Learning Styles are like Zombies!

During a recent Technology in Education class, taught by Jeff Utecht, http://www.jeffutecht.com/, I found out that the theory of auditory, visual, and kinesthetic learning styles has been debunked. I was quite surprised to hear this! Since I’ve been playing the violin since I was five, I’ve always thought of myself as an auditory and kinesthetic learner. It turns out that Jeff was absolutely right.

I got on the internet and found this video which I was somewhat skeptical of: Learning Styles - A Complete Myth - YouTube  

Here’s a link to an article that features Howard Gardner of Gardner’s Theory of Multiple Intelligences: https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2019/01/09/learning-styles-debate-its-instructors-vs-psychologists. “Gardner also said there’s no clear evidence that teaching to a student’s learning style produces better outcomes than a “one-size-fits-all approach.” Insistence on learning styles, he said, “may be unhelpful, at best, and ill-conceived at worst.” Strength or weakness in one kind of intelligence “does not predict strength (or weakness) in any other intelligences,” he wrote. “All of us exhibit jagged profiles of intelligences.”
Gardner suggested that educators individualize teaching as much as possible, teach important materials “in several ways” (through stories, works of art, diagrams and role-playing, for example), and drop the term “styles” from their vocabulary.
“It will confuse others,” he wrote, “and it won’t help either you or your students.”
 
So I went back to the first video to watch another video mentioned towards the end of it to find some more effective ways of studying that are research-based. How to Study Effectively for School or College [Top 6 Science-Based Study Skills] - YouTube. The methods suggested seemed quite similar to Jerome Brumer’s spiral learning theory, so then I had to look that up too, and found this: “Spiral curriculum, a concept widely attributed to Jerome Bruner [1], refers to a curriculum design in which key concepts are presented repeatedly throughout the curriculum, but with deepening layers of complexity, or in different applications. Such treatment allows the earlier introduction of concepts traditionally reserved for later, more specialized courses in the curriculum, after students have mastered some fundamental principles that are often very theoretical and likely to discourage students who are eager to apply the concepts they are learning to real-world applications.” https://eng-sci.udmercy.edu/academics/engineering/electrical-computer/spiral-curriculum.php
 
There are certainly many ways to learn and many ways to gather and process information, however, teachers must stay aware of the latest scientific research so that our students can benefit from it. A lesson planned for visual, auditory, or kinesthetic learners just isn’t going to be as effective!