Learning Styles Bite the Dust in Classrooms

How many educational fads did your school district visit upon you during your education? How many failed practices have vanished from educational jargon? Does anyone remember the "open classroom"? How about teaching set theory to elementary students instead of subtraction? Then there's the idea that elementary students should spell however they wish.

Wouldn't you just love to gain back the millions spent on these fads? Well, another one has come and gone, at least in educational circles: learning styles.

So you're an auditory learner? Maybe you should learn to read.

Our favorite CCSD middle-school teacher, Jody Stallings, recently pronounced death over the last gasps of this popular mythology.  

"Research over the last few years has concluded that the theory doesn’t hold water. From The Journal of Educational Psychology to The Journal of Neuroscience, recent published studies assert that there is no relationship between students’ learning-style preferences and their ability to comprehend. The Yale Center for Teaching and Learning calls the idea a 'neuromyth.'”

"The theory of learning styles has been debunked so thoroughly that just last year a group of 30 scientists from some of the most prominent universities wrote a letter imploring schools to drop their adherence to it, calling the theory 'detrimental.'”

?The 30 scientists note that 'categorizing individuals can lead to the assumption of fixed or rigid learning style, which can impair motivation to apply oneself or adapt.' This is a big problem. Students are losing the ability to adjust to varying circumstances because all of their lives we have catered to their personal desires. They no longer have to problem solve, think critically, or figure a way out of a tough situation, and it is killing their ability to cope in a challenging world."

"The reality is that humans can learn in a variety of ways. If we 1) adjust our attitudes from an “I can’t” to an “I can and I will” perspective, and 2) train ourselves to use good focus and study strategies, we can learn no matter what kinds of lessons the teacher uses. Teachers of younger students should be focusing on coaching them in the use of these strategies rather than spending time adapting lessons to conform to an erroneous theory."

"Teachers should use the best strategy available to them to teach a lesson efficiently and effectively. Maybe it’s lecture. Maybe it’s a video. Maybe it’s dressing up like a unicorn and squeezing vine-ripe tomatoes between their knees. Good teaching is good teaching, and all students can benefit from it, even if they’d prefer a different method."

Right again, Jody.