Ways of Learning

I have had conversations on instructional methods and in particular the concept of “Learning Styles”. I would like to share the highlights from a summary created by the Vanderbilt Center for Teaching, the Myth of Learning Styles.

"In Riener and Willingham’s (2010) article, The Myth of Learning Styles, they argue that learners are different from each other, these differences affect their performance, and teachers should take these differences into account. Learners’ prior knowledge and experience matter, and every student’s prior knowledge and experience is unique. Students do have preferences for how they learn. However, when these tendencies are put to the test under controlled conditions, they make no difference—learning is equivalent whether students learn in the preferred mode or not."

Linda Nilson (2011) found that "learning styles models, such as Gardner’s multiple intelligences model, the VARK model (visual, aural, read/write, kinesthetic), and Kolb learning style model, have very little predictive validity. The Felder-Silverman model does have “good construct and predictive validity” within the context of teaching engineering students. The model identifies four dimensions of cognitive processing: active vs. reflective, sensing vs. intuitive, visual vs. verbal, and sequential vs. global. Knowing where a student falls on these dimensions can indeed help predict how students will engage with various learning activities. Nilson encourages a move away from learning “styles” and towards teaching “modalities,”making three points about modalities:

1. Visual thinking tools help everyone and lead to deeper, more conceptual learning since visuals can provide the “big picture” as to how concepts are related. Visuals promote longer retention and easier retrieval of information.

2. Use the best modality for the content aligns with the much stronger evidence that matching one’s teaching style to one’s content is wise. Examples include using experiential learning for teaching students how to do something physical, using reading and auditory activities to teach poetry, and using a variety of modalities to teach recent history.

3. People learn new material best when they encounter it multiple times and through multiple modalities, since different modalities activate different parts of the brain, when students encounter new material in different ways, they are in a better position to make more sense of the material."