Tag Archive for 'learning styles'

Learning styles goes public (radio)

“Think You’re An Auditory Or Visual Learner? Scientists Say It’s Unlikely.” That was the headline that Patti Neighmond used in reporting on the popular myth of learning styles for US National Public Radio’s Morning Edition. One of the experts she interviewed for the segment that aired 29 August 2011 was friend of Teach Effectively, Dan Willingham.

The coverage by Ms. Neighmond is brief (4+ mins), but it includes solid content. In addition to Professor Willingham’s comments, she has sound from Doug Rohrer, one of the authors of the thorough examination of the evidence about learning styles published by Psychological Science in the Public Interest in 2008.

As Ms. Neighmond noted, there is big money in learning styles. Do you think the folks who have a stake in this unproven, thin-sliced bologna will accept this report without response? I doubt it. It’ll be intriguing to watch the comments in Ms. Neighmond’s story. There’ll be some shameless appeals to intuition and personal experience, some references to shoddy studies, and more. Watch the fun!

For those of us who have for many years been noting that the learning styles hypothesis is bogus, it’s very nice to have the message reach the general public. Thanks to Ms. Neighmond for that.

Read the print version of “Think You’re An Auditory Or Visual Learner? Scientists Say It’s Unlikely” (or go there to listen to the audio version or download an MP3 of it). Read other posts about learning styles that have appeared on Teach Effectively.

References

Kavale, K. A., & Forness, S. R. (1987). Substance over style: A quantitative synthesis assessing the efficacy of modality testing and teaching. Exceptional Children, 54, 228-234.

Lloyd, J. W. (1984). How shall we individualize instruction-or should we? Remedial and Special Education, 5(1), 7-15.

Pashler, H., McDaniel, M., Rohrer, D., & Bjork, R. (2008). Learning styles: Concepts and evidence. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 9, 106-119.

Left AND right brain

Teach Effectively pal Dan Willingham’s entry for this week at the Washington Post is about the myth of the left-brain-vs-right-brain dichotomy. He drives a very large convoy of vehicles through the gaping hole in the putative theory, a hole that was reopened by a report published by Arne Dietrich and Riam Kanso in a prestigious Psychological Bulletin article entitled “A Review of EEG, ERP, and Neuroimaging Studies of Creativity and Insight.”

Professors Dietrich and Kanso examined a shipload of studies that used multiple methods to examine the relationships between neurological functions and structures and creative thinking. What they found does not accord with the Pop-Ed views one is likely to hear in what passes as professional development sessions provided by at least some—if not many—schools and teacher education programs.
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Response to the de-debunkers

Over on Cedar’s Digest, the blogger by the moniker ‘Cedar’ posted a copy of a response to “The Bunk of Debunking Learning Styles” by Heather Wolpert-Gawron that appeared in Teacher. Cedar’s circumspect response is entitled “Learning Styles: What’s Being Debunked” and is worth reading.

Mixed example, same bologna

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!”
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More DW on LS

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.”

Learning styles gets academic attention

Writing in the Chronicle of Higher Education under the headline “Matching Teaching Style to Learning Style May Not Help Students,” David Glenn describes the hook of a forth-coming paper the examines the popular, but unsupported, notion that instruction must be differentiated according to personal characteristics of the learners.

If you’ve ever sat through a teaching seminar, you’ve probably heard a lecture about “learning styles.” Perhaps you were told that some students are visual learners, some are auditory learners, and others are kinesthetic learners. Or maybe you were given one of the dozens of other learning-style taxonomies that scholars and consultants have developed.

Almost certainly, you were told that your instruction should match your students’ styles. For example, kinesthetic learners—students who learn best through hands-on activities—are said to do better in classes that feature plenty of experiments, while verbal learners are said to do worse.
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DCPS goes for learning styles bunk

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).
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Updated mega links

Jeanne Wherrett’s comment on an old post prompted me to update the links there. If one of the three or four TE readers have been frustrated by the 404 results for the links pointing to the old mega-analysis (Steve Forness’s term), those links have been fixed.

For those unfamiliar with that old site, it’s a compilation of meta-analyses about cognitive-behavioral treatment of adolescent depression, cognitive-behavioral treatments, computer-assisted instruction, decreasing disruptive behavior, direct instruction (big DI), early intervention, Feingold hyperactivity diet, formative evaluation of students’ progress, medication for students with mental retardation, mnemonic strategies instruction, modality-based reading instruction, peer tutoring, perceptual training, psycholinguistic training, psychotherapy (including behavior modification), reducing class size, social skills training for students with emotional or behavioral disorders, social skills training for students with learning disabilities, special class placement, stimulant treatment of hyperactivity, teaching reading comprehension, treatment of classroom behavior problems.

Jump to the mega site. Flash of the electrons to Ms. Wherrett (see her site) for alerting me to the issue.




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