"Good teaching is good teaching and good teachers don't need to adjust their teaching to individual students learning styles." Good teachers do adjust to their student's interests, abilities and stage of development.
Yes, even if these conceptions of "learning styles" are ultimately illusory and not real phenomena (or at least "not real" in the sense of being analog to being right or left-handed, but rather something like preferring a cuisine or music style over other), but rather idiosyncratic preferences or even degrees of cognitive deficits.
"student's interests, abilities and stage of development." These things wouldn't fall under "learning styles" in the way the Willingham defined them so its unlikely that he would disagree with your post. At least based on the content of this video.
I always thought I was a visual learner because when I heard something--like a professor giving a lecture--I would write it down, and then read it. When I read it--took the information in visually--was when I really felt that the knowledge "clicked" and I completely understood what was being taught. Now I realize that reading the information was the third time that I was exposed to it (after hearing it and writing it down), so that's why things became clear after I read them. Thank you for this video, Professor Willingham.
It's more complex than that. If you just learnt the information visually while you were hearing it the first time then you would have understood it the first time. No need to write it down. Now constantly reviewing information is another concept..
A thorough and succinct explanation of why learning styles don't exits. The bottom line for instructors/educators remains: use a variety of instructional styles to reinforce learning (knowledge or skills).
Wouldn't that technically mean that learning styles exist just not in the standard way we think of them? It's a much more complicated process where a student uses any of the three means of taking in information and applies it to the most relevant data (Like the shape of Chad example).
I'm not sure what I said that made you think I was saying each individual has a leading style. It's true that you might encode an experience auditorily and visually, but which of these 2 is more important will depend on the stimulus and how you interpret it. I don't think the results would differ if you experimented as you described. . .other experiments have used realistic classroom situations and find no support for learning styles. the study I described is just one example.
There is a lot ignored in this presentation. Maybe the teacher does need learners to access information in appropriate ways - countries on a map are visual, learning to speak a second language is auditory, building a brick wall is active and kineasthetic. But this video presents a very content-based and academic view of education - stuffing in knowledge. Learners value different styles, in particular being active not passive, and learn better when that happens. I have taught young people and adults for decades, and they all - and I mean senior managers to learners with learning difficulties - want to do things, not just sit and listen, or be shown words and images. Maybe this doesn't support the argument for learning styles, but it does say that learning styles are not partly wrong, but that they are partly right and we should definitely not throw out the learning styles baby in the research psychologist's bathwater.
Now, what I'm trying to say with my previous post is: the steps of "processing information" - transforming outside information into understanding - takes energy. How much energy it takes depends on how the information is delivered, and that differs per person. For my friend, it's obvious that he prefers to read than to listen. He has much more experience with it. For others the preference may be less obvious, but it definitely is certain that there are differences in preferences. I rest my case.
Thank you for a very clear and concise summation of this research. I have been reading a variety of studies showing this very thing, but your video managed to make the myriad of concepts straightforward and easy to understand.
@jefkahn The Cambridge Handbook of Multimedia Learning addresses this issue quite thoroughly. Yes, students can be more motivated by the perception that they are learning in their supposed style. However, the actually learning is less effective because when students are learning in their "style," they put in less effort. Effort is more important than style.
It's great to see someone providing this info to people. I work in a school and I constantly hear about learning styles, but NOT ONE presenter has ever been able to give me any valid evidence for learning styles. They tell lots of stories, and give lots of anecdotes, but there are stories and anecdotes suggesting that the earth is flat! It's hard to imagine education really improving until it really looks at the facts as they are, and not as some people wish they would be. Good show!!
This is an interesting argument, but I think there is a key concept missing - possibly not one which is seen as a central in the learning styles theory. As a Learning and Development trainer working with adults and with experience in Further Education, I see learning styles as more of a teaching method to appeal to student preferences, so they are more engaged and stimulated, so learn the concepts better. I always describe myself as a kinaesthetic (possibly with a sprinkling of ADD) - put me into a lenghty lecture or explanation, and I will get very restless and disengage totally, so will not learn much. Give me some tasks to do, and I will be fully engaged and motivated.
@jfluter I agree. But the problem not only with the saying "that we learn from our mistakes" but to an even larger degree how it's practical implications are played out is that it assumes that making mistakes teaches us, but it does not. What does teach us is studying our mistakes, to get to an understanding of both why we did them, but also what we can do not to make them again. And these are two VERY different things - because one takes effort, and the other doesn't.
I love this video. I've taught in schools where I have been forced to give students tests to determine their best learning style - and the kids are confused when they come up with 2-3 areas that they are all equal in. Well, this explains everything!
I think what he's saying is that people often get preferences and styles confused. I do like learning certain ways, but truth to be told I understand you can't learn everything one way just because you like it(and it's not a guarantee that you'll actually "learn it better"). While we may always have preferences, good teaching should be able to stimulate all parts of our brain in different ways. We have certain inclinations, but without testing them with various methods it narrows our vision
What does the fact that some information to learn is of a type have to do with whether there are learners who have preferred type? What does having to remember a list (short term memory) have to do with meaningful learning? Is there a study where material is taught to a typical class in diverse presentation and mono-styled presentation and the classes' learning is compared? That would seem to be what we wish to measure. Be nice to sort out students who will learn in almost any class.
I think the problem is you are simplifying something that’s complex. I do believe there is validity to learning styles however the problem comes when we take the literal meaning of learning styles. For example I strongly believe kinesthetic learning is not about needing to physically move around in order to learn the information. It means that the person needs to be an active learner to master the information. Another example when someone is a visual learner they could draw a metaphor of a calculus formula which would help them remember the formula. As a kinesthetic learner I would have to ask for clarification if needed develop a mnemonic and practice plugging in the formula into the problem to master it. Some people watch & from seeing they can absorb 70% of the material before have to test & recall. Auditory learners review the information by lecturing themselves out loud which doesn’t work former. Learning and mastery is a complicated process. You talk about meaning. You say learning is about meaning. But so much of what we are taught is just information. Individuals are receptors of information. I read Cal Newport & had to do a lot of trial and error and I’m coming to the conclusion that learn is complex. Learning styles pertains to how the information clicks in a person’s mind.
Agreed. It is important to appreciate that learning isn’t just about meanings, various fields of study don’t solely rely on meaning and even those meanings “can” be learnt through various learning techniques and be it through learning styles. The learner needs to be equipped with various learning styles and use those different modalities into different learning situations. I feel the hypothesis and structure of the research is really biased in dismissing learning styles as a myth! When learning is a complex process in itself, in order to develop mastery of learning it is important to appreciate it is multi-faceted in its nature.
@lealvo right, but the predictions of l.s. theories goes farther. It predicts that this indicates you are a visual learner, and so visual representations will generally be better for you, not just for directions, but most information. It also predicts that there are people who show the opposite pattern (auditory is better).
No, I've taken account of the fact that different types of material I wanted to present in the video would be more effectively conveyed visually or auditorily. The title refers to the fact that there is no credible evidence supporting learning style theories.
THANK YOU FOR THIS!!! As a teacher I am sick to death of all of the ridiculous education fads that continue to be rammed down our throats, always, of course, by hired consultants making ten times what we make and who we all know will be back in seven years pushing yet another fad, I've always just rolled my eyes and gone back into my classroom and taught the way I know is right.
.Well done Daniel, I recall reading another critique by Coffield who if I recall correctly ultimately took a leaf out of John Hattie's work. The reasons why these strategies work in the class room is a) Doing so creates an enriched classroom which aids motivation b) creates a dialogue/ vocab for teachers to discuss their experiences. Its nice to see you extend the theories (hypothesis) to making predictions which is a logical extension of any theory hypothesis.
.Well done Daniel, I recall reading anothere critique by Coffield who if I recall correctly untimately took a leaf out of John Hatties work. The reasons why these strategies work in the class room is a) Doing so creates an enriched classroom which aids motivation b) creates a dialogue/ vocab for teachers to discuss their experiences. Its nice to see you extend the theories (hypothesis) to making predictions which is a logical extension of any theory hypothesis.
Thanks for your informative video. I have taught for over 15 years and can tell you from experience that learning, to me, is all about input and output. What I mean is that things are inputed into a child's memory, and you hope that they are able to deliver some sort of output that shows that the input was, indeed, received. That said, making learning engaging and fun is the motivating factor that enables students to retrieve (or input) information. To do this, some students have a preference for visual, auditory or hands-on. We know that motivation impacts learning. And relevance, incentives, and all that stuff is what motivates kids to want to take in information and, you hope that they are able to "prove" that they have, in fact, learned. Even a so called, auditory learner, could not be subjected to someone blabbing in their ear, and then be expected to remember a large portion of the material. Same would hold true for teaching a kid the shape of Florida by having him draw the shape and dance around on it so that he would remember the shape and then be able to match it later. I do want to add that no one is entirely a visual learner or auditory; it's always some sort of combined preference. I would say a percentage that obviously is entirely subjective and not quantifiable. All of this considered, I think to say Learning Styles don't exist is not entirely accurate. Perhaps the term is sort of a misnomer. Maybe the term we should be using is Learning Preference. We all likely agree that learning is about engagement and motivation. We really only learn through three of our five senses (though smell could be debatable; I know that I have "learned" at the conceptual level what fried chicken or birthday cake smells like; yet, that's not part of the Common Core, so... ;) Thanks for the post. I'm hoping you could respond either in text or video. Would love to hear your thoughts. One a related note, I taught at an all boys school for five years and can tell you that the way boys learn (in general) is quite different than girls. They "prefer" hands on, visual presentation of material. Girls, in my experience, enjoy more verbal (dialogue based) learning. Again, this is a huge generalization, but the success of same sex education and the research in relation to that topic supports this assertion.
This was just an example I made up for the video. . .a properly done study would control for, among other things imagability, (how easy it is to form a mental image of the object). More important, other studies have used materials closer to what students would actually encounter in the classroom, rather than word lists.
but that is exactly what he is saying! Did you watch the video at all before reacting to it? People don't have "a learning style", they use the style that fits best every situation of learning. Really, it's not even text, can't you just listen to people before disagreeing with them?
As a corrective to the common forms of differentiation it is helpful. Still I question two of his conclusions. 1: That most of what teachers want students to learn has to do with meaning. This is an over-simplification of what happens in the classroom. If he could get this point wrong, what else is he missing? 2: His gloss at the end, "Good teaching is good teaching" Good teachers differentiate- let the students see, hear, touch, practice, repeat, apply, fail, retry, and experience.
I agree. . .one should think about how the content of the lesson plan fits the structure of the lesson plan. . .quite a different idea than basing the structure of the lesson plan on the learning styles of students
So learning styles don't really exist and they are going out of style? Teaching still has to be differentiated to various learning styles because just saying they don't exist does not work.
Fascinating, thanks for sharing this! I've studied NLP amongst other things, and am glad to be corrected. Sorry you have to endure slightly less than mature comments here :(
@lovemystudents I recall reading another critique by Coffield who if I recall correctly ultimately took a leaf out of John Hattie's work. The reasons why these strategies work in the class room is a) Doing so creates an enriched classroom which aids motivation b) creates a dialogue/ vocab for teachers to discuss their experiences.
I agree, learning styles don't exist. But in the vast majority of schools in the U.S., both public and private, to openly say that is utter sacrilege, and a really good way to get fired.
The theory appears to be right because learning is presented as being just about memory. Learning is more than just creating a memory or storing information. Perhaps "learning styles" should be called "learning triggers" in that I believe we initially pay more attention to some forms of information than to others, they get our attention faster. As teachers know getting the attention of students is key to engagement and then the trick is to help them learn. Getting your attention has been a key survival trait and one that persists today. Advertisers know this and use it to sell, well to first get our attention. The smell of freshly baked bread, the colours and warmth of a summer day, the freshness of a spring morning, the tune that reminds you of your youth - you get the point. I would claim that whatever our learning environment is we are pre-disposed to notice things according to our senses. Some favor one over the other although all are at play. Perhaps the one that is favored is part of a distant memory because it was more of a threat in whatever environment we found ourselves in. If the danger came first as a sound then we may favor taking notice of auditory clues. If the danger presented itself not through auditory clues but was stealthy and we needed to recognise a shape or shadow then we may favor visual clues. The same may be true for identifying or recognizing danger through tactile means, identifying a particular shape from another in order to avoid danger. Just a theory! For more theories like why boys only do just enough visit 4c3d.wordpress.com Kev
Because modal stimulation, benefits the learner with a unique configuration of modulated inputs, leading to the entrenchment of knowledge emotionally. This benefit is maximized if curriculli and teaching methods maintain both ease (encouragement and customization) and variety (all modes encouraged, even those that are more difficult or hindered (esp.) This requires sensitive teachers and flexable curriculi. The cognitivist position and ancillary teaching standardization faulters when it dehumanizes our emotional needs and assumes one cognitive goal of the material being framed rather than the uniqueness of our paths to get to the expertise. By way of adept instruction rather than mechanized goals and underlying cognitive anticedents, students learn humanly by the temperment of the teachers more than even the most circumscribed materials. Creativity and uniqueness therefore innovation and variety are the casualties as well as both individual and societal optimization. Ironically in the name of cognitive optimization, resides dehumanuzation.
This video just confirms why Dr. Willingham is a superhero. As a Dir of Sped and School Psychologist , he offers research-based common sense in a field that can be very confusing when it comes to "research," as well as what constitutes "effective instruction." Disagree with this video? Become an informed consumer and read the research yourself . I have. You will find Dr. Willingham is spot on. As educators we need to listen to this voice of reason!!
(2/3) yes, you are right in the process of METACOGNITION (term for storing memory) involves attaching meaning to information. Learning styles help the WAY that the child links meaning to information. Adapting to learning styles helps the ways that a student perceives the information. He is getting confused with learning styles and communication disorders. Testing for communication involves what the sound.failing to present the information in a style then the student wont attach meaning to it.
"....it is just a placebo of sorts." i just had to reply to this particular comment. i'm starting to get the idea that the problem lies in the understanding or lack of from two different types of people. one excels in school since reading, comprehension, writing is key and the other struggles in this area. there is a different set of values and ways of organizing between the two. i do believe that a person who reads, writes, and comprehends naturally has the advantage in this world.
How do students construct meaning? Words and pictures are symbols for things that students will interact with. How does a piece of writing lead to action and change? It's translation of the symbols into personal meaning that a person then uses to interact with the world. Aristotle would probably argue that the whole point of learning (creating meaning though symbols - visual, audio, or otherwise) would be to increase the effectiveness of this eventually Kinesthetic interaction.@augustcollegium
I love this! Exactly, even the pictograms before phonetics became a script for language writing/text was used to draw the meaning and representation of what a word was. These stimulants help with memory, and understanding when combined. An Apple shown visually can be recalled in one's head, or the sound of an apple crunch can also help recall the learned meaning behind a word. Everyone is different and the human mind is extremely complex.
I certainly disagree with his inclusion of "always" in the context of what the theory predicts. For the theory to be valid it needs to only highlight a statistically different distribution of learning effectiveness based off sensory modality, and not an absolute difference.
+JaysonSunshine even if the difference was statistically different it would need to be a large enough difference to justify its cost. This is according to the cognitive psychologists who were commissioned to study the evidence for learning style theory (Pashler et al., 2009).
@ialonline sure, the example in the video is just an example. . .to really explain what a proper experiment would look like with all of the appropriate controls would take much longer than the length of the whole video.
@theiamania This is probably a small thing, but learning from mistakes doesn't just teach what not "to do," unless you go about the problem the exact same way again. Instead, it teaches you to make adjustments as you've learned something valuable in the process.
Learning Styles author, David Kolb NEVER indicated that a student should be taught in ONLY one style, but rather...begin with their preferred learning style and then MOVE THEM THROUGH each (different) style for deep long-term learning across multiple domains. The debate on Learning Styles is most often a result of not having read the original work of David Kolb.
@jarrmful I expect that this study has been run, but I don't know of it. . .shooting from the hip, I'd guess varied study would help. Even better would be to intermix self-test--lots of data in the last few years on huge benefit to memory from self-test. (But again, the expectation is that this helps pretty much everyone, not that it helps differentially depending on your style.)
Very interesting ! Will have to watch this again. I might go a bit further and say that people are not better at remembering pictures or sounds but they have learned how to store and retreive memories more efficiently,. The best thing you can teach someone is how to learn. Some people might have missed out at some stage and consider themseleves mnot to be good with language or numbers or art etc, given the tools they can often surprise themselves.
Whether or not an individual teacher thinks he/she has had good results using learning styles is beside the point. There's a term in psychology called "confirmation. bias." We convince ourselves that an idea we've embraced is true even if the evidence doesn't support it. School districts around the country have turned learning styles into policy despite the lack of scientific support. Teachers are sometimes U-rated for not incorporating this flawed theory into their lessons. A methodology should never be mandated unless educational leaders have gathered controlled studies that confirm that broad populations of students have been helped by a particular theory while other methodologies have proven less effective. Unfortunately, education in America is driven by fads, not by science. This is why (sadly) education cannot be called a profession.
except that i certainly agree with what many others have implied--- multiple modalities is the way to go, anyway. i think employing mm's is what any caring teacher would do for their students to get them to begin to understand new information. doing so will increase the likelihood of 'connecting with our individual learners' and with a whole group the same.
lol sorry didn't refresh when I did that second comment. "we can't get anywhere by focusing on bringing down this theory. it just needs adjusting." I keep trying to say that this is not the end. When a theory does not hold up to tests then the theory must be revised, and that usually means encompassing more information from more research. I also believe that having visual and audio cues is a big help. If we want teachers to a better job then they need better tools based off better theories.
Different teaching styles might stimulate different levels of interest. Modern foreign languages textbooks are usually much more colourful than Latin books and modern languages are better learnt. Similarly, a visual person will be more attracted by a book with a lot of images than a auditory one. But if, for some reason, both the visual and the auditory person study the same book with the same interest, the results do not vary, as prof. Willingham says.
a student's preferred type of activity and the type of lesson does have a significant impact on engagement. E.g. My student who is very "kinesthetic" (that is, doesn't enjoy listening to books read aloud, doesn't like to read words or maps) will be less engaged in those activities than another student. Perhaps what I'm arguing doesn't relate directly to the standard theories about "learning styles" but these realities do point to the importance of engaging students in a variety of ways.
halfstep, I'm half with you. I agree that if something works, got with it. But knowing that something works for you (and works better than other things) can be tricky. And it sounds like we both agree that doing something because you think it *ought* to help you learn (even though it doesn't help) is a bad idea.
I agree with the underlying premise that we do not have distinct learning styles, but Dan Willingham's argument would have been even stronger if he had concluded "good teaching is good teaching" (m: 6:42), which includes multiple presentations of the same information in different formats (e.g., pictures, words, sounds) and activities. It also includes adjusting your teaching to accommodate individual student's pre-existing knowledge, interests, culture, abilities, etc. (Bransford et al., 1999).
(1/3)The test intended of experiment is the participant (visual learner) is told the words verbally and to recall them. she may remember 6/10 words. She is then shown picture of words and recall them. she gets a 10/10. This shows that if you present the data visually she has a better retention to process and analyze the information than auditory. This test is used for students diagnosed with disabilities.
Professor Daniel Willingham points make sense if a person believes that individuals "fit" in one category for learning, such as in his example of visual, auditory, and kinesthetic. Learners use "a" style or a "combination" of styles to make meaning. Part of the teacher's responsibility is to incorporate multiple elements. A good example is the construction of this video. Lots of appropriate visuals to accentuate what is said (auditory) to get his message across. X-Training = X-teaching.
I can relate to what Mr. Willingham is speaking of because I am a visual learner, but I disagree with him when he said "good teaching is good teaching and teachers don't need to adjust their teaching for individual students learning styles" I will ask the question what's important your style of teaching or the students way of learning?
Thought provoking... I'm an educator specializing in ABA Therapy. How do these examples come into play? I must write down lectures in note form and organize them on a page so my eye can organize the information for recall. When I read, I take longer than most, but my understanding and recall of concepts is higher than average.
Part II The use of forums was associated with fast paced challenging interaction, relationships based on sharing of ideas, more open discussion and more links to the discussed themes and bigger picture." Thanks. John
OK, Cheryl, how would you learn how to correctly pronounce the Spanish phrase 'Hasta mañana', VISUALLY? How could your teacher, without speaking or using any audio at all, teach you this using only visual methods? Remember, the aim of the lesson is that all the students in the class will be able to pronounce this phrase correctly. All the research has shown that learning styles don't exist. Here I am referring to proper research, not just personal anecdotes. Watch the video again. Dan is right. He even explains why you THINK the theory is true.
yet in most every dictionary each word is spelled out phonetically beside the traditional spelling....its really not that complex. I'm also unsure of what class you would take to learn how to pronounce words in Spanish yet, for some reason, you can't speak or hear...seems a little absurd
@dbw8m and lovemystudents I think that rote repetition doesn't work because it's boring, and boredom will switch a pupil off very quickly. If you present the same idea in lots of different ways then you can get the necessary repetition in to bed the facts down in memory or hone the skill being taught without the negative effects of boredom.
@burgercide "VAK actually explains why some people learn some types of information better than other types. A visual learner will learn the shapes of countries quicker than an auditory learner." No, that's a difference in ability, not styles. No one disputes that there are differences in ability.
hey what about people with learning differences? My teachers know that I learn more efficiently with visual input, and I often watch movies and videos with subtitles (I did with this video) because often the audio doesn't seem to make much sense. My ears are fine, but I am a visual learner *because* of my learning differences. Is there a difference between learning styles and learning abilities?
@lovemystudents . It is probably not only interest you're building. I believe that the more senses you're activating the more connections and associations your building in your brain, and more connections are good for learning as well as for creating an interesting experience.
In medical school it is see it, do it, teach it. That seems to be the best learning style. For me, I learn more quickly (create memories faster) if I write it down. My children can hear it once or twice and create memories but then they are gifted. I think you might want to look at the individual and how his or her brain makes memories quickest--visual, auditory or kinesthetic--and why some require more repetitions.
I agree ive also had similar experiences in my years at medical school and teaching for the last 2 decades. The research should frame the conditions in this way to also see the effects of addressing those students that require more repetitions when not able to form memories via the various learning styles. Biased research in my opinion
I imagine that the more senses that are engaged in a specific task, the more one would learn the task, as more sensory input is involved, as this would on the surface seem to indicate that one is more focused on the specific task that one is engaged in.
While you make a compelling argument for the non-existence of 'learning styles' I can't help but to think that the tests that you show aren't testing learning, they are testing memorization. As I put forth in twitter thread, I think a more effective way to disprove the 'learning styles' theories is with experiments involving abstract/non-palpable concepts that none of the the subjects is familiar with and thus de-emphasizing memorization.
@inpirare No, there is actually a really important difference between "styles" and abilities. More ability (or intelligence, if you prefer) is always better. . .but "styles" is just supposed to be a preference, and one style is not better than another, over all. . . read any of Howard Gardner's books on multiple intelligences, and you'll see he makes this distinction. . .
These kinds of videos would be great with some sort of referanceing system. As I am watching this to help me with essay writing and such for university it would be great if I could go to journal articles which explore this in a scientific manner.
You completely fucked up in this very interesting video when you said the prediction is that they should >ALWAYS< learn better in their modality. You brought in an absurd absolute which is much easier to debunk.
You ought to see some difference in the situation you describe for rote memory of the visual appearance of the graph, or for the table of numbers. . . but what the teacher really wants the student to learn and understand is the conceptual principles that the graph/numbers are to illustrate. We might guess that memorizing the appearance of the graph might help a little in understanding that. . but if so, it doesn't help enough that anyone has been able to find the effect.
I buy what you're saying, Daniel, but why is it, then, that my students comprehend and recall material better when I present it or have them practice/use it in lots of different ways - kinesthetically, auditorially, orally, in writing, etc.? Is it just a matter of repetition? Rote repetition doesn't seem as effective as varied repetition like this... I'd really love to know what you think!
thank you for what you say at 4:50 on --- it's about making meaning ! ! ! i appreciate your video. i just wound up my educational psychology class this semester, so all kinds of theories are fresh in my mind, and this video is going to help me make more sense of what i already know, and to make some adjustments as well.
It makes sense that the specific type of information to be taught should affect the modality of presentation but should the learner's preferences be ignored? Should learning styles not even be looked for?
Learning isn't only just about acquiring single units of knowledge, but also about the comprehension of the functions of a unit and how they interact with other units. Depending on the situation, some people only need to listen/read in order to comprehend meanwhile others need visual assistance or need to physically tinker with things themselves in order for everything to click. I think it is from this notion that VAK came to be, but most people just associate it with memorization.
@dbw8m Personally, I understand directions much better if they I can refer to a map rather than referring to a set of written directions. In turn, I understand directions better if they are provided as a set of written directions rather than if they are provided orally. Once I understand them, especially if I have travelled them, I can remember them and attach meaning to them.
1) The prediction of a styles theory would not be variability in brain activity, but coherent subgroups of subjects showing the same activity, with differences across groups. No evidence for that. 2) That attention modulates brain activity is not a prediction of the styles argument, and any theory of learning predicts that changes in attention modulate learning. Styles theories predict that people pay attention to particular features of stimuli. . .and there is no evidence that they do.
as a homeschooling mom I spend all day with my children watching the way they learn and interpret information. in and out of the class room.and happen to know out of 4 children not all of them learn the same way.they defiantly have different learning styles. I removed my children from school for the lack of noticing this. The one size fits all box.
thank you very much, your theory is well supported by the examples provided, i could actually relate to many of them. I'm actually just getting to know the learning styles as part of my degree course, what would you say about Kolb's frame work, can one's place him or her self in one of the quadrants easily or it is far more complex than that? cheers
@Pekoautika with my eyes shut. But also I cannot do things like telling which way a dorr opens, left from right etc. w/o shutting my eyes & using my auditory memory and combining it with moving in order to process direction. Is it possible that you can process all memories best in the form they are meant to be presented (music as sound & maps as pictures, etc.) but store it in only one form but reprocess it back in2 its natural form when needed?
Are there some learning styles restricted to the form in which a TEXT is presented? for example, is it true that some learn better if they HEAR a text or if they READ a text? We've been talking about shapes of country and pictures of German shepherd for the visual learners, but what if we restrict the speficities of the visual learning theory to the fact that one learns better if he reads a text (visual) than if he hears a text (auditory)? Are there some studies about it? Thanks.
for example when i learned new german words i found out i can remember them much easier if i try to figure out their origin and relation to other existing words, or their relation to words in english. this way i found out that almost every word is derived from some existing word.
@dbw8m that's quite a high number! Is there an equivalent percentage of people who have deficiencies in the other senses, and if so would they collectively add up to a significant chunk of the human population, therefore meaning that it is not learner style but learner deficiency that educators should be focused on developing solutions for?
The problem with this is not the evidence or lack thereof. It is the assumption that learning styles mean that teachers are meant to adapt their teaching to that particular style. This is not true. While a visual presentation may aid the visual student, it is not usually a series of pictures. It is the concept in words that is presented in the slideshow. I use the learning styles as a guide for teaching these students how to study, not as a guide in teaching a concept.
I understand what you are saying but wonder if you could explain something to me I've experienced personally: I'm on the autism spectrum and as you said can process visual, auditory and kinesthetic information and prefer visual with maps, etc. But one thing I've noticed about myself is all my memories; though I process the visual and kinesthetic information are stored at least 90+% auditorily... I cannot "picture" anything except in dreams and as vague, meaningless colors/shapes...
I'm not interpreting data. . .I'm summarizing about 50 years of research conducted by 100's of other investigators (I'll post cites later today at my website.) If you think they've got it wrong, I invite you to reanalyze their data, or conduct your own study that does a better job of investigating this issue. Claiming that "you're wrong because of your outlook on life" is not falsifiable and therefore not persuasive.
I'm watching this with the sound muted to see if I'm a visual learner.
That's how I can watch a foreign language film and still get 80% of the meaning visually.
ratioed
Thank you for the laugh!
"Good teaching is good teaching and good teachers don't need to adjust their teaching to individual students learning styles." Good teachers do adjust to their student's interests, abilities and stage of development.
Yes, even if these conceptions of "learning styles" are ultimately illusory and not real phenomena (or at least "not real" in the sense of being analog to being right or left-handed, but rather something like preferring a cuisine or music style over other), but rather idiosyncratic preferences or even degrees of cognitive deficits.
"student's interests, abilities and stage of development." These things wouldn't fall under "learning styles" in the way the Willingham defined them so its unlikely that he would disagree with your post. At least based on the content of this video.
Agree!
That’s not learning styles. That’s interests abilities and stages of development
The WISC test is important to understanding learning
I always thought I was a visual learner because when I heard something--like a professor giving a lecture--I would write it down, and then read it. When I read it--took the information in visually--was when I really felt that the knowledge "clicked" and I completely understood what was being taught. Now I realize that reading the information was the third time that I was exposed to it (after hearing it and writing it down), so that's why things became clear after I read them.
Thank you for this video, Professor Willingham.
It's more complex than that. If you just learnt the information visually while you were hearing it the first time then you would have understood it the first time. No need to write it down.
Now constantly reviewing information is another concept..
The country circled is NOT Algeria!
Chad. Cognitive dissonance, eh?
Chad?
ratioed
A thorough and succinct explanation of why learning styles don't exits. The bottom line for instructors/educators remains: use a variety of instructional styles to reinforce learning (knowledge or skills).
"Learning style" has a more particular meaning than "any factor that leads to different outcomes with the same input."
Wouldn't that technically mean that learning styles exist just not in the standard way we think of them? It's a much more complicated process where a student uses any of the three means of taking in information and applies it to the most relevant data (Like the shape of Chad example).
Well articulated
I'm not sure what I said that made you think I was saying each individual has a leading style. It's true that you might encode an experience auditorily and visually, but which of these 2 is more important will depend on the stimulus and how you interpret it. I don't think the results would differ if you experimented as you described. . .other experiments have used realistic classroom situations and find no support for learning styles. the study I described is just one example.
Motivation is the main thing that will drive to adopt or improve upon style.
There is a lot ignored in this presentation. Maybe the teacher does need learners to access information in appropriate ways - countries on a map are visual, learning to speak a second language is auditory, building a brick wall is active and kineasthetic. But this video presents a very content-based and academic view of education - stuffing in knowledge. Learners value different styles, in particular being active not passive, and learn better when that happens. I have taught young people and adults for decades, and they all - and I mean senior managers to learners with learning difficulties - want to do things, not just sit and listen, or be shown words and images. Maybe this doesn't support the argument for learning styles, but it does say that learning styles are not partly wrong, but that they are partly right and we should definitely not throw out the learning styles baby in the research psychologist's bathwater.
Now, what I'm trying to say with my previous post is: the steps of "processing information" - transforming outside information into understanding - takes energy. How much energy it takes depends on how the information is delivered, and that differs per person. For my friend, it's obvious that he prefers to read than to listen. He has much more experience with it. For others the preference may be less obvious, but it definitely is certain that there are differences in preferences. I rest my case.
Thank you for a very clear and concise summation of this research. I have been reading a variety of studies showing this very thing, but your video managed to make the myriad of concepts straightforward and easy to understand.
@jefkahn The Cambridge Handbook of Multimedia Learning addresses this issue quite thoroughly. Yes, students can be more motivated by the perception that they are learning in their supposed style. However, the actually learning is less effective because when students are learning in their "style," they put in less effort. Effort is more important than style.
It's great to see someone providing this info to people. I work in a school and I constantly hear about learning styles, but NOT ONE presenter has ever been able to give me any valid evidence for learning styles. They tell lots of stories, and give lots of anecdotes, but there are stories and anecdotes suggesting that the earth is flat!
It's hard to imagine education really improving until it really looks at the facts as they are, and not as some people wish they would be.
Good show!!
Very well presented and thought provoking. Thank you for sharing this video.
This is an interesting argument, but I think there is a key concept missing - possibly not one which is seen as a central in the learning styles theory. As a Learning and Development trainer working with adults and with experience in Further Education, I see learning styles as more of a teaching method to appeal to student preferences, so they are more engaged and stimulated, so learn the concepts better. I always describe myself as a kinaesthetic (possibly with a sprinkling of ADD) - put me into a lenghty lecture or explanation, and I will get very restless and disengage totally, so will not learn much. Give me some tasks to do, and I will be fully engaged and motivated.
@jfluter I agree. But the problem not only with the saying "that we learn from our mistakes" but to an even larger degree how it's practical implications are played out is that it assumes that making mistakes teaches us, but it does not.
What does teach us is studying our mistakes, to get to an understanding of both why we did them, but also what we can do not to make them again. And these are two VERY different things - because one takes effort, and the other doesn't.
I love this video. I've taught in schools where I have been forced to give students tests to determine their best learning style - and the kids are confused when they come up with 2-3 areas that they are all equal in. Well, this explains everything!
Does it?
I think what he's saying is that people often get preferences and styles confused. I do like learning certain ways, but truth to be told I understand you can't learn everything one way just because you like it(and it's not a guarantee that you'll actually "learn it better"). While we may always have preferences, good teaching should be able to stimulate all parts of our brain in different ways. We have certain inclinations, but without testing them with various methods it narrows our vision
Agreed with stimulating all parts of the brain and the more engagement with various brain centres the more layered and embedded the memory becomes
What does the fact that some information to learn is of a type have to do with whether there are learners who have preferred type? What does having to remember a list (short term memory) have to do with meaningful learning?
Is there a study where material is taught to a typical class in diverse presentation and mono-styled presentation and the classes' learning is compared? That would seem to be what we wish to measure. Be nice to sort out students who will learn in almost any class.
@CreatorCoach Can you provide some references showing empirical support for NLP?
I think the problem is you are simplifying something that’s complex. I do believe there is validity to learning styles however the problem comes when we take the literal meaning of learning styles. For example I strongly believe kinesthetic learning is not about needing to physically move around in order to learn the information. It means that the person needs to be an active learner to master the information. Another example when someone is a visual learner they could draw a metaphor of a calculus formula which would help them remember the formula. As a kinesthetic learner I would have to ask for clarification if needed develop a mnemonic and practice plugging in the formula into the problem to master it. Some people watch & from seeing they can absorb 70% of the material before have to test & recall. Auditory learners review the information by lecturing themselves out loud which doesn’t work former.
Learning and mastery is a complicated process. You talk about meaning. You say learning is about meaning. But so much of what we are taught is just information. Individuals are receptors of information. I read Cal Newport & had to do a lot of trial and error and I’m coming to the conclusion that learn is complex. Learning styles pertains to how the information clicks in a person’s mind.
Agreed. It is important to appreciate that learning isn’t just about meanings, various fields of study don’t solely rely on meaning and even those meanings “can” be learnt through various learning techniques and be it through learning styles. The learner needs to be equipped with various learning styles and use those different modalities into different learning situations. I feel the hypothesis and structure of the research is really biased in dismissing learning styles as a myth! When learning is a complex process in itself, in order to develop mastery of learning it is important to appreciate it is multi-faceted in its nature.
@lealvo right, but the predictions of l.s. theories goes farther. It predicts that this indicates you are a visual learner, and so visual representations will generally be better for you, not just for directions, but most information. It also predicts that there are people who show the opposite pattern (auditory is better).
I thank those teachers who were patient and understood that I was not less intelligent, but that I processed information differently.
No, I've taken account of the fact that different types of material I wanted to present in the video would be more effectively conveyed visually or auditorily. The title refers to the fact that there is no credible evidence supporting learning style theories.
THANK YOU FOR THIS!!! As a teacher I am sick to death of all of the ridiculous education fads that continue to be rammed down our throats, always, of course, by hired consultants making ten times what we make and who we all know will be back in seven years pushing yet another fad, I've always just rolled my eyes and gone back into my classroom and taught the way I know is right.
.Well done Daniel, I recall reading another critique by Coffield who if I recall correctly ultimately took a leaf out of John Hattie's work. The reasons why these strategies work in the class room is a) Doing so creates an enriched classroom which aids motivation b) creates a dialogue/ vocab for teachers to discuss their experiences.
Its nice to see you extend the theories (hypothesis) to making predictions which is a logical extension of any theory hypothesis.
.Well done Daniel, I recall reading anothere critique by Coffield who if I recall correctly untimately took a leaf out of John Hatties work. The reasons why these strategies work in the class room is a) Doing so creates an enriched classroom which aids motivation b) creates a dialogue/ vocab for teachers to discuss their experiences.
Its nice to see you extend the theories (hypothesis) to making predictions which is a logical extension of any theory hypothesis.
Thanks for your informative video.
I have taught for over 15 years and can tell you from experience that learning, to me, is all about input and output. What I mean is that things are inputed into a child's memory, and you hope that they are able to deliver some sort of output that shows that the input was, indeed, received.
That said, making learning engaging and fun is the motivating factor that enables students to retrieve (or input) information. To do this, some students have a preference for visual, auditory or hands-on. We know that motivation impacts learning. And relevance, incentives, and all that stuff is what motivates kids to want to take in information and, you hope that they are able to "prove" that they have, in fact, learned. Even a so called, auditory learner, could not be subjected to someone blabbing in their ear, and then be expected to remember a large portion of the material. Same would hold true for teaching a kid the shape of Florida by having him draw the shape and dance around on it so that he would remember the shape and then be able to match it later. I do want to add that no one is entirely a visual learner or auditory; it's always some sort of combined preference. I would say a percentage that obviously is entirely subjective and not quantifiable.
All of this considered, I think to say Learning Styles don't exist is not entirely accurate. Perhaps the term is sort of a misnomer. Maybe the term we should be using is Learning Preference. We all likely agree that learning is about engagement and motivation. We really only learn through three of our five senses (though smell could be debatable; I know that I have "learned" at the conceptual level what fried chicken or birthday cake smells like; yet, that's not part of the Common Core, so... ;)
Thanks for the post. I'm hoping you could respond either in text or video. Would love to hear your thoughts.
One a related note, I taught at an all boys school for five years and can tell you that the way boys learn (in general) is quite different than girls. They "prefer" hands on, visual presentation of material. Girls, in my experience, enjoy more verbal (dialogue based) learning. Again, this is a huge generalization, but the success of same sex education and the research in relation to that topic supports this assertion.
Hello. Thank you for text and to share.
This was just an example I made up for the video. . .a properly done study would control for, among other things imagability, (how easy it is to form a mental image of the object). More important, other studies have used materials closer to what students would actually encounter in the classroom, rather than word lists.
but that is exactly what he is saying! Did you watch the video at all before reacting to it? People don't have "a learning style", they use the style that fits best every situation of learning.
Really, it's not even text, can't you just listen to people before disagreeing with them?
As a corrective to the common forms of differentiation it is helpful. Still I question two of his conclusions. 1: That most of what teachers want students to learn has to do with meaning. This is an over-simplification of what happens in the classroom. If he could get this point wrong, what else is he missing? 2: His gloss at the end, "Good teaching is good teaching" Good teachers differentiate- let the students see, hear, touch, practice, repeat, apply, fail, retry, and experience.
I agree. . .one should think about how the content of the lesson plan fits the structure of the lesson plan. . .quite a different idea than basing the structure of the lesson plan on the learning styles of students
So learning styles don't really exist and they are going out of style? Teaching still has to be differentiated to various learning styles because just saying they don't exist does not work.
What about children who have learning disabilitie like ADD, ADHD, dislexia and the like?
Fascinating, thanks for sharing this! I've studied NLP amongst other things, and am glad to be corrected.
Sorry you have to endure slightly less than mature comments here :(
The aspect ratio on this video is incorrect.
@lovemystudents I recall reading another critique by Coffield who if I recall correctly ultimately took a leaf out of John Hattie's work. The reasons why these strategies work in the class room is a) Doing so creates an enriched classroom which aids motivation b) creates a dialogue/ vocab for teachers to discuss their experiences.
I agree, learning styles don't exist. But in the vast majority of schools in the U.S., both public and private, to openly say that is utter sacrilege, and a really good way to get fired.
The theory appears to be right because learning is presented as being just about memory. Learning is more than just creating a memory or storing information. Perhaps "learning styles" should be called "learning triggers" in that I believe we initially pay more attention to some forms of information than to others, they get our attention faster. As teachers know getting the attention of students is key to engagement and then the trick is to help them learn.
Getting your attention has been a key survival trait and one that persists today. Advertisers know this and use it to sell, well to first get our attention. The smell of freshly baked bread, the colours and warmth of a summer day, the freshness of a spring morning, the tune that reminds you of your youth - you get the point. I would claim that whatever our learning environment is we are pre-disposed to notice things according to our senses. Some favor one over the other although all are at play. Perhaps the one that is favored is part of a distant memory because it was more of a threat in whatever environment we found ourselves in. If the danger came first as a sound then we may favor taking notice of auditory clues. If the danger presented itself not through auditory clues but was stealthy and we needed to recognise a shape or shadow then we may favor visual clues. The same may be true for identifying or recognizing danger through tactile means, identifying a particular shape from another in order to avoid danger.
Just a theory!
For more theories like why boys only do just enough visit 4c3d.wordpress.com
Kev
Because modal stimulation, benefits the learner with a unique configuration of modulated inputs, leading to the entrenchment of knowledge emotionally. This benefit is maximized if curriculli and teaching methods maintain both ease (encouragement and customization) and variety (all modes encouraged, even those that are more difficult or hindered (esp.) This requires sensitive teachers and flexable curriculi.
The cognitivist position and ancillary teaching standardization faulters when it dehumanizes our emotional needs and assumes one cognitive goal of the material being framed rather than the uniqueness of our paths to get to the expertise. By way of adept instruction rather than mechanized goals and underlying cognitive anticedents, students learn humanly by the temperment of the teachers more than even the most circumscribed materials. Creativity and uniqueness therefore innovation and variety are the casualties as well as both individual and societal optimization. Ironically in the name of cognitive optimization, resides dehumanuzation.
Articulated like a Greek Philosopher; Well Said.
its Prof Willingham himself! GCSE Psych students learn about you! Ur like a living legend Thankyou
This video just confirms why Dr. Willingham is a superhero. As a Dir of Sped and School Psychologist , he offers research-based common sense in a field that can be very confusing when it comes to "research," as well as what constitutes "effective instruction." Disagree with this video? Become an informed consumer and read the research yourself . I have. You will find Dr. Willingham is spot on. As educators we need to listen to this voice of reason!!
hi this was really great, and I loved the way you presented it. can I ask what program you used to make this presentation
(2/3) yes, you are right in the process of METACOGNITION (term for storing memory) involves attaching meaning to information. Learning styles help the WAY that the child links meaning to information. Adapting to learning styles helps the ways that a student perceives the information. He is getting confused with learning styles and communication disorders. Testing for communication involves what the sound.failing to present the information in a style then the student wont attach meaning to it.
"....it is just a placebo of sorts."
i just had to reply to this particular comment. i'm starting to get the idea that the problem lies in the understanding or lack of from two different types of people. one excels in school since reading, comprehension, writing is key and the other struggles in this area. there is a different set of values and ways of organizing between the two.
i do believe that a person who reads, writes, and comprehends naturally has the advantage in this world.
How do students construct meaning? Words and pictures are symbols for things that students will interact with. How does a piece of writing lead to action and change? It's translation of the symbols into personal meaning that a person then uses to interact with the world. Aristotle would probably argue that the whole point of learning (creating meaning though symbols - visual, audio, or otherwise) would be to increase the effectiveness of this eventually Kinesthetic interaction.@augustcollegium
I love this! Exactly, even the pictograms before phonetics became a script for language writing/text was used to draw the meaning and representation of what a word was.
These stimulants help with memory, and understanding when combined. An Apple shown visually can be recalled in one's head, or the sound of an apple crunch can also help recall the learned meaning behind a word. Everyone is different and the human mind is extremely complex.
None of the learning styles theories stands up to scrutiny, so I would say "No, they should not be looked for." What would be the point?
I certainly disagree with his inclusion of "always" in the context of what the theory predicts. For the theory to be valid it needs to only highlight a statistically different distribution of learning effectiveness based off sensory modality, and not an absolute difference.
+JaysonSunshine even if the difference was statistically different it would need to be a large enough difference to justify its cost. This is according to the cognitive psychologists who were commissioned to study the evidence for learning style theory (Pashler et al., 2009).
@ialonline sure, the example in the video is just an example. . .to really explain what a proper experiment would look like with all of the appropriate controls would take much longer than the length of the whole video.
@lovemystudents yes, switching up always makes things more interesting, and it's more likely to hit on a way that students find compelling. . .
@theiamania This is probably a small thing, but learning from mistakes doesn't just teach what not "to do," unless you go about the problem the exact same way again. Instead, it teaches you to make adjustments as you've learned something valuable in the process.
Learning Styles author, David Kolb NEVER indicated that a student should be taught in ONLY one style, but rather...begin with their preferred learning style and then MOVE THEM THROUGH each (different) style for deep long-term learning across multiple domains. The debate on Learning Styles is most often a result of not having read the original work of David Kolb.
@jarrmful I expect that this study has been run, but I don't know of it. . .shooting from the hip, I'd guess varied study would help. Even better would be to intermix self-test--lots of data in the last few years on huge benefit to memory from self-test. (But again, the expectation is that this helps pretty much everyone, not that it helps differentially depending on your style.)
Very interesting ! Will have to watch this again. I might go a bit further and say that people are not better at remembering pictures or sounds but they have learned how to store and retreive memories more efficiently,. The best thing you can teach someone is how to learn. Some people might have missed out at some stage and consider themseleves mnot to be good with language or numbers or art etc, given the tools they can often surprise themselves.
Whether or not an individual teacher thinks he/she has had good results using learning styles is beside the point. There's a term in psychology called "confirmation. bias." We convince ourselves that an idea we've embraced is true even if the evidence doesn't support it. School districts around the country have turned learning styles into policy despite the lack of scientific support. Teachers are sometimes U-rated for not incorporating this flawed theory into their lessons. A methodology should never be mandated unless educational leaders have gathered controlled studies that confirm that broad populations of students have been helped by a particular theory while other methodologies have proven less effective. Unfortunately, education in America is driven by fads, not by science. This is why (sadly) education cannot be called a profession.
except that i certainly agree with what many others have implied--- multiple modalities is the way to go, anyway. i think employing mm's is what any caring teacher would do for their students to get them to begin to understand new information. doing so will increase the likelihood of 'connecting with our individual learners' and with a whole group the same.
lol sorry didn't refresh when I did that second comment.
"we can't get anywhere by focusing on bringing down this theory. it just needs adjusting."
I keep trying to say that this is not the end. When a theory does not hold up to tests then the theory must be revised, and that usually means encompassing more information from more research. I also believe that having visual and audio cues is a big help. If we want teachers to a better job then they need better tools based off better theories.
Different teaching styles might stimulate different levels of interest. Modern foreign languages textbooks are usually much more colourful than Latin books and modern languages are better learnt. Similarly, a visual person will be more attracted by a book with a lot of images than a auditory one. But if, for some reason, both the visual and the auditory person study the same book with the same interest, the results do not vary, as prof. Willingham says.
Break material into qualities (visual, auditory, kinesthetic)
a student's preferred type of activity and the type of lesson does have a significant impact on engagement. E.g. My student who is very "kinesthetic" (that is, doesn't enjoy listening to books read aloud, doesn't like to read words or maps) will be less engaged in those activities than another student. Perhaps what I'm arguing doesn't relate directly to the standard theories about "learning styles" but these realities do point to the importance of engaging students in a variety of ways.
halfstep, I'm half with you. I agree that if something works, got with it. But knowing that something works for you (and works better than other things) can be tricky. And it sounds like we both agree that doing something because you think it *ought* to help you learn (even though it doesn't help) is a bad idea.
I agree with the underlying premise that we do not have distinct learning styles, but Dan Willingham's argument would have been even stronger if he had concluded "good teaching is good teaching" (m: 6:42), which includes multiple presentations of the same information in different formats (e.g., pictures, words, sounds) and activities. It also includes adjusting your teaching to accommodate individual student's pre-existing knowledge, interests, culture, abilities, etc. (Bransford et al., 1999).
(1/3)The test intended of experiment is the participant (visual learner) is told the words verbally and to recall them. she may remember 6/10 words. She is then shown picture of words and recall them. she gets a 10/10. This shows that if you present the data visually she has a better retention to process and analyze the information than auditory. This test is used for students diagnosed with disabilities.
Professor Daniel Willingham points make sense if a person believes that individuals "fit" in one category for learning, such as in his example of visual, auditory, and kinesthetic. Learners use "a" style or a "combination" of styles to make meaning. Part of the teacher's responsibility is to incorporate multiple elements. A good example is the construction of this video. Lots of appropriate visuals to accentuate what is said (auditory) to get his message across. X-Training = X-teaching.
I can relate to what Mr. Willingham is speaking of because I am a visual learner, but I disagree with him
when he said "good teaching is good teaching and teachers don't need to adjust their teaching for individual students
learning styles" I will ask the question what's important your style of teaching or the students way of learning?
Incredibly interesting stuff, thanks for putting this online!
Thought provoking... I'm an educator specializing in ABA Therapy. How do these examples come into play? I must write down lectures in note form and organize them on a page so my eye can organize the information for recall. When I read, I take longer than most, but my understanding and recall of concepts is higher than average.
Part II
The use of forums was associated with fast paced challenging interaction, relationships based on sharing of ideas, more open discussion and more links to the discussed themes and bigger picture."
Thanks.
John
OK, Cheryl, how would you learn how to correctly pronounce the Spanish phrase 'Hasta mañana', VISUALLY? How could your teacher, without speaking or using any audio at all, teach you this using only visual methods? Remember, the aim of the lesson is that all the students in the class will be able to pronounce this phrase correctly.
All the research has shown that learning styles don't exist. Here I am referring to proper research, not just personal anecdotes. Watch the video again. Dan is right. He even explains why you THINK the theory is true.
With phonetics.
phonetics? It's like learning a new alphabet!
yet in most every dictionary each word is spelled out phonetically beside the traditional spelling....its really not that complex. I'm also unsure of what class you would take to learn how to pronounce words in Spanish yet, for some reason, you can't speak or hear...seems a little absurd
@dbw8m and lovemystudents I think that rote repetition doesn't work because it's boring, and boredom will switch a pupil off very quickly. If you present the same idea in lots of different ways then you can get the necessary repetition in to bed the facts down in memory or hone the skill being taught without the negative effects of boredom.
@burgercide "VAK actually explains why some people learn some types of information better than other types. A visual learner will learn the shapes of countries quicker than an auditory learner." No, that's a difference in ability, not styles. No one disputes that there are differences in ability.
hey what about people with learning differences? My teachers know that I learn more efficiently with visual input, and I often watch movies and videos with subtitles (I did with this video) because often the audio doesn't seem to make much sense. My ears are fine, but I am a visual learner *because* of my learning differences.
Is there a difference between learning styles and learning abilities?
yes, see here: www.danielwillingham.com/learning-styles-faq.html
@lovemystudents . It is probably not only interest you're building. I believe that the more senses you're activating the more connections and associations your building in your brain, and more connections are good for learning as well as for creating an interesting experience.
In medical school it is see it, do it, teach it. That seems to be the best learning style. For me, I learn more quickly (create memories faster) if I write it down. My children can hear it once or twice and create memories but then they are gifted. I think you might want to look at the individual and how his or her brain makes memories quickest--visual, auditory or kinesthetic--and why some require more repetitions.
I agree ive also had similar experiences in my years at medical school and teaching for the last 2 decades. The research should frame the conditions in this way to also see the effects of addressing those students that require more repetitions when not able to form memories via the various learning styles. Biased research in my opinion
I imagine that the more senses that are engaged in a specific task, the more one would learn the task, as more sensory input is involved, as this would on the surface seem to indicate that one is more focused on the specific task that one is engaged in.
While you make a compelling argument for the non-existence of 'learning styles' I can't help but to think that the tests that you show aren't testing learning, they are testing memorization. As I put forth in twitter thread, I think a more effective way to disprove the 'learning styles' theories is with experiments involving abstract/non-palpable concepts that none of the the subjects is familiar with and thus de-emphasizing memorization.
@inpirare No, there is actually a really important difference between "styles" and abilities. More ability (or intelligence, if you prefer) is always better. . .but "styles" is just supposed to be a preference, and one style is not better than another, over all. . . read any of Howard Gardner's books on multiple intelligences, and you'll see he makes this distinction. . .
These kinds of videos would be great with some sort of referanceing system. As I am watching this to help me with essay writing and such for university it would be great if I could go to journal articles which explore this in a scientific manner.
You completely fucked up in this very interesting video when you said the prediction is that they should >ALWAYS< learn better in their modality. You brought in an absurd absolute which is much easier to debunk.
You ought to see some difference in the situation you describe for rote memory of the visual appearance of the graph, or for the table of numbers. . . but what the teacher really wants the student to learn and understand is the conceptual principles that the graph/numbers are to illustrate. We might guess that memorizing the appearance of the graph might help a little in understanding that. . but if so, it doesn't help enough that anyone has been able to find the effect.
@jmatchead OK, what's the non-literal, correct interpretation of the theory for which there is evidence?
I buy what you're saying, Daniel, but why is it, then, that my students comprehend and recall material better when I present it or have them practice/use it in lots of different ways - kinesthetically, auditorially, orally, in writing, etc.? Is it just a matter of repetition? Rote repetition doesn't seem as effective as varied repetition like this... I'd really love to know what you think!
thank you for what you say at 4:50 on --- it's about making meaning ! ! ! i appreciate your video. i just wound up my educational psychology class this semester, so all kinds of theories are fresh in my mind, and this video is going to help me make more sense of what i already know, and to make some adjustments as well.
It makes sense that the specific type of information to be taught should affect the modality of presentation but should the learner's preferences be ignored? Should learning styles not even be looked for?
Learning isn't only just about acquiring single units of knowledge, but also about the comprehension of the functions of a unit and how they interact with other units. Depending on the situation, some people only need to listen/read in order to comprehend meanwhile others need visual assistance or need to physically tinker with things themselves in order for everything to click. I think it is from this notion that VAK came to be, but most people just associate it with memorization.
@dbw8m Personally, I understand directions much better if they I can refer to a map rather than referring to a set of written directions. In turn, I understand directions better if they are provided as a set of written directions rather than if they are provided orally. Once I understand them, especially if I have travelled them, I can remember them and attach meaning to them.
1) The prediction of a styles theory would not be variability in brain activity, but coherent subgroups of subjects showing the same activity, with differences across groups. No evidence for that.
2) That attention modulates brain activity is not a prediction of the styles argument, and any theory of learning predicts that changes in attention modulate learning. Styles theories predict that people pay attention to particular features of stimuli. . .and there is no evidence that they do.
as a homeschooling mom I spend all day with my children watching the way they learn and interpret information. in and out of the class room.and happen to know out of 4 children not all of them learn the same way.they defiantly have different learning styles. I removed my children from school for the lack of noticing this. The one size fits all box.
thank you very much, your theory is well supported by the examples provided, i could actually relate to many of them.
I'm actually just getting to know the learning styles as part of my degree course, what would you say about Kolb's frame work, can one's place him or her self in one of the quadrants easily or it is far more complex than that? cheers
@Pekoautika with my eyes shut. But also I cannot do things like telling which way a dorr opens, left from right etc. w/o shutting my eyes & using my auditory memory and combining it with moving in order to process direction. Is it possible that you can process all memories best in the form they are meant to be presented (music as sound & maps as pictures, etc.) but store it in only one form but reprocess it back in2 its natural form when needed?
Are there some learning styles restricted to the form in which a TEXT is presented? for example, is it true that some learn better if they HEAR a text or if they READ a text? We've been talking about shapes of country and pictures of German shepherd for the visual learners, but what if we restrict the speficities of the visual learning theory to the fact that one learns better if he reads a text (visual) than if he hears a text (auditory)? Are there some studies about it?
Thanks.
Mmmm. . . not necessarily. Lots of people find that they have learned TV advertisements, but they certainly didn't want to. . . .
@jmatchead Gotta say, with all those big fancy words, I totally didn't get what you said... It's harder than reading programming code...
for example when i learned new german words i found out i can remember them much easier if i try to figure out their origin and relation to other existing words, or their relation to words in english. this way i found out that almost every word is derived from some existing word.
no, because there can be reasons other than styles that account for differences in learning. . . e.g., abilities.
@dbw8m that's quite a high number! Is there an equivalent percentage of people who have deficiencies in the other senses, and if so would they collectively add up to a significant chunk of the human population, therefore meaning that it is not learner style but learner deficiency that educators should be focused on developing solutions for?
The problem with this is not the evidence or lack thereof. It is the assumption that learning styles mean that teachers are meant to adapt their teaching to that particular style. This is not true. While a visual presentation may aid the visual student, it is not usually a series of pictures. It is the concept in words that is presented in the slideshow. I use the learning styles as a guide for teaching these students how to study, not as a guide in teaching a concept.
I understand what you are saying but wonder if you could explain something to me I've experienced personally: I'm on the autism spectrum and as you said can process visual, auditory and kinesthetic information and prefer visual with maps, etc. But one thing I've noticed about myself is all my memories; though I process the visual and kinesthetic information are stored at least 90+% auditorily... I cannot "picture" anything except in dreams and as vague, meaningless colors/shapes...
I'm not interpreting data. . .I'm summarizing about 50 years of research conducted by 100's of other investigators (I'll post cites later today at my website.) If you think they've got it wrong, I invite you to reanalyze their data, or conduct your own study that does a better job of investigating this issue. Claiming that "you're wrong because of your outlook on life" is not falsifiable and therefore not persuasive.