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What?!? We don’t learn differently?

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Research shows that teaching to different “learning styles” doesn’t help.
 
Music is featured in this story (at about the 3 minute mark in the story that lasts a little over four minutes):
 
 
 

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  1. I listened again, read the WaPo blog you linked, and then found a number of additional articles/blogs/podcasts/etc. My brief online “tour” shows me that Daniel Willingham (the cognitive scientist featured in the NPR story and elsewhere) appears to on quite a crusade to debunk learning-style theories. In that he’s the cognitive scientist, and I’m not, I’ll defer to his knowledge and research on the issue, especially when it comes to hard science.
     
    However, when it comes to the brain, our knowledge is far from complete, and new and surprising things are being discovered on a regular basis, sometimes contradicting what was previously “known.” Therefore, I’m still of the opinion that this might not be an “all or nothing, right or wrong,” mutually-exclusive issue, but one that could have shades of gray that haven’t been entirely revealed. I agree that we shouldn’t put too much stock in “educational fads,” especially when they’re not supported by research, and that we also shouldn’t “pigeon-hole” students into discrete categories (“visual, auditory, kinesthetic”) and treat them differently because of that. But I do still think that there are some things that are difficult to prove or disprove scientifically, and if there’s anecdotal experience and evidence that indicates the effectiveness of incorporating a mixture of auditory, visual, and kinesthetic approaches in teaching, then I disagree with the “don’t do it” or the “doesn’t help” characterization.
     
    Not everything in life is scientific, and science isn’t perfect, or “finished.” We still have a lot to learn about ourselves as learners and human beings in general, and the “truth” is often somewhere in between the extremes of “it’s real” and “it’s bogus.”

  2. Yes, I think I’m certainly guilty of hair-splitting from time to time, Philip. 🙂  Here, I’ll split one right now….I didn’t say that the claim was “extreme.” I characterized “claiming that teachers shouldn’t account for possible learning-style differences…” as taking things to “the extreme,” by which I meant that rather than a moderate position of cautioning against putting too much emphasis on the different learning styles theories, a position against any incorporation of such techniques would be an extreme postion. Was there such a claim? I’ll have to listen again (and visit your link) to get the context of exactly what was meant by the “they” in “we don’t recommend that they be used.” If the researchers who can’t find the supportive experimental research are saying “don’t consider using varying instructional techniques,” then that’s indeed an extreme position, IMO.
     
    Again, a useful analogy might be found in religion, for if well-educated theologians suggested that we shouldn’t believe in God, just because we can’t scientifically prove that God exists (yet), that would be pretty extreme as well.

  3. I understand your point but I think you are splitting hairs.
    And I think you might be wrong about the claim you call “extreme”:

    Here is the compelling quote from the story by the researcher:

    “We have not found evidence from a randomized control trial
    supporting any of these,” he says, “and until such evidence exists,
    we don’t recommend that they be used.”

    More commentary on that point here:

    http://voices.washingtonpost.com/answer-sheet/daniel-willingham/-my-guest-today-is.html

  4. No, Philip, I don’t. I stand by the challenge I made, adequately explained in my previous comment. IMO, the story did *not* claim that ‘Research shows that teaching to different “learning styles” doesn’t help.’ The focus of the story was on the lack of expermental research (which is only one type of research) proving that there are “auditory” and “visual” learners. They didn’t take that any further, such as to the extreme of claiming that teachers shouldn’t account for possible learning-style differences in their approach to teaching concepts/skills, and they didn’t claim that such teaching “doesn’t help.”
     
    Perhaps our difference of opinion on this demonstrates a related brain-diversity issue, in that besides differences in the way people learn things, there are clearly differences in the way that people think and perceive the world.

  5. You may have a problem with my lead-in, David, but it accurately reflects what the NPR story is about.
     
    This is the NPR introduction to the story:
    “First, we have a look with how information is absorbed in the classroom.  Many educators are tailoring their lessons to the idea that kids learn in different ways.  Researchers have found that there is not scientific evidence to back up that approach.”
     
    NPR’s summary of the story:
    There is no evidence to support the conventional wisdom that kids can be auditory or visual learners.
     
    Here is my lead-in:
    Research shows that teaching to different “learning styles” doesn’t help.
     
    I think you have a bigger problem with the content of the story and maybe even NPR’s spin on it – but not my lead-in.
     
     
     

  6. The lead-in “Research shows that teaching to different ‘learning styles’ doesn’t help” doesn’t match what I just heard in the NPR story. What I heard was more like “a few academics claim they can’t find any expermental research that definitively validate ‘different learning style’ theories.” That’s a distinction with a BIG difference! Let’s apply this to religion, for example. If an article were to be found stating that no scientific evidence of the existence of God can be found, and I then tell someone that the article says “there is no God,” I’d be misrepresenting the article.
     
    While I’m not a “learning styles” expert, I’m pretty sure that there’s *some* validity to the concept that there are individual differences in how people *best* learn skills and/or concepts. However, where these theories (not just “conventional wisdom” as the NPR description states) probably fail when is when people make them too dichotomous (black and white, all or nothing, this or that) as is true of so many things at present. People are NOT that simple, so the proponents who go overboard with “visual learners vs. auditory learners” do just as big a disservice as those ivory tower academics who might deny that this phenomenon exists (which is not what they’re doing in this story, BTW). So, move on, folks…not much to see here. There’s not really much of a story in this story, and there’s probably a lot of validity in applying different teaching methodologies to maximize learning for all kinds of learners, as long as it’s done in a wholistic and diversified fashion, not in an “either/or” simplistic model.

  7. The research on auditory, visual, or kinesthetic learning styles presented in this article is interesting. I have always found this approach to learning styles as ephemeral as Howard Gardner’s ever growing list of intelligences in multiple intelligence theory.  Both are theories with far too few in depth research studies present to either support or refute. But as in most theories they are interesting to ponder.
     
    However, the work done by Dr. Bernice McCarthy (www.aboutlearning.com) utilizing Myers Briggs research on personality is extremely interesting and quite applicable. Research substantiates the consistency of the MBTI and my experience with 4MAT and About Learning shows a strong correlation between the research of Myers Briggs and Dr. McCarthy’s application of the theory to learning.
     
    I do not receive any income from Dr. McCarthy but use her online assessments in a variety of settings. I highly recommend the MBTI and the work of Dr. McCarthy at http://www.aboutlearning.com. You can take a five minute version of a MBTI type assessment at http://www.haleonline.com for free also. You will gain a great deal of insight into yourself and learn ways to create interesting instructional models without all of the warm fuzzy stuff that you find on many educators’ websites. I gain no income from hale online either.  I post this in the interests of transparency.
     

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