You don't believe there are different learning styles?

Alyssa Harris I think a person who is deaf probably learns worst through sound. But there is no evidence to support teaching to learning styles. Here's a quick read to help provide clarity to this topic: www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/12/091216162356.htm

It looks like that that article just says that the studies it looked at didn't gather their data the right way. I don't think that that disproves that learning styles exist. I have 4 sons. The oldest one learns by talking it out and having a conversation about it. The second one learns best by watching a video or reading a book and doesn't really talk much. The third learns best by doing. The 4th is 1 yr old so the jury is still out on him. I can talk all I want to all of them (classroom lecture) but I know they will remember much more if the 1st one can talk to me about it, the 2nd one can watch or read about it, and the 3rd one can do it. So, I don't need a scientific study to tell me there are different learning styles.

Alyssa Harris I think we're arguing two different points. I never said that learning styles do not exist. In fact, I noticed a deaf person probably doesn't listen to audio well, if at all. My point is that no evidence exists that teachers should try and determine learning styles and then teach to those styles. That approach has been shown to not be effective (Massa & Mayer, 2006; Constantinidou & Baker, 2002). The gist of what I am arguing is that there is no evidence that teachers should try and measure students learning styles (assuming a teacher could find a valid test -- see final paragraph) and then divide the students up into their style to provide them all with the optimal approach for their learning. That's extremely time intensive and costly and it lacks evidence to support doing that. Many popular learning styles models, including Howard Gardner’s multiple intelligences model, the VARK model (visual, aural, read/write, kinesthetic), the Myers-Briggs personality model, and the Kolb learning style model have very little predictive validity when it comes to learning or teaching. They're a waste of time in educational settings. So we're left with self reports like the anecdotal information you provide about your own children. I suspect your children learn new material best when they encounter it multiple times and through multiple modalities. That's largely true for most students and that's what we try and encourage in our preservice educators for the future classrooms.

Maybe I need to watch the video again but I don't think it was saying that a lot of time needs to be spent on finding out which learning style works best for each student. What I got out of it (and many other videos and reports I've watched/read) is that schools should be willing to get past just one learning style (sitting still and listening) and try to offer several options of different ways to learn. Not necessarily splitting up kids into groups and forcing them to learn in a way according to a test that the kid took on his learning style.