Learning Styles

For any of you new to education theory there is a popular notion that every individual has their very own learning style. Some are better at learning through auditory means, some are better with visual information, etc. There are all kinds of self-assessments out there to help you out. One thing this line of research has trouble answering is what the heck do we do with this information? As a teacher I am faced with a classroom full of diverse students and if I choose one medium of instruction I favor some students' learning styles while harming others. One answer is to differentiate instruction. While this is appealing it is difficult to do with large class sizes and limited resources. But another question arises, if you are a good visual learner is it wise to let your kinesthetic abilities whither? Is it wise to let students not learn by reading because they are not strong at reading? Do we not get a self-reinforcing pattern? Avoid one style of learning and that style goes down hill.

I tend to agree with the learning-style debunkers. Here is a blog post by Dan Willingham that explains what I mean. What medium you use for instruction should largely be guided on the nature of the content of the knowledge you are trying to learn. If it is cell biology it is hard to imaging learning it without incorporating strong visual images. My hunch is that many concepts have better than other mediums by which they can be grasped. It confuses students and teachers to always be student-centered when sometimes it may be better to be knowledge-centered.

One of the strong offshoots of learning styles is that it does make for a more diverse and interesting classroom. While it may not always be efficient to use kinesthetic means to learn math, the very act of getting kids moving may have benefits after-all that are not tied directly to the immediate objectives of the lesson. If it helps kids stay engaged longer it may have benefits that bleed into the language arts lesson that follows it. And just plain having many diverse mediums of instruction is more interesting. So I do favor diverse mediums of instruction but I don't think it can or should be micro-managed too much. Instead, it is more important to look at what is being taught and asking yourself what is the best medium for grasping this topic. Secondly, ask yourself if you are creating an interesting classroom environment so that things do not get too stagnant.