{"id":13466,"date":"2013-03-15t08:00:57","date_gmt":"2013-03-15t13:00:57","guid":{"rendered":"\/\/www.imrbdigital.com\/?p=13466"},"modified":"2013-03-09t22:18:58","modified_gmt":"2013-03-10t03:18:58","slug":"ask-professor-pedagogy-learning-styles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"\/\/www.imrbdigital.com\/2013\/03\/ask-professor-pedagogy-learning-styles\/","title":{"rendered":"ask professor pedagogy: learning styles"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n
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<\/a>\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

ask professor pedagogy<\/strong> is a twice monthly advice column written by 2022年世界杯中国小组赛积分 staff. one aspect of our mission is to cultivate dialogue about teaching and learning, so we welcome questions and concerns that arise in the classroom; particularly those from vanderbilt faculty, students, and staff. if you have a question that you’d like professor p to address, please send it to us<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

dear professor pedagogy,<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

my students often tell me that they\u2019re \u201cvisual learners\u201d as they request more visual media in the course.\u00a0 they want more videos and less reading, more graphically organized tests (e.g., filling in charts, rather than writing paragraphs), etc.\u00a0 i\u2019m uncomfortable with the requested shifts partly because they move away from the original texts (prose) and a skill they need to practice more often (writing), but i\u2019m also wondering what to make of their self-diagnoses as \u201cvisual learners.\u201d\u00a0 i know some people are big fans of the concept of learning styles and try to design activities that appeal to different learning styles.\u00a0 is this a worthy effort?\u00a0 how seriously should i consider appealing more to my self-proclaimed \u201cvisual learners\u201d?<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

curious about learning styles<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

dear curious,<\/p>\n

ah, yes, learning styles<\/a> \u2014 one of the sacred cows in education that i\u2019d like to serve up as hamburgers!\u00a0 let\u2019s put it this way:\u00a0 a healthy dose of skepticism is warranted.\u00a0 before i grind it up, though, let\u2019s back up and clarify what learning styles are.<\/p>\n

learning styles are perceived preferences for learning, often falling into the categories used by one of the most common learning styles assessment tools, vark<\/a>: \u00a0visual, aural, read\/write, or kinesthetic.\u00a0 they are typically expressed less as a preference and more as the most effective way one learns, a label that describes one\u2019s singular mode of learning. \u00a0as a result, believers argue that \u201coptimal instruction requires diagnosing individuals\u2019 learning style and tailoring instruction accordingly\u201d (pashler, et al., 2009, p. 105). this notion has gained \u201cgreat influence within the education field,\u201d with \u201ca thriving industry devoted to publishing learning-styles tests and guidebooks\u201d and \u201cprofessional development workshops for teachers and educators\u201d (p. 105).\u00a0 this is the position of the folks you mention:\u00a0 they think they have visual learners or kinesthetic learners in their classes, so they think they should develop assignments and assessments that will help those who \u201clearn best through visual activities\u201d or \u201cthrough movement\u201d do well in the class.<\/p>\n

what\u2019s wrong with this idea?\u00a0 isn\u2019t it a good idea to develop a variety of assessment and activity types?\u00a0 yes, but the rationale and application here need revisiting.<\/p>\n

first, let me be blunt.\u00a0 while researchers have tried, there is no credible evidence to support this notion that matching learning styles and activities actually increases learning.\u00a0 a handful of psychology professors\u2014harold pashler, mark mcdaniel, doug rohrer, and robert bjork\u2014reviewed all of the published research on learning styles to evaluate whether the concept was supported by credible evidence.\u00a0 their conclusion after reviewing the hundreds of studies:\u00a0 \u201calthough the literature on learning styles is enormous,\u201d they \u201cfound virtually no evidence\u201d supporting the idea that \u201cinstruction is best provided in a format that matches the preference of the learner.\u201d\u00a0 many of those studies suffered from weak research design, rendering them far from convincing.\u00a0 others with an effective experimental design \u201cfound results that flatly contradict the popular\u201d assumptions about learning styles (p. 105).<\/p>\n

pashler and his colleagues make an interesting observation about why learning styles have gained such traction, aside from the enormous industry that supports the concept.\u00a0 first, people like to identify themselves and others by \u201ctype.\u201d\u00a0 such categories provide a useful shorthand for identifying personalized traits may\u2014the thinking goes\u2014help them navigate more effectively in the world and help others understand them.\u00a0 also, the concept of learning styles appeals to the idea that learners should be recognized as \u201cunique individuals,\u201d rather than a number or a faceless class of students (p. 107).\u00a0 (yes, i realize the paradox here:\u00a0 labeling someone renders him a unique individual?\u00a0 but the idea here is that there\u2019s not just one kind of learner, and the differences in the classroom should be acknowledged.)\u00a0 carried further, teaching to different learning styles suggests that \u201call people have the potential to learn effectively and easily if only instruction is tailored to their individual learning styles\u201d (p. 107).<\/p>\n

i would add another reason why learning styles may be so popular. they very loosely resemble the concept of metacognition, or the process of thinking about one\u2019s thinking and learning. \u00a0for instance, in a very simple example, having your students describe which study strategies and conditions for their last exam worked for them and which didn\u2019t is likely to improve their studying on the next exam (tanner, 2012). \u00a0integrating such metacognitive activities into the classroom\u2014unlike learning styles\u2014is supported by a wealth of research (e.g., askell williams, lawson, & murray-harvey, 2007; bransford, brown, & cocking, 2000; butler & winne, 1995; isaacson & fujita, 2006; nelson & dunlosky, 1991; tobias & everson, 2002).\u00a0 importantly, metacognition is focused on planning, monitoring, and evaluating any kind of thinking about thinking and does nothing to connect one\u2019s identity or abilities to any singular approach to knowledge.<\/p>\n

again, however, while the idea that we should tailor our classrooms to fit these learning styles appeals to some laudable values, there is simply no evidence to support this connection between a student\u2019s identified learning style and how she should be taught.<\/p>\n

there is, however, something we can take away from these different approaches to learning\u2014not based on the learner but based on the content being learned. \u00a0to explore the persistence of the belief in learning styles, cft assistant director nancy chick interviewed dr. bill cerbin, professor of psychology and director of the center for advancing teaching and learning at the university of wisconsin-la crosse and former carnegie scholar with the carnegie academy for the scholarship of teaching and learning.\u00a0 he pointed out that the differences identified by the labels \u201cvisual, auditory, kinesthetic, and reading\/writing\u201d are more appropriately connected to the nature of the subject:<\/p>\n

\u201cthere may be evidence that indicates that there are some ways to teach some subjects that are just better than others, despite the learning styles of individuals\u2026. if you\u2019re thinking about teaching sculpture, i\u2019m not sure that long tracts of verbal descriptions of statues or of sculptures would be a particularly effective way for individuals to learn about works of art. naturally, these are physical objects and you need to take a look at them, you might even need to handle them.\u201d (cerbin, 2011, 7:45-8:30<\/a>)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

in other words, it makes disciplinary sense to include kinesthetic activities in sculpture and anatomy courses, reading\/writing activities in literature and history courses, visual activities in geography and engineering courses, and auditory activities in music, foreign language, and speech courses.\u00a0 this may sound obvious, but it aligns teaching and learning with the contours of the subject matter, if you will, without limiting the potential abilities of the learners.<\/p>\n

so, curious, rather than wasting time worrying about your visual or aural learners, think about what you teach.\u00a0 what mode(s) of expression most authentically represent it? perhaps even encourage your students to think about this question.\u00a0 working with a poem visually, aurally, kinesthetically, and then again textually would provide some useful \u201cplay\u201d with the poem, allowing students to see it from different angles\u2014with the ultimate goal of recognizing the layers of meaning uniquely provided in its original textual form. such playing with your subject matter in the different modes might be a useful experiment for them, as long as they resist the urge to bind their identities to one of those modes.<\/p>\n

professor pedagogy<\/p>\n

p.s. – the cft recently put together a guide on learning styles<\/a> – read that (or any of the resources below) for an even more in-depth look at this topic.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

references<\/p>\n

askell-williams, h., lawson, m. & murray, harvey, r. (2007). \u2018what happens in my university classes that helps me to learn?\u2019: teacher education students\u2019 instructional metacognitive knowledge. international journal of the scholarship of teaching and learning<\/em>, 1. 1-21.<\/p>\n

bransford, j. d., brown, a. l. & cocking, r. r., (eds.). (2000). how people learn: brain, mind, experience, and school<\/em> (expanded edition). washington, d.c.: national academy press.<\/p>\n

butler, d. l., & winne, p. h. (1995) feedback and self-regulated learning: a theoretical synthesis. review of educational research<\/em>, 65, 245-281.<\/p>\n

cerbin, william. (2011). understanding learning styles: a conversation with dr. bill cerbin.\u201d\u00a0 interview with nancy chick. uw colleges virtual teaching and learning center<\/em>. <\/em>https:\/\/sites.google.com\/a\/gapps.uwc.edu\/vtlc\/home\/programs\/podcasts\/learningstylescerbin<\/a><\/p>\n

isaacson, r. m. & fujita, f. (2006). metacognitive knowledge monitoring and self-regulated learning: academic success and reflections on learning. journal of the scholarship of teaching and learning<\/em>, 6, 39-55.<\/p>\n

nelson, t.o. & dunlosky, j. (1991). the delayed-jol effect: when delaying your judgments of learning can improve the accuracy of your metacognitive monitoring. psychological science<\/em>, 2, 267-270.<\/p>\n

pashler, harold, mark mcdaniel, doug rohrer, and robert bjork.\u00a0 (2008). learning styles: concepts and evidence.\u201d psychological science in the public interest<\/em>. 9.3\u00a0 103-119.<\/p>\n

tanner, kimberly d. (2012). promoting student metacognition. cbe-life sciences education<\/em>. 11.\u00a0 113-120.<\/p>\n

tobias, s., & everson, h. (2002). knowing what you know and what you don\u2019t: further research on metacognitive knowledge monitoring. college board report no. 2002-3<\/em>. college board, ny.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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