Over on Bright Hub, Linda Neas has a post entitled “Coping with Multiple Intelligences in the Classroom” in which she suggests how to employ understanding of MI to adapt instruction. “When educators are able to identify the various learning styles of their students, they are better able to teach in a manner supporting success for all students. A learning style chart is an invaluable tool when developing classroom management techniques.”
After opening with a paragraph about Howard Gardner’s concept of multiple intelligences, Ms. Neas indicates that standardized testing runs counter to assessing learners’ performance. How to teach, she asks? “Perhaps the answer is as simple as the classroom management technique of identifying the various intelligences within the classroom!”
Continue reading ‘Mixed example, same bologna’
Over on Zig Site, Siegfried Engelmann has a new series of articles in which Socrates questions fictitious educators about educational concepts. In the first, Socrates engages one Dr. Gibbs, a “prominent professor of education.” Here’s an excerpt:
Dr. Gibbs: Learning is extremely complicated and influenced by a host of factors, including motivation and parental attitudes. The point I try to make to my students is that every child is an individual who learns according to his or her time table, and in his or her unique way.
Socrates: You give us a lot to think about. But is there some fact or rule that describes all learning?
Dr. Gibbs. Of course not. The learner is what the learner does and what the learner has inherited. Learning is not some kind of cut-and-dried process. The most specific thing one could confidently say about all learning is that it occurs in a series of predictable stages, which have been described by Piaget and others.
Just imagine the hash that Socrates makes of such bologna!
In another, Socrates and Dr. Baram Rosenthal, an “educational guru,” discuss reading instruction. Catch ‘em at Zig Site. Look in the left rail.
Teach Effectively pal Dan Willingham has another treatment of the learning-styles myth at the Washington Post. In a guest entry for Valerie Strauss’ “The Answer Sheet,” Professor Willingham mentions the recent scientific review of research that debunked the myth (yet again) and provides responses to some of the pro-myth arguments that he’s encountered. Here’s a link to “Willingham: No evidence exists for learning style theories.”
A sad note sounded in a document that has many otherwise valuable suggestions: The Teaching and Learning Framework of the Washington (DC, US) Public Schools (DCPS) recommends incorporating learning styles into instruction. Why the developers of this document included the rather-thoroughly debunked learning styles idea eludes me, but it is very clearly there, appearing on the front cover and receiving three pages of coverage starting on page 24 (see image at right).
Continue reading ‘DCPS goes for learning styles bunk’
Howard Gardner’s Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences seems to occupy a special place in the pantheon of education memes. I was reminded of this when I read “Not Every Child Is Secretly a Genius” by Christopher Ferguson. Mr. Ferguson’s essay—it appears in the Chronicle of Higher Education, the news source of record for higher educators—politely explains that sustaining Multiple Intelligences (MI) theory is not a good idea.
Rational analyses of the MI evidence by Dan Willingham and Lynn Waterhouse have shown that there are problems with both the theory itself (e.g., most of the eight intelligences are highly correlated, meaning that they are likely measuring the same “thing” for the most part) and its application in education (e.g., methods based on MI do not lead to better outcomes).
Mr. Ferguson’s essay continues in that same tradition. He makes a strong case for his conclusion that “Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences was a great idea and worth investigating. It’s just not panning out.”
Continue reading ‘Multiple intelligences ain’t’
The US Supreme Court will hear arguments today in Flores v. State of Arizona, a case that captures important concerns about contemporary education in the US. Plantiff argues that English-language Learner (ELL) programs are deficient and receive inadequate funding, violating a provision of a US federal law (the Equal Educational Opportunity Act; EEOA) requiring that states ensure that students for whom English is not a first language can learn how to speak English and, thus, benefit from education.
The class-action case gets its name from Miriam Flores, an elementary student in the 1990s, who had limited English proficiency (LEP) and did not benefit from the ELL services during her primary schooling. US National Public Radio’s Nina Totenberg reported Ms. Flores recollections (she is now 22 and a student at the University of Arizona):
“It was quite a disadvantage, definitely,” Flores says. “For example, even when it comes to math, I mean problem solving, they were all in English. So in order to understand, you need to be proficient in your reading in English.”
Continue reading ‘ELLs deserve effective teaching, too’
Dan Willingham’s video about the lunchmeat “learning styles” (LS) has generated lots of discussion in the proverbial blogosphere. Matthew Tabor has a post with links to six sources. It’s pretty interesting that so much of the buzz about the video has focused on the putative auditory-visual LS. Dan pretty expressly aimed at an extended list of the things early in the video. But, A-V’s the one he used to make the points, and that’s probably good, because it’s probably the most popular of the bologna approaches.
Over on Ken’s D-Ed Reckoning, I dropped a comment on his post (and his post provides a good exposition on the subject of LS. In my comment, I promised to post an image showing the relative benefits of basing reading instruction on auditory-vs-visual LS. styles. It’s at the right. The yellow columns are standards for (left to right) weak effects (0.2), modest effects (0.3), pretty good effects (0.5), and outstanding effects (0.7). The purple bar is the effect size (0.144) that Kavale and Forness (1987) found when they analyzed 39 studies (205 effect sizes) of modality-based reading instruction.
Continue reading ‘More discussion of Dan’s LS video’
Here’s a “Welcome” to Kylie Sturgess and Podblack Cat. I’m routinely pleased to find folks with whom I share skepticism about the bologna that masquerades as reasoned discourse in education. Because of Ms. Sturgess’ focus on skepticism, education, and science, I’m noting here that I’ve added her site to the blogroll on Teach Effectively.
Continue reading ‘Podblack Cat’
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