[jecel]

There is a group of scientists claiming to have done experiments proving the idea of learning styles is false. Without more details, I am sceptical.

I went to school in the 1970s and many teachers demanded that all students copy in their notebooks everything they wrote on the blackboard. To me that made going to class useless. I would get more and more behind and at the end of the class would not remember anything - I might as well have just stayed home. Fortunately for me I didn't actually need the classes since just reading the books was enough.

Most of my classmates, on the other hand, learned quite a lot as a side effect of this copying. Some actually would copy a second time from the "scratch notebook" to the "clean notebook" when they got home. That was an important part of their learning style. Those teachers that imposed copying in their classes probably had the same style and thought it would be good for everybody.

When the blackboard got replaced by overhead projectors and then by PowerPoint, copying the text was no longer an option (specially if the lights were dimmed). It also wasn't needed since the teachers would distribute copies of their slides to the class. This style (with its faster pace) was way more effective for me but I could see that many (if not most) other students were learning a lot less.

So if someone has experiments proving that a "one size fits all" teaching method is best, I would like to see it.

[tdb7893]

There is pervasive myth that how students learn best can practically be separated into discreet styles such as the "listening" style or the "visual" style, and that is what the article is saying is not a useful idea. I don't think the article is arguing at all that "one size fits all" for education.

[pbhjpbhj]

If it's not "one-size fits all" doesn't that mean different modes are preferable for different students, wouldn't it be reasonable to call these modes "styles"?

The article sounds like a straw man, I can readily believe that someone identified as "listening style" only getting education aurally would be ineffective; but that doesn't mean that reinforcing information update aurally, or using a communication style of learning won't help, surely.

Personally I found I need to write to acquire information, an important part of learning; also doodling helps me digest complex information. I'm quite visual in some ways, I can't do directions but a glance at a map does work for me - similarly I usually need a mental picture to hang further learning on. Fractal geometry came easily to me but I've never managed to grok hypercubes as I can't really conjure a mental model, etc..

I'd absolutely agree that pigeonholing people as "style X" and educating them separately is probably not good, personally I've never come across that in teaching.

[watwut]

" If it's not "one-size fits all" doesn't that mean different modes are preferable for different students, wouldn't it be reasonable to call these modes "styles"?"

Not really, because a.) it is often situational b.) you can get better at learning with other "style" if you are exposed to it more c.) it is more of a scale then discreet grouping.

The individualization is not so much about always talking vs always reading. It is more about identifying individual stumbling spot, figuring out what the child missed in prerequisities, whether the child does not develop faster/slower then expectation, adjusting breaks to individual attention span and so on.