that I did during undergraduate class.

There is not a scientific way to determine individual learning styles, and we cannot assume every child has a special intelligence. This idea is not supported by evidence. In the end, I think teachers should consider the content of the lesson, and determine the best to share that lesson with their group of learners.