Stop Labeling Kids With Their ‘learning Style’
Perhaps you took a quiz as a child: What kind of student are you? Would you answer questions such as, “When you see the word cat, are you more likely to a) picture a cat in your head, b) say to yourself the word“ cat, ”or c) imagine physically petting a cat? ”Once you have made your choice, your so-called learning style will be revealed. Congratulations! You are a visual, auditory or kinesthetic learner! You wear this label wherever you go. Teachers built whole lessons around these labels. Maybe they will divide the class into groups: one will learn about the planets by looking at the slides, the other will listen to a song, and the third will hold balls of different sizes. The idea was that teaching students their prescribed learning style would help them learn. It is a belief that remains strong to this day.
The bad news is that there is little to no real evidence to support the concept of learning styles, and a lot of research shows it’s one big myth. For many of us, this is a difficult concept — we feel like we’ve learned more if we did it in the style we identify with, even when study after study after study after study discovers that we are not doing it. The latest study was conducted by a couple of Indiana University School of Medicine researchers, Polly Husmann and Valerie Dean O’Laughlin, who asked hundreds of students to complete the VARK , one of the most famous online learning style surveys. Once participants had identified what type of learner they were, they were asked to use learning practice data that fit those styles (for example, one visual learning strategy was to redraw your note pages from memory). Hussmann and Dean found that not only did most students fail to learn according to their intended learning style, but those who did did not do better. “Thus, the adage ‘I can’t study subject X because I am learning visually’ should be stopped once and for all,” the researchers concluded.
Students have different abilities – this is undeniable. Daniel Willingham, a psychology professor who has argued for years that learning styles do not exist, explains in thevideo that yes, it is true that some people have better visual memories and others have better hearing material. And yet, according to him, “this fact is not so important for teachers.” Instead, the teaching should be guided primarily by the existing concept. “You are not going to do an auditory representation of the Algerian uniform,” says Willingham. “Everyone should see this.” We can all think in words and we can all think in visual images. Teachers and parents can help children understand when to use skills.
But what can be wrong with focusing on learning styles if your child enjoys being taught in a certain way and may even gain some confidence from it? As noted by Christian Jarrett of Wired in the book ” 50 great myths of popular psychology” , such an approach “encourages teachers to teach intellectual strengths of the students, not their weaknesses,” despite the fact that “students need to correct and compensate for their weaknesses, and not avoid them. ”It can also give students a fixed mindset, reducing their potential to adapt to different learning styles that they will have to do throughout their lives.
Willingham tells me that the real harm of all this gospel of learning styles is the “obvious opportunity cost.” In the absence of a scientific basis, he believes, it is simply “time and energy that will not pay off and that could have been spent on improving lesson plans in other ways.” Here’s how we can go beyond learning styles and go into actual learning:
Teach children through fact-based practice
Fortunately, there are all kinds of learning approaches that are supported by science. We know that people learn best by teaching others. Hands-on exercises can help solidify concepts. Analogies can really help penetrate deep principles. It is a good idea for the children to reflect on their thought process (“ How did you come to this conclusion?”). And to appreciate their learning, ask them to first extract information using only their memories – no textbooks, notes, or Google. Plus, breaks in movement can benefit everyone.
Build lessons based on material, not learning style
Instead of teaching learning styles, create lessons by asking the questions, “How can I best help students understand the meaning of the material?” This means that if you want the children to understand what a French accent sounds like, you must ask them to listen to the recording. If you’re trying to teach them to understand maps, you give them a real map and practice getting from point A to point B.
Give the kids a set of ways to think
Teach the material in different ways. Howard Gardner, author of Structures of Mind: A Theory of Multiple Intelligences (he quickly argues that “multiple intelligences” are different from learning styles), believes in the “pluralization” of learning. He writes in The Washington Post that “by presenting materials in different ways, you convey what it means to understand something well.” When you give students a set of ways of thinking, they can use it in any educational situation.
Dr. Husmann, co-author of a recent study, encourages parents to introduce their children to a wide variety of people, situations, subjects and learning styles when it comes to very young children whose brains are still developing. “Recent research shows that the more you try different teaching methods, the better you will master them,” she tells me.
Recognize the differences between children
To say that we should not teach learning styles does not mean that there should be a universal approach to learning. All children are different, and teachers and parents should be aware of these differences. You should know that extroverts and introverts process information differently and that beginners learn better by example, while more experienced people learn better by solving problems on their own . However, with learning styles, we currently have no scientific reason to teach them. And, as Willingham writes , “Doesn’t it make sense to use theories that scientists believe are right?”