As a high school teacher, I was quite skeptical about learning styles when they were addressed at work. This just may be confirmation bias of mine coming to the surface but I have always believed telling a kid, especially a young kid that they are particular type of learner was such a limited way of looking at learning. Furthermore, to limit a young person by placing them into a self assigned box that they could use as a crutch whenever something got difficult is such a short sighted plan.
24
I have been an educator for 33 years. I rejected learning styles intuitively when I first heard about them. They didn't make sense. How would being exclusively or even pre-dominantly auditory help one learn to drive a car? How would being kinetic help learn algebra? Willingham is not alone in his understanding of their irrelevance. It is almost without exception, all of cognitive science that agrees. But if you want to experience the edgy feeling of being widely regarded as an apostate, stand up in any K-12 school or any School of Education and say, "Learning styles don't matter, even if they exist."
21
As an ESL teacher for over 40 years, I’m very familiar with the theory. It is useful I believe, but not be to give students a label so that they can use their “best” memory in the future; rather it should be for the teacher to increase his/ her awareness of the different students’ proclivities in order to vary activities and recycle material to be learned so that all 3 memories or learning styles can be stimulated.
I also agree that most of us will spontaneously vary learning styles to use the most efficient for the task at hand unless a poor teacher forces us into 1 particular style. I remember being quite amused when my Spanish husband, who I considered a visual learner, recited a little jingle by which he’d memorized the US Great Lakes, whereas I, primarily an auditory learner, pictured a map. It’s true that auditory learners tend to fare better with languages, but the problem is that since, therefore, most language teachers probably tend to be high auditory, we may minimize visual and kinetic re-enforcements as well as activities that strengthen students’ auditory skills, such as songs, rhyme anticipation, vowel sounds and pointing out homophones. I.e., it’s all good!
3
The problem with this study is that it didn't account for "effort". Perhaps speed of learning is ultimately limited by neurochemistry but your style of learning may determine how easy it is for you to learn by a certain method.
There was a study done that determined how much reserve of energy people have each day. The more effort you exert on one task detracts from others. So instead of seeing how fast you learn, how about seeing how MUCH you learn per day.
3
Nope, nope, nope. I am a retired special education/elementary education teacher. From my experience with my own children, my students, and my knowledge of how I learn best, I know that there are definitely stronger and weaker learning modalities/styles in most people. I am a very strong visual learner only, and if I listen only without taking notes I miss half of the content of a lecture, a television show, etc. Forming visual maps while listening to directions is slow and arduous for me, and I must have written directions or a map to accompany them. Hands on experiences are likewise inefficient for me; I must have written notes to retain the information. However, my son (IQ 146) and a disproportionate number of my students with disabilities learned best with hands on/kinesthetic activities; lectures and note taking were almost pointless for them. My son is an air traffic controller who, by looking at 2D radar, has to form 3D maps in his mind of where fast moving aircraft are at all times. I am incapable of the mental juggling required for an ATC because my mental map forming skills would be too slow and too spotty to keep aircraft safely separated. Likewise, many of my former aural/kinesthetic learners work in occupations that rely heavily on aural/kinesthetic knowledge acquisition modalities- sound technicians, musicians, mechanics, etc. Learning style is a real construct in the classroom and in careers, regardless of what studies may conclude.
20
I don't agree. I'm a geologist by profession, and it wasn't until I was in my early 30s that I realized that Concepts were much more understandable to me when I saw them first in the field, after that I could go back and read the details and those would make sense to me. But not vice versa.
41
I think that’s probably because geology is a topic best learned by seeing. Experiential knowledge is important in that case. It’s hard to describe in words the nuanced details that differentiate the different formations and rock types etc. I would guess all types of learners would find experiencing best for this topic as well.
9
@Kate j Maybe that was because you might have problem with reading comprehension, such as dyslexia. This is solid research based on science and not the first time that this has been proven. As a scientist you should understand the evidence.
4
@kate j
That is a generative learning experience and has nothing to do with learning style. All learners retain better when they experience and struggle with ideas before they read the explanation or solution. What you experience is true of all learners, regardless of style.
18
I stopped reading after you overlooked the obvious flaw in the first research paper you present. Asking someone whether they visualize letters or sound out words when they want to spell an unfamiliar one very well could have no bearing on the type of input which helps them learn something better. It's a massive fallacy, and if you can overlook that one, there's no reason to suspect the rest of this article isn't filled with the same type of flaws.
5
This is beyond stupid. There is only one "learning style" as evidenced by milenia of teaching, across all societies and civilizations: Apprenticeship.
Everything else is a poor imitation.
14
This article never even mentions kinetic learners (people who learn by hands on manipulation), which is well addressed in elementary school, but goes right out the window beginning in middle school, where instruction is limited to auditory or visual presentations.
7
Mr. Willingham doesn't mention the "3rd type of learner", and I believe there is such a person, known as the "tactile learner", he or she who learns best by doing. My son was such a learner and did very poorly in school, because "tactile teaching" hardly exists. When he left school he wanted to go to trade school to "learn computers", something he had never professed interest in previously. I paid for his school, and to our gratification, he excelled. He was tested weekly and always made 100%, went on to well-paid and responsible jobs installing and testing massive server systems and associated cabling in large multi-story buildings. Would Mr. Willingham care to comment?
2
I have always thought I am a visual learner but am pleased to hear other methods can work and learning methods vary per task.
Surprising to read here how many commenters are unwilling to reconsider their own potential
4
I wonder if the writer of this column is dyslexic. I find that saying whichever style was chosen, the answer was found proves nothing. I read and always have read as easily as water flows. I could not understand it when my grandkids just couldn't do it. It's very hard to get inside the mind/eyes/ears of another person. In fact, it's impossible. One of my grandchildren learns and remember everything he hears. My daughter can remember everything she sees in a room; I have next to no ability for that. I am a superb reader and speller. We are all different; we all have to find the best way to learn. I'm glad teachers are cognizant of this. 20 years ago they weren't; for sure 40 years ago they weren't.
10
I could never be a fast paced customer service rep. I have trouble transcribing letters and numbers from auditory to other inputs. I got a new neighbor, three daughters with, frankly, bizarre names. No way could I remember them. After we swapped emergency contact information, and I saw them typed out, no - OK, much less of a - problem. When I need to dredge one up, I can "see" the email and remember the name.
So, all this research concludes I don't have a learning preference? Horse pucky.
9
From the comments, it seems that very few have actually read and understood the article. Luckily, the teachers have figured out that learning is multi-modal for everyone.
11
I am a successful middle and high school math teacher. As much as possible I combine verbal and visual presentations, along with loads of questions. I did this notes much to help different learning styles as because the different modalities support each other and make for stronger problem solvers. Often the most successful strategies involve starting by viewing the situation one way and analyzing it another. When teaching, help students improve all the ways they can.
7
Some people can switch styles, some people can't. Stop generalizing.
5
Even if the learning styles were real, that doesn't necessarily mean changing the teaching to suit those styles! It could mean that one needs to work with the students to develop their abilities to learn in other ways.
For example, if someone supposedly learns more via auditory than textual means, that doesn't mean transforming everything into auditory lessons, but helping them improve their reading skills,and comprehension!
After all, reading remains central to learning and it's important to have well-homed reading skills.
Likewise, if someone is more textual than visual that doesn't mean eschewing visual aids and, say, graphs and charts, but enhancing their ability to learn visually or from visual materials.
It's a reason we want students to do well in reading and arithmetic -- and social studies, science, art, music, etc.
9
A broader view might contrast differences in learning styles between cultures, not just individuals. Russia, for example, is a far more oral and less visual culture than our own. Children were taught reading by first learning to sound out words into syllables, then letter sounds, for a week before looking at their first written or printed words or letters. Even math problems were first worked out verbally--something that a visual oriented American would find difficult.
Our own culture is becoming more oral and less visual. Years ago, if you wanted to communicate with someone, you told them that you were "In the book"--that is, the telephone directory. The idea that there were no "phone books" in Russia struck Americans as weird and somwhat sinister. Today, central directories where almost everyone's "channel" was automatically publicly listed have vanished, something once taken for granted. The idea that our society no longer needs central written documents that everyone can rely on might seem no big deal--unless you are a devote of the United States Constitution.
This line of thinking offers hope in another way: we might actually teach how to choose the appropriate style for the problem at hand rather then offer high level excuses for giving up.
This allows teachers to say to the struggling child, "try another style." All we can say now is, "you can't do it because you are the wrong kind of learner."
48
The author's argument surely works when people are marginally better at one style than another. But what is the effect when people have real, and extreme, weaknesses and strengths? For instance, when I was 18 years old I took an in-depth, 3 day long, aptitude test. While I scored above the 95 percentile in reading comprehension and other language-related puzzles, I scored in the 15th percentile for mental 3-D object rotation (looking at a picture of a "net" and describing what shape it will take when folded; looking at a picture of one side of an object and stating what the object will look like when rotated; etc.).
So, say I need to learn how an engine works. Wouldn't I learn so much more from reading instructions about it, rather than looking at diagrams? I can't see how I would have equal outcomes from either method of learning.
56
@Kristin Miller I had the same experience in middle school! I was called into the guidance counselor's office and told that they thought there was a clerical error with my scores because I had such a comparatively glaring deficit in what was then called "spacial relations." The guidance counselor (unhelpfully) seemed to find this hilarious. She actually said, "You, with your perfect verbal and other scores, scored in the retarded range!". Meanwhile, I was breaking into tears regularly trying to do my home ec sewing homework. I loved making things, color and textiles of all kinds, but sewing beat me down because I could not make the patterns work. As an adult I took up quilting and managed just fine. What these "tests" don't take into account either is that over time one's weaker innate skills may improve as we have different experiences, apply ourselves, have the freedom to invent our own ways of learning and breaking down tasks and simply because in one's teens one's brain is not done developing yet.
67
@Jzzy55 I love this story and relate to it so deeply! You make a great point about continuing to develop skills over time. I would be really interested to see if our spacial relations scores improved if we went back and took those tests again.
1
Well, if I understand the article, the answer is that if you can't understand the diagrams, then you'll struggle with that particular task in a way that someone who can understand the diagrams won't be. But you'll perform better at other, more verbal tasks. So, the ideal is to be comfortable with all the different learning styles. From my own life experience, I find the article convincing, even if it's disappointing for a verbal person trying to get to grips with a boiler. (Which, as it happens, is exactly my case right now..The boilerman is due to visit tomorrow afternoon and I can't wait to have my first hot shower in days.)
9
I used to work with overseas engineers, many of which spoke English as a second language. When meeting by Web Teleconference, I found that a combination of text, verbal review, and pictures was the best approach to present information. This way, we could all be sure that all "bases were covered" and team members could check their understanding with whatever material was being discussed. Interestingly, it was the way numbers were written and their units that created the most confusion. Such cross-cultural exchanges are just one example where adults learn from each other - the point being that we don't have to limit these discussions to adult teacher/child student interactions.
24
Another dimension to learning is tactile.
If I must learn anything involving touch of any kind -- not only operating a new machine or other mechanical device, but becoming familiar with the features of a new Smartphone or navigating an unfamiliar website that requires program interaction to receive or send information -- I insist that the person teaching me doesn't just give a show & tell, but talks me through the procedures as I physically perform them.
Simple visual demonstrations don't always transfer and "set" into my neurons and memory. But, in most cases, I quickly absorb and completely retain skills imparted via hands-on, tactile learning.
90
@Richard
Mr. Willingham will gladly tell you that deliberate, spaced practice works. That includes practice remembering, practice conceptualizing, and performance of understanding. Doing matters.
2
@Richard Actually, your experience is true for everyone, they just don't realize it. It's not so much tactile as doing it rather than hearing about it or watching it.
6
This article makes a good point. My hobby is "learning" languages, at least at their beginning levels (then I switch to another language to see what's different.) I used to believe I was a visual learner. Then I found a really effective language program that's 100% auditory (Pimsleur). Using this program has forced me to work on my auditory learning skills.
So now I'm wondering whether reading proficiency is a factor in making someone believe that they're a visual learner (reading information can often be faster than listening to it,) At any rate, the thing about learning is that there are no shortcuts: it takes effort. The key may be in learning to manage the effort. And, as others have mentioned here, it takes even more effort for teachers to constantly find different ways to present information (so kudos to all teachers!)
45
I must be missing something here. Of course, when presenting to almost any group, using as many teaching styles to reach as many learning styles in the group is desirable. Just because that is the best way to go for the group as a whole does not mean there are differences in learning skills and styles in your audience.
While my experience was generally in adult education related events, a variety of approaches produces the most receptive and enthusiastic audience.
As for me, I prefer to acquire information by reading and remember best when I write something down. Yes, I have my styles. Nonetheless, this was an interesting article and engendered just as interesting comments.
4
Learning is not asymmetric. It's learning what is easy and hard and how to master both.
The aha! moment comes when we realize that easy and hard are different for every single person. So multimodal learning does matter and its order of presentation matters also.
We need to diversify our definition of achievement. From that diversity, we will cultivate a more effective and resilient workforce.
These ridiculous arguments about which models are right and wrong misses the point of complex systems. Complex systems have a mode of inquiry that is different from ordered systems. We can't make the same arguments in a disordered system. Therefore, dinging an entire community because our math and methods are different by necessity is an attack on science at its very core.
1
@cleverclue
"We need to diversify our definition of achievement." That is one of the big problems with this unfounded theory. It allows people to abandon such activities as reading while still considering themselves educated.
"...we will cultivate a more effective and resilient workforce."
But education isn't job training. Progressive educators burden the system with methods based on nothing, while doing nothing to challenge other terrible ideas.
2
I'm not convinced that the studies Mr Willingham cites are appropriate in discounting the value of Visual, Auditory & Kinesthetic Learning Styles. Educators are using multimodal learning to great success with students in reading & math. Order of presentation matters. Attention matters. Strategies matter.
Remember, all models are wrong & yet some are useful. In preparing posture studies in active authentication & consent, I collaborated with a researcher in VAK learning. I found her questions interesting. Her questions informed my research into parallel learning, ie, multithread instruction with multiple datastreams.
VAK learning focuses on posture. I focus on set position, the posture where students present their readiness to be coached. This is a crucial moment where the tutor can deliver both knowledge & reward. It is the moment is where we discover disfunction in agency. Autism, ADD & ADHD present themselves in this very posture.
It does matter that we attend to learning postures. As I design work environments, I attend to student readiness. When I do, I find the rage in the machine, anxiety to the point of disenfranchisement. It is our job as educators to humanely, effectively ease students into instruction. It is a mistake to assign the responsibility of coachability to the student. VAK learning is 100% right to assign this responsibility to teachers. We see the moment the student is ready. We arrive in that moment to meet them. We arrive with the appropriate reward.
4
@cleverclue
I agree with you. I am 57, have been tested and qualify for services to the blind in multiple states because there is such a vast difference in my retention of everything / anything when I hear it, versus any kind of visual (reading, graphs, etc.) information. I see perfectly, drive, read, etc.
But to learn and retain knowledge, I need to hear it. I am thrilled that many schools now recognized learning difference.
So is there a lesson to be learned here surrounding the whole language/phonics debate?
To this day, I cannot study or read when there is music in the background. I love music and when I listen to music or play music, it is intentional and I don't think or do other things at the same time. If I am trying to remember a name, music is interference an I generally won't recall the name until the music is off. If learning requires study and reading, then for me, an uncontrolled sonic background would be an impediment to learning. And yet I know many people who like to have music playing when they study or read or work. Does this amount to different learning styles?
13
@James. I am exactly the same way! I will concentrate on the music and so it definitely interferes with any other task. Could never understand how others could ”study” with background music playing.
9
I often had students who had identified their learning styles at a younger age. Some had a fixed mindset about it -- "I'm a kinesthetic learner, so reading isn't really a good way for me to learn." It was hard to get those students to try new strategies to master material. I think that one of Willingham's points is that people become self-limiting if they identified themselves as one kind of learner. Instead of recognizing a preferred method of learning, people write off other types of learning. An 11-year-old who thinks reading isn't her "thing" may not very hard to comprehend text, masking what could be diagnosable reading issues. Learning styles should be taught as skills -- we have preferences but are able to develop all types. Otherwise we are doing children a great disservice.
8
The nature of the content being taught determines the best presentation style, and using more than one style (multiple channels is the term we use in instructional design) will be more successful than limiting instruction to only one.
10
Tests and theories are always interesting, but not a substitute for real- life experience. As someone who is dyslexic, yet managed to earn a doctorate and become a professor and upper administrator at a large college, I have to say that this author’s views are not at all consistent with the reality of my experiences both as a student and teacher. I’d be more than happy to discuss it with him if he would like to hear a different point of view
12
Eh. Simpleminded experiments and overly simple theories that overlook the very different way that people think and learn. Smarter children require a more conceptual approach, while the less intelligent children require concrete example and practice.
4
@Josh Hill
Not true at all, Mr. Hill. Mr. Willingham is a careful researcher who has been studying this matter for a long time. Simply labeling his work as simple isn't an argument. You would have to look at his work and make the case. But your last comment goes even further afield. All students require concrete example and practice. It depends on the task, as Mr. Willingham explains.
3
I find myself when I'm trying to remember something actually looking up in a corner and picturing the page it was on. When I see something they are explaining about a computer process I absorb it more than when they are giving instructions. When I read a story or poem I picture it in recall. When I tutored children I saw the differences and they were happier. It was easier for them
They could learn both ways yet there was a natural and comfortable way they absorbed more
4
I will have to gently agree that there is no 'scientific proof' of learning style differences, but also disagree:
As a practicing teacher of over 40 years, and having taught every high school subject except welding, I can tell you that learning style differences DO exist, and tailoring teaching style greatly helps learning. That is my responsibility and a professional teacher. The styles used to be designated VAKT (visual, auditory, tactile, kinesthetic) ... I suppose there is new edubabble now for the same things. The styles are not, of course, exclusive ... there is overlap ... but kids' and adults'choices of what to do in their lives almost always reflect their best learning styles.
24
Absent physically caused bias (e.g. hearing problem, or dyslexia) this is probably correct. It's likely a matter of self-discipline. Auditory input is often delivered too slowly (for me) and so my attention starts to wander. When I read I can control the pace. I had a boss who could listen to a 3-hour sales pitch from a vendor and recite back everything in the sales pitch, long after I had tuned out. My boss was more disciplined than I was. But I learned to speak long before I could read, so clearly I'm capable of learning both ways.
8
@Unconvinced
*Everyone* learns to speak long before they can read.
2
I suppose im an outlier. I was very near-sighted as a child and could not read the board. I did not learn from a teacher telling me what to do. I only learned from the textbook. Throughout school, college and graduate work, as long as I had a textbook, I did well. However, in vet school, there was rarely a textbook that I could follow along, just seemingly endless lectures. I struggled to stay engaged with the lectures and eventually just stopped going. I would review the transcribed notes and hope to pick out the important information. Even now, when I attend continuing education lectures, I don’t really learn from lecture. The exception, for me, is that I do learn from small group discussion where the interchange of information keeps me engaged.
8
As an educator I have long understood there to be three distinct learning styles: verbal, visual and kinesthetic. I doubt this is scientifically provable. It is useful, however, as a metaphor; not everyone learns by precisely the same means, therefor, when teachers present information in a rich variety of modes they have a better chance of reaching a wider range of students. The idea is not to isolate learners into specific camps and narrow the methods of instruction accordingly, but rather to widen the methods of teaching to create a successful learning experience for all students, collectively.
Thank goodness Mr Willingham gets past this false dichotomy and ends on a sound and common-sense note, "Any type of learning is open to any of us."
12
School districts have spent an enormous amount of time and money on the learning styles theory. How much of it was a waste? I am supposedly a visual-auditory learner, based on the various tests. On the other hand, when I wanted to study for a science test in college, I copied the textbook by hand multiple times. The repetition seemed to be the only way I could make the material stick in my skull. I was never particularly good at science or very interested in the subject.
1
Trying to determine the value of or even if differences exist between visual and auditory types of learning in humans?
Probably answering this question definitively would be controversial because it would involve comparing all the types of blind (auditory learning) and deaf (visual learning) people and any number of "normal" people to see how close a person can approach this or that outstanding achievement with this or that method of learning.
For example, how many deaf people can be expected to become great musicians or great composers? Perhaps it's not possible for a deaf person to actually play music, but is it possible to become a great composer by being deaf and studying scores and "watching" how the music goes on paper? Is it possible for a blind person to become a great writer by listening to people speak and audio books and then arranging words aurally in mind and on tape to where they can be transferred to paper for the non-blind to read?
Are plenty of "normal" people actually close to deaf or blind people because for all eyes and ears they actually function close to one or other method of processing material? A type of study such as this is obviously controversial because it tries to get at biological underpinning of the human and pinpoint realistic possibility of learning and accomplishment. But then again, it also asks what REALLY can be done with eyes and ears and other senses and how they interact all together and what can really be done all together.
1
It seems to me we are missing an important element in this discussion. We are ASSUMING the experimental design which gave rise to the findings reported here was so flawless that we are able to simply ASSUME the findings are justified. If indeed it is true that no "learning styles" exist, doesn't this ALSO mean that attempting to divide people into groups based on, e.g. whether they are "visual" or "auditory" is a pointless exercise? Hasn't the research cited here actually used the instruments developed by the learning style theorists to prove their theory wrong? How logical is this?
Also it seems to me the operational definition of what it means to be an "auditory" person is intrinsically flawed. When assessing the response to a statement that is read out, how feasible is it to assume that people who claim the words were difficult to "pronounce" are necessarily "auditory"? I am no learning styles expert. However I do know traditionally the "auditory" learner is one who learns facts more effectively if they are recorded so they can listen to them repeatedly.
Come to think of it, isn't a "visual" learner some who prefers making charts, diagrams etc." How feasible is it then to distinguish "visual" learnings by how well they can simply and spontaneously "visualize" a written statement?
4
Okay, but students DO have, for example, auditory processing deficiencies that affect their ability to absorb information in the classroom, and these can be measured. And there are other learning differences that can be measured, and good special ed teachers with the help of classroom teachers can teach children to apply strategies that will make all the difference in their educational performance. Williamham's article is techically correct but by not telling the whole story he risks fundamentally misleading lay readers about what IS scientifically validated in the field of learning differences. They do exist, they need to be addressed for children to have the best chance for success.
13
Thise of us working in the field of learning styles do not use them to pigeon-hole learners but instead to make them aware of innate strengths and weaknesses and help them stretch out of their preferred modes to conquer tasks that at first seemed daunting. As many teachers teach in the way they learn best themselves, the goal of making both educators and learners aware of learning preferences is to encourage experiment and a mix of methods in the classroom. I agree totally that certain 'styles' are better suited to some tasks than others and this is the reason learners need to discover strategies to help them with these tasks. This is all part of the learner's experience and shouldn't be ignored. A learning preference is not an excuse for not taking on a particular problem but understanding one's preferred style as well as the styles of those around them can lead to self-discovery, tolerance of others and provide a foundation for learning.
13
@Marjorie Rosenberg I agree. I took my brief experience in teaching and worked in corporate training for many many years. In an adult learning environment, the takeaway for me was to incorporate the use of as many different learning modalities as possible to most effectively reach a diverse audience.
9
Thanks Suzanne, I have been teaching adults in companies and at university in Europe for almost 40 years, have carried out research with university students on styles and written two books on the subject. I have also observed myself to see what I need to do to learn a foreign language.
2
Sorry, but in grade school I failed the word-based New York City intelligence to skip eighth grade. My skeptical teacher had me retested with a visual-based test, which I passed with flying colors. To this day, I cannot remember a foreign-language word from hearing, but only from seeing it spelled.
The author is right that one is forced in life to develop all abilities. But that didn't imply that people may not be innately visual or auditory.
21
Thanks again, Daniel Willingham. Keep up the good work. The reaction to Mr. Willingham's latest attempt to set the public straight on a matter of real import, as always, is full of pained, flabbergasted incomprehension. This inability to accept the fact that a long-held belief is groundless shows that our problems with basic reasoning aren't limited to Trump supporters.
5
It doesn't matter? I am not good at "reading" emotions in pictures of faces or eyes. But let me hear a voice and I know3 exactly what the person is feeling, even if that person is masking the emotions. For instance, I could never watch Robin Williams movies because I felt overwhelmed by his underlying depression. His voice told me.
7
I study learning in the context of biometrics and posture. Sensory integration is a thing and it's complex. To be successful in selecting a mental strategy, we have to capture the combinatorial problem that is the sensory & motor humunculi mapping your brain to the real world.
It's easy as pie to label the VAK model or another model is wrong. Of course, they are wrong. They are theories of complex systems. Complex systems don't lend themselves to simple cause/effect explanations. The work that we do in developing models for complex systems is create to an appropriate inquiry. As we gain experience in this inquiry, we learn to ask better questions and to refine the model to find its most interesting and informative behaviors.
For a theory is wrong means that one has narrowed too many for the theory to survive. The answer is not throw away everything and start fresh but to adapt and tune.
We can chose to stand on the shoulders of giants. Or we can throw progress backwards decades.
5
One thing future teachers would do well to learn is that the latest theory they are taught in schools of ed. is going to be displaced a few years down the road by the next overhyped fad. So be a skeptical, critical, selective consumer of intellectual wares, able to separate the wheat from the chaff.
6
This column isn't the last word on learning styles. You can't teach my younger daughter anything either by telling her or writing it down for her. She has terrible short-term auditory memory and can't absorb long passages of written text. Yet she has worked out several overlapping strategies for learning new material, especially in chemistry, biology and physiology, which are her fields of interest. I couldn't say her strategies correspond to either visual or auditory classifications. I can tell you reading the newspaper isn't her idea of a good time, nor is listening to a political discussion. She attended to the the Kavanaugh hearings, though. They made her ill.
12
@Brent I hope she's old enough to vote. :-))
The term learning styles, when understood within the confines of singular preferences, narrows our understanding of how individuals learn best. Even though some mental strategies and teaching approaches are better suited for certain learning tasks, no two individuals learn anything exactly the same way. If you disagree, ask a classroom full of first graders to explain how they find the answer to 7 8. Some use fingers. Some use their left hand. Some start with seven whole other start with eight.
Marriage to any one learning style, whether as the student or the teacher, limits one’s intellectual flexibility and growth mindset. When I taught kindergarten and first grade, I had to employ a variety of teaching strategies. I used visuals, sound, movement and words not simply because my students had different learning styles, but rather because each of my students was unique. Each student had different life experiences, a different vocabulary, different interests, and different talents.
After more than a decade working in education, nine years as a stand up comedian, and several years as the Founder of Barbershop Books, I have found that the key to effective teaching and communication is not strict adherence or customization to individuals’ learning styles, but a rigorous commitment to making learning relevant and engaging.
4
I am a professional symphony orchestra musician, a job that requires highly trained visual skills (reading music, following a conductor, reading the gestures of fellow musicians) and auditory skills (listening to make sure you sound good and you're in tune, listening to make sure you're together with your colleagues, and if there's a mismatch, which group to go with) as well as combining the two (to figure out if what you see in the conductor's gestures matches what you hear the orchestra doing).
I no longer know if I'm a visual, auditory, or tactile learner (tactile: that's another enormous ingredient in learning, although "muscle memory" is mostly talked about in sports. When I come across a new word, I learn it by reading it letter by letter, sounding it out, and "air typing" the letters. That way I know how to spell it later). But whatever your primary or preferred style, it's important to work on the other components too.
You can be naturally stronger in one style of learning, but you need all three.
15
A follow-up to my own comment: I wonder if I'm naturally bad at math because there is no tactile component. (I know, musicians are supposed to be good at math. That's a myth. Some are and some aren't, just like everybody else.)
I struggled in high school, and again in my later 40's, to learn algebra. Pretty sure I didn't succeed either time. But it wasn't the complexity of the information that defeated me: I aced my anatomy and physiology classes in my late 40's and am now [also] a licensed physical therapist assistant. I think the problem for me may have been that there was no way to relate to mathematical information via the body: you can read it, hear it, and speak it, but you can't *do* it. Hmmm.
4
@Bruce In school I got D's in the first tests in any math course while other got A's. In the second more complex part of the course I got all A's on tests while the grades of almost everyone else fell. This pattern carries over into anything new that I have to learn, Complete fog followed suddenly by intuitive "clarity." I just proceed, with minimal thinking, and get things right. I also do this "sudden" clarity when asked by others to solve a problem. If they demand "how," I simply do not answer any more questions from them.
correction: instead of "tactile" I should have written "kinesthetic."
When you are in a foreign country in connection with your work or because you moved there, you take all the initially incomprehensible information and deal with it in the manner it comes at you, visually, aurally, reading words if necessary, for instance using the picture from a flyer to determine the meaning of a superimposed written message. Eventually you quit translating everything that is told to you in your native language and you switch to using the new language itself.
The brain is highly efficient in using what is available to maximum effect, regardless of the nature of the incoming signal.
You may decide to resort to walking on all four to interact with your infant and get back up on two legs to get ready for work.
Are you more comfortable relying on visual signals than that on auditory ones? Perhaps, but survival would teach you to be good at both in the same manner that a basketball or soccer player may train to score equally well from either hand (or foot).
1
@BG So true. When I first visited Paris my school French was pretty good - speeaking, but not hearing. When I asked people to slow down because I could not tell one word from the next, they would answer no need, your French is very good. for about 10 days i had to listen to what simone said in French, and tranlate it to Englidhg in my head Consequently I felt that I was in a constant fog, or at the bottom of a deep well. Then one day at the bakery, where the salesperson always looked at me like i Was stupid, I noticed that she was interacting with me in an animated and friendly French way. It was then that I realized I was no longer translating her French into English. I was hearing in French, understanding right away in French, and responding right away in French in my usual animated way. I was not longer frowning in concentration and delaying my responses. P.S. I found Parisians, upper class and working class, to be incredibly friendly. I lived in a cousin's apt (i never met them, they were always on vacation) and lived in a non-tourist neighborhood where I spent a good deal of time. I did make it a point to take the metro every day to see all the tourist sites.
1
My son was tested and found to be visually dyslexic the summer before second grade after he’d struggled to read in first grade. He had listened to and enjoyed books since he was a toddler. This continued throughout his childhood, the books he listened to growing quite long and complex, such as the “Redwall” series.
After the reading test found he scored very high on reasoning, comprehension, and analytical thinking, and dropped off the chart for reading, spelling, and writing skills, he was tutored for dyslexia. He learned to read and spell, with much effort, the tutor using teaching methods for dyslexia.
Later, in junior high, he told me he learned by listening, not by what the teacher wrote on the board. I helped him learn to write papers by proofreading his drafts with a blue pencil. He originated the papers, I proofread, he rewrote, for several iterations. He gradually learned to reason on paper by repeatedly rewriting (rethinking) his work.
He ended up doing quite well in high school, graduated magna cum laude from college, and graduated from a top law school. He’s a lawyer now, and, of course, reading and writing are his metier.
Make of this what you will—I think he “rewired his brain” to read and learn through reading and writing.
6
It isn't about either. It is about making a student comfortable so that any cognitive or emotional filters can be lowered and their motivation to receive information improved. More importantly the student needs to come back again the next day, and the next to learn more. When you feel a connection emotionally with the teacher (doesn't matter what your age range may be) everyone feels more successful. We can teach our learners by putting them in a box surrounded by measurements or we can teach our learners as if they were human beings with all kinds of needs. Trust is everything. A spreadsheet of measurements will enhance education and shouldn't be completely put aside but it really is about the long term success rather than the corporate style short run.
9
I dare to disagree with Professor Willingham: I am a visual learner and my lack of auditory ability has always prevented me from learning the songs I like in five languages, when I could not read the lyrics.
6
Same with me. I struggled to learn a foreign language in school when in a pilot program that presented the language only by listening to tapes and the teacher and repeating what was heard. I couldn't figure out anything. Later, when we were able to see the text book that had the written dialogue I felt as if a light bulb went off in my brain, an "aha" moment. It wasn't that I could learn simply from written text, but that I needed text to comprehend the auditory information.
7
Further evidence that people are very complex and not easily "identitied", whether by learning style, race, gender, sexual orientation, economic status, age, geographic location, or a variety of other life circumstances. Categorizing people is a perilous habit, and doomed to failure.
4
The difference between being a visual and auditory learner?
I would say being a visual learner is so profoundly more advantageous than being an auditory learner that probably all the greatest accomplishments of the human race are dependent on visual rather than auditory learning.
Let's tackle outright probably the greatest defense of auditory learning that can be made, that great music is more dependent on auditory learning than visual learning. I would say that although music is heard, a strong argument can be made that music can be processed more rapidly by reading it, looking at a score, although of course the score has yet to be made that can do justice to any music ever created. But a score of a piece of music can be scanned more rapidly than hearing the piece, and arguably music is best composed by scoring it, no matter the limitations of scoring, by arranging it visually on paper or other visual medium.
Now if a strong argument can be made for the superiority of visual over auditory learning in music, how can we deny that words not to mention pictures are best expressed in visual medium, that say words can be taken in more rapidly by reading than listening and that a person can organize their words better in writing, reaching higher levels of complexity and vocabulary than can be found in speaking and listening?
The more a person is an auditory learner the more it appears the person approaches actual blindness, is confined to learning and communicating by sound.
1
Our culture has a visual bias.
In feudal times, a man's word was his bond. Marriage vows, military oaths, the magical liturgical formulas of baptism, consecratng bread & wine or forgiving sins--all verbal.
Today, "a verbal contract isn't worth the paper it's written on." (Goldwyn)
Birth & death certificates, signed contracts, documentary evidence, written scholarly research articles & written Constitutions--Now visual print rules.
I've been an educator for more than three decades as a teacher and administrator from elementary through university levels and I will say unequivocally that some of the most gawdawful hogwash is taught in colleges of education and believed by teachers. Daily, decisions are being made that impact the learning and welfare of kids without a shred of scientific support.
I know that many people have stories about how some teacher did so-and-so and suddenly they could learn as never before but please remember, anecdote and evidence are not synonyms.
33
@cellodad, yes, I've seen this too. In colleges and departments of Education, there is always a theory du jour, presented as the right way to be a teacher. If you are training to be a teacher, it is expected that you will swallow and parrot back this theory, and display your complete acceptance of and adherence to it in your practice. What is truly baffling is that the right way always changes. There is a narrative of "improvement," that is, "Yay! We didn't used to know how to teach, but now we do!" Meanwhile, nothing really changes in our schools. The privileged get better educations than the underprivileged, the wealthy reproduce themselves, and those that come to school behind can never really catch up.
2
@cellodad
Thank you. I can't tell you how many students I have who tell me they start out their school year with a unit on "learning styles." This mistaken, unfounded theory is used to guide instruction in schools all across the country.
1
I have always preferred visual learning to auditory or kinesthetic (movement) learning (I could never learn music by listening, and I think my mom dropped me on my cerebellum as a child as I have never been a good dancer, musician or athlete). However, in real life you have to learn to use all your senses to learn. Just like your have to learn to use your left brain and your right brain, regardless of which hemisphere is dominant. Even if one hand is dominant, it is advantageous to learn to use...as most athletes will attest. And there is no excuse to not learn to speak and read a second language.
2
Interesting but...Studying university students is not the same as studying elementary school aged children. As a mother, I know that these differences did in fact matter as my children entered school. And adjusting the school work for my children did in fact help them excel in school. If I hadn't researched and pursued such theories, my eldest son may not be poised to graduate from an elite university. That said, I very wise educator once said to me that she found labels very limiting. One always needs to continuously excel in all areas and not use a label to limit themselves.
4
I can only speak of my own learning experience which results in my sharp visual and auditory processing ability. I learned Chinese which is a graphic language, requireing memorization of the shape of each word. I also learned English from 4th grade on, a language that requires memorization of sounds through phonics formation of each word. Math and science increased my step by step reasoning along with memorization of equations. The methods required to learn had turned me into a flexible person in creative thinking, analyzing and lastly sharp spacial and numerical memory. I feeling is children should learn all subjects so as to expand their minds,having knowledge based on memorization and creativity based on open mindedness.
2
Sorry, I do not share your views Prof Willingham. I was in the classroom for 27 years, in addition to being a student myself for about 20 years. There is no way I could ever learn anything aurally. I even had a history prof take me to task for not taking notes during his lectures. I already had my notes after reading the textbook; listening was merely an affirmation that I had--or had not-- highlighted pertinent material in my note-taking at home.
Lectures in math were meaningless. I am a very strong visual and tactile learner. What I read is what I remember; if I also write it or "build models" of it, I retain it for an exceptionally long time. Here's one example: When I was in sixth grade, 67 years ago, we did "sentence diagramming." I still remember all of it...made a great deal of sense to me. I am the first person to catch poor sentence construction in print anywhere--headlines, text, first drafts.....I am the grammar police.
If you are grammatically incorrect when speaking to me, I am confused. I may have heard you, but it doesn't make sense and I can't pin-point the error. On paper, the error screams out and instantly hits me between the eyes.
I have seen and accommodated learning styles in my classrooms. They are real and discernable; they are easily accommodated by gifted and caring teachers.
Every occupation demands certain sets of learning styles; to be successful in their occupations, practitioners must have innate gifts for the tasks.
22
Great points. This study shows many weaknesses. For example, it fails to reflect that these designations are not black and white, but are made on a scale of alignment. It is possible to align strongly with both learning styles. It is also possible to align much more strongly with one than the other. Second, this study invalidates itself by testing self-identified visual-spatial and auditory-sequential learners of college age. Self-identification is inaccurate, and college students have received so much instruction about how they should learn, that they cannot be expected to pursue tasks based on their strongest style or what they think is their strongest style - and maybe they don't have a stronger style, because they naturally align equally with both styles. Third, the study fails to use complete terminology: visual-SPATIAL and auditory-SEQUENTIAL. Students who are dominant visual-spatially are weaker in the SEQUENTIAL element of being auditory-sequential. Think about everything that is sequential, for example morning and bedtime routines, homework completion, or following a series of exercises. A bright child who is very weak auditory-sequentially may appear disorganized, having unexpected difficulties with seemingly simple routines. Many would call them disorganized. They are not disorganized. They are nonsequential. Consider how many parent-child arguments could be defused if parents and teachers understood that.
4
@visual learner mom As a follow-up, I do not watch TV or go to movies, because I can't pay attention to what's being said. I have to read the books/captioning, instead. I am not deaf---I simply despise following a story line by listening. I tend to read, imagine, ponder what's next, thereby missing the "action" in TV/movie conversations. I also pay more attention to the sets, decor, visual backgrounds, rather than dialogue.
Learning styles, specifically whether a person is a visual or auditory learner?
I would easily describe myself as a visual learner, I much prefer to read books and look at pictures over listening to someone explain something or listen to a book being read to me. And one good reason why is because it's much faster to learn that way. A person can read and understand something faster than a person can explain it. That's just common sense. Books generally are written in more complex form than people speak (structure, vocabulary) and a person can read much more quickly than a person can speak, the eyes can take in more than can be passed to the ear in the form of sound.
This is not to say I don't learn by ear, but when I do learn by ear it's overwhelmingly by listening to music. If words are involved I prefer to read, but if no words are involved in the form of communication I am processing, it's either that I'm listening to music or looking at a painting or using one of my other senses. Listening to words rather than reading them is really quite an inefficient way to learn. Usually when we listen to words we are listening to the sloppiness of people's sentence construction and simple thoughts and of course we are forced to process what they say at the pace at which they prefer to speak.
All art probably, written word to painting to film to music and so on, and science as well, is an improvement over the tongue, speaking and listening to what other people have to say.
6
Theory on learning styles is not empirically supported. Granted, students often have preferences but from my personal experience, having taught college for many years, student preference regarding learning are commonly based on erroneous assumptions of which types of efforts are easiest.
College students falter because they are not taught the most effective learning strategies in their earlier education--strategies unrelated to learning styles. Public schools in particular lean far too heavily on memorization and regurgitation, which is insufficient to enable students to actually apply all that they are supposed to learn--and this should be the primary reason for learning because memorization does not enable critical thinking.
Because memorization is a poor substitute for learning that enables comprehension and application many professors end up having to do remedial work in order to help some college students to barely pass our courses. It's ridiculous. I teach students critical thinking skills and learning strategies that go far beyond mere memorization, but it takes an extreme effort and lots of time outside of teaching actual class material.
Funding is a primary issue since many teachers are responsible for classes that are far too large to teach students effectively, and this alone impedes the learning abilities of students. In terms of the actual problems that stand in the way of effective student learning, learning styles is not even on the list.
9
@MyOwnWoman
You are certainly right about the theory on learning styles not being empirically supported. However, the disparagement of memorization and falsely contrasting it to learning is at least as damaging as the idea of learning styles. People can't reason without knowledge. We need to have certain things memorized, such as the multiplication table or letter/sound correspondences, to free up working memory for analysis and manipulation. And the idea that we can simply look everything up is impractical.
5
@Robert F We actually don't disagree. I said memorization was "insufficient," meaning not enough. Memorization is a basic step towards full comprehension & application. But most public school students are taught that learning is just memorization. I give my students the example of how we all had to memorize the ABCs, but to be able to effectively communicate we had to conceptualize how placing letters in different arrangements enables us to spell and communicate in what are highly abstract ways--language is a symbolic means of conveying information and meaning.
So after memorizing the ABCs we learn how to spell simple words, like c-a-t. Then learn how to spell a-c-t. In this way we are guided toward being able to conceptualize symbolic words that stand in for real objects, simply by rearranging letters.
Next we learn how to form sentences, then paragraphs and eventually 20 page term papers, but to do so we have to be able to conceptualize abstract knowledge, which gets more and more abstract as we proceed through our educational careers.
Although memorization is necessary at a basic level, comprehending and working to comprehend in order to be ably to apply abstract knowledge can't be gained from mere memorization. See? We are not in disagreement.
I have many students who dramatically improve their learning efforts when I teach them the basic strategies for reading comprehension and self-assessment. Good for them, but why isn't this done in grammar school?!
To try to understand well the models of theoretical physics, classical and modern, to try to model the world accurately using the tools of theoretical physics, it's essential to have a high level of competency in euclidean and non-euclidean geometries, in vector and tensor analysis, in the techniques of linear and nonlinear algebra, and, of course, in differential and integral calculus.
The key to competency in these areas is practise, practise and more practise, using pen, pencil and paper. Draw diagrams. Solve problem after problem. Eventually, at least if your IQ is high enough, then the light bulb switches on. (I've spent many years of hard study trying to obtain competency, and have only succeeded partially, likely because my measured IQ at its peak of 142 was just too low).
If you're not competent in advanced mathematics, then you're as uneducated as any Anglophone who can't translate Latin, Greek and Anglo-Saxon, Classical Arabic, Hebrew, Mandarin Chinese, Japanese and other languages.
1
I suspect that learning style does matter over time, because of interest. Images often seem to interest me more that words.
I collect images on blogs, and I try to use some of the images, in emails that I send. I think that if I did not invert images into emails, I would lose interest and send far fewer emails.
In my schools days, many years, ago, most I books had few or no images to sustain my interest, over time.
'And what is the use of a book, thought Alice, without pictures or conversation?' (From Alice in Wonderland)
www.SavingSchools.org
1
Oh come on people. This self analysis really IS a bunch of bunk. I run a business in a creative field and give lessons. Those adults who come in with their "learning style" doublespeak always think that they are "original". The litany goes "I'm a visual, hands-on person - I can't learn from books or written material".
The translation is that they do not wish to learn the basic principles and skills that this activity demands, but want to go right to intermediate level projects where I have measured materials, done a pre-setup and then guide their hands to make a "masterpiece".
I do teach using whatever methods are appropriate to the material being presented and vary things to make sure the student learns, but the self analyzers are politely talked out of lessons. If I am willing to share real expertise, one on one - I don't take kindly to their dictates and wanting to avoid actually having to learn.
41
@Sara Good for you. Stay strong.
1
Learning styles do vary and there's no point denying the existence of the variety. The mistake is to consider each style compartmentally. Most people utilize all styles to some degree, in effect, multitasking in their learning. As a classroom teacher, I found it important to challenge students to learn in different ways and to appreciate how others learn. I tend to be more of a visual learner but try to make use of my other, less dominant, learning skills as I learn. Focusing on only one learning style for any student is not only limiting their future ability to be flexible in their learning but potentially ignoring an untapped capacity in another mode of learning.
5
As a primary-grade teacher for 35 years, I know this to be true. I also believe that presenting material in several different ways (styles) increases the chance that more students will get it. So maybe instead of reaching different kids with different methods, we were just giving everyone an extra chance to get it.
65
Presumably the author is not talking about learning dance steps and moves? Visual is primary there. Then there is the kid in your elementary school class who never could master skipping (foot dyslexia?). Was it possible in the distant past to fail learning hunting and gathering? Different skills to match different times.
2
a zombie idea that refuses to die: learning styles
22
You may find Dr. Howard Gardner's Theory of Multiple Intelligences of interest. This is different that a learning style. https://howardgardner.com/multiple-intelligences/
8
Thank you for this article. These theories have been put forward to account for the fact that our schools and parents have failed the children by not insisting that they learn how to read at a young level. Reading is the key to learning. And if you don't learn it in school, and if it's not reinforced at home, many children fall behind and never catch up. It doesn't mean that these aren't great kids or that they aren't smart. It means they will have a harder road unless they have some other unique talent that will take them somewhere.
4
I had to take Latin 63 years ago. It was all memory
work, very tedious and boring. Do students still have to do boring memory work?
I wish I'd studied Spanish.
2
I think it's worth distinguishing different contexts for applying the learning styles theory.
If the focus is on learning retention, I understand the established point that learning style (VAK) does not make a great deal of difference to learning retention outcomes, as this article points out.
But if the focus is on engagement, for example engagement in a classroom, a training workshop, or a book, I think the answer is that catering to different learning styles is very helpful. Providing a mix of visual aids, engaging verbal expression, and practical or interactive exercises can increase engagement around the content.
And increased engagement can lead to people looking at the learning content more closely, which they can then retain using the usual techniques such as doing exercises or discussing and repeating the material.
11
Interesting article but more food for thought than anything. Not sure of the first study but in the second where 'researchers eavesdropped on brain activity' N=18. 18 and the case is closed? Would have to dig deeper in the other references but with such small studies I don't think conclusions are ready to be made just yet. And yes I prefer visual learning in most cases given the choice and depending on the task at hand.
2
@mrg
This article is not a summary of all the research conducted to date on learning styles; it only uses a couple of studies as examples of the research that has been conducted. And over the course of the past 30 years, the dozens (hundreds?) of studies that have been done consistently fail to support the notion that teaching to someone's preferred "learning style" improves learning.
6
When I give someone directions, sometimes I give verbal directions, and sometimes I draw a map (or nowadays show the person on Google Maps). I often ask people whose mother tongue isn't English how to say something in their language, and then I either write it phonetically or I come up with a mnemonic device, by thinking of some English words that when spoken together sound about the same as the foreign expression. So I agree with Mr. Willingham, professor at my undergraduate alma mater, that people can't simply be put into different learner categories.
3
What about those of us, who have no visual memory? I cannot visualize anything. When someone says they can see it in their "mind's eye" I can't do that.
My wife has exceptional visual memory. She was amazed and was incredulous when she learned that I can not. People with visual memory think everyone else has it.
17
Let me endorse musical education here.
Music integrates multiple learning styles--auditory, verbal, tactile, physical. The student learns to take an abstract set of symbols, transform it physically to an instrument, and create an auditory experience. The student learns to transform verbal coaching into physical action.
And by integrating all of these mental functions, the student exercises creativity.
No matter what a student's preferred learning style, exercising and integrating different learning styles has to be beneficial.
37
I agree with everything you're saying but you left out the visual part. I play guitar (along with other instruments), and before I learned to read music and the existence of tablature, if I was trying to learn a song and could watch someone play it then it was far easier than if they were trying to explain it. I got so good at it, as so many other musicians, that if you were practicing or playing live with a band and didn't know the song you could watch and pick it up almost immediately. I still go on YouTube after trying to figure out or learn a song to watch someone playing it and, wham, it all falls into place. And I remember it much better. So part of me strongly agrees with the idea of some people or subjects being better when taught visually.
3
@Justin I was terrible at reading music and coordinating my hands with it, although I have an excellent ear and good pitch.
As a kid I didn't want piano lessons, but I taught myself many complicated melodies on our living room piano, either from memory or by playing along with records. In fact it was counter-productive to my learning to be forced to read music.
Many famous non-classical musicians cannot read music. Learning to read and translate sheet music into playing may be good for your brain but it has nothing to do with musical talent or creativity.
1
If the results of all that testing are inconclusive, maybe the tests are flawed. I know that some people can't do numbers or read directions and prefer having spoken instruction or demonstration. I know that some people explain things with words and people who explain things with pictograms and drawings. I don't know if this is anecdotal or not, but it is my experence.
There is a preference for right brain thinking and left brain thinking. Some musicians need to read the notes. Some need only to hear the music to play it.
But yes, the best strategy to solve the problem is the best strategy. Since we use so little of our mind's capacity, there are probably better strategies yet to be discovered.
2
Well... Look, if you drop the language of "learning styles," people simply DO vary with respect to e.g. their performance on verbal memory tasks, or on spatial reasoning tasks, etc. Some people are obviously better readers than others. Some people are obviously better builders. And so on. So yes, some people are going to find it easier than will others to learn from reading a book.
That said, I appreciate the point that not everything there is to learn can in principle be learned equally well in multiple formats or multiple ways. A verbal translation strategy is just so inefficient for a mental rotation task. That's the frustrating thing about the notion of different learning styles to educators: there are some ideas that simply can't be adequately communicated visually; there are some ideas that can be adequately communicated only visually.
8
My near vision is terrible, so I use a kindle or computer to enlarge the font. For some incredible reason an ophthalmologist convinced my mother that glasses would ruin my eyes. It took a while but I taught myself to read by visualizing fragments of words. Therefore, because I am an autodidact, teaching others became a challenge. Frequently, I used the kinesthetic approach to teach decoding to children who were not visual or auditory learners. I did a lot of hands on science and I used used two colors to teach simple equations. I believe that almost anyone can learn to decode and do simple math when instructors employ multiple sensory techniques. More complex concepts require almost average intelligence.
1
My experience with children differs from Dr. Willingham. I do Visual Perceptual testing as part of my practice and administer the TVPS (Test of Visual Perceptual Skills). A portion of this test looks at Visual Sequential Memory ability. The child is shown a line of shapes for a period of time and asked to match it to one of four solutions shown after the initial target is taken away. Some of my children do poorly on this and as I watch them, I note that they are naming the forms to remember them as evidenced by their lips moving while looking at the initial row of figures. I thus conclude they are using an auditory strategy. On the other hand, when I specifically ask them to remember a sequence of six forms by picturing them in their mind, they are successful with the task. What I conclude from this is that they gravitate toward an auditory strategy and yet when specifically asked to do a visual strategy, they are much more successful.
On other children, the auditory strategy works well for them and they do well on the Visual Sequential Memory subsection of the TVPS. ( In both cases, we are not really measuring Visual Sequential Memory ability because they are not using a visual memory strategy).
V. Liane Rice, OD, FCOVD
San Jose, CA
@V. Liane Rice, OD, FCOVD
Memory is not the same thing as learning, which involves understanding, not just rote regurgitation.
This theory could only be proved right or wrong if the research takes into account a most important factor, whether a child is usually confident or not.
1
Keep working on it, but some of us just go with our natural strengths without giving it much thought.
I graduated from a top university in the midwest, have three years of graduate school, including a masters degree, which would not have happened without strong visual/memory skills, which I've had since years ago, when I skipped third grade.... and very weak auditory/memory skills. I took lots of notes.
My teenage granddaughter, on the other hand, picked up a clarinet in junior high, soon ended up in first chair in a large and talented orchestra, took Spanish in junior high and high school (local, suburban public schools) and during her junior year on a class trip to Spain, walked into a home in Seville, conversing easily all in Spanish like a native. Her accent is natural and amazing. I could never have done this in a million years, with equivalent instruction or more; In high school, when my chorus teacher announced that someone was singing off-key, I immediately stopped and started mouthing the words instead, .and all was good after that.
I'm in awe of persons with musical talent and strong auditory skills. What can I say? ...be flexible and learn to compensate for weaknesses. Most of us, if not all of us, have them..... and I do enjoy music!
7
You can claim that none of this has any justification, but for someone who has always gravitated toward conversation and group discussion over read-the-chapter study, it rings completely hollow.
Your tests sound farcical, and not reflective of any activity I actually engaged in while learning. Trying to decide whether someone reading a word is remembering a picture of the word or is sounding out the word to themselves? Really? It feels irrelevant to me: what is important, at least to me, is that when I read words, I don't absorb them well, but I can recite nearly word-for-word a description I heard a professor give on the same material.
You do those of us who have identified how we learn best a disservice by telling us there's no difference. There is a difference - for me. And maybe if we took that individualized approach to both teaching and learning, instead of solely the aggregate data provided context-free in controlled studies, we'd be able to improve learning for each one of us.
4
@Justin
You may have a preference for some types of learning, but Willingham did not say that people do not have preferences. What he and the research say is that teaching to those preferences does not enhance learning.
9
Here's another way to think about this. I've always been more visual than auditory. I am losing my sight and have also noticed a decline in my memory. I think that there are preferences for learning linked to memory and recall.
2
I didn't understand any of this. Can you draw me a picture?
The problem (if it is a problem) is that we are constantly translating from the abstract to the real. And that we think in terms of analogies. It may be the case that working harder to translate information cements that information more firmly in our minds.
So maybe we can soak up a lot of information if presented to us in 'our style,' but we soak up less but remember a higher percentage if presented in a different style.
2
Many people who comment seem to miss the point of this research. No one would claim there aren’t individual differences in all kinds of things, or that actual disabilities such as deafness or dyslexia do t exist. Rather, when some scientists have offered the idea that people can be grouped into specific groups based on learning styles, and these are tested, the theory fails repeatedly. It’s very difficult to give up an idea that one has come to believe in, but it can and should be done when the evidence is there. This article asserts that these notions of style, many of the, have failed repeatedly. Or maybe there are two types of people, with flexible and inflexible learning styles!
77
Google "learning styles neuromyth."
The Guardian piece is especially good.
A Google Scholar search will turn up the underlying research.
I realize that this is an op piece and doesn't undergo fact checking, but for stuff submitted by a psychologist, maybe pass it by one of your science reporters ... or science interns ... for a quick comment.
Well I’m glad to know that the way I learn is not a style but a handicap or lack of effort or an excuse. (Sarcasm). For me it’s usually easier to remember and understand things if I have them written down. I just never have gotten things as well through my ears, but that may have more to do with delivery than anything. Unclear writing is just as bad as rapid fire speaking. Frankly, I just need to go at my own speed, and reading is usually better.
6
Sometimes the tests don't really test what the researchers think. For example, words can be visual or auditory depending if you are reading or listening. I think I am a visual learner because I have very good recall of things I've read and not so good with what I hear. But there can be other factors--reading is something I can control myself--I can slow down or skip ahead as required and I am less distractable, I lose concentration with auditory input. Also I do not excel in writing diagrams and flow charts preliminary to writing or coding. Ideas simply do not flow to me unless I just jump into the task at hand. Of course we get better at things we do repeatedly and if the task requires it we can acclimate to another style and no one employs only approach at a time. I think teachers should experiment to see which approach works on an ad hoc basis. Who cares what the research says, especially since it is very difficult to isolate methods from the multivariate emotional and environmental factors that affect learning.
2
After having my wife read this article aloud for me, I drew the following conclusion; I am an auditory learner. Always have and will always be.
4
Knowing Willingham's work and being more than merely conversant about these things, I am disappointed that he oversimplifies a much more complex matter.
We educators know that the pop culture application of multiple intelligence theory was nonsense. Schools color coded kids and it was an educational abomination. But that's not cause to reject the validity of different ways of being intelligent and the importance of attending to them.
The neurobiological truth is that we are all a complex mix of strengths (and the corresponding "weaknesses"). A legitimate question is: Should we attend to the relative strengths in addressing particular students? Or should we seek to strengthen the "weaknesses."
This applies to curriculum too. Should we encourage the mathematical student to focus on that strength? Or try to develop the language-related strengths of that student? The best answer in my view, after many years of experience, is both/and, not either/or.
For the most part, humans will be better equipped as generalists than as narrow specialists.
When it comes to pedagogy, the principle is easy. Do it all. By presenting information or tasks in visual, auditory and tactile forms, each student will have much greater chance of mixing and matching their own perceptive strengths to gain understanding. I would add that, again from a neurobiological and philosophical perspective, a concept is understood more profoundly if understood in more sensory richness.
100
At some point, psychology – like physical sciences, a while ago – will move past Aristotelian hand-waving at the physical universe in terms of what is hot or cold or wet or dry...
Math mostly in place – and on par with 19th century classical physics of mechanics, statistical mechanics, thermodynamics...
Though, it took another half-century – well beyond inception of general relativity and quantum mechanics – to put Information (Shannon) Theory on a foundationally-sound basis...
Candidly, painful to watch something empirically invoked...
“...The best strategy for a task is the best strategy...
...that has basis in matched-impulse-response filters – in some abstract cognitive space...
Since turnabout fair play – let’s heuristically plumb a range of schoolroom/yard activities, with adversity/creativity as bookends...
> Mostly creative – art class
> Mostly adversarial – lunch and recess
> More adversarial than creative – chess club
> More creative than adversarial – school newspaper
Bases of creative and competitive survival are approximate abstract reason and precise eidetic recall, respectively...
Whether I compute or memorize or write on the inside of my forearm the multiplication tables depends on my personal cognitive capabilities, despite task being identical...
Sustainable/actionable learning fundamentally multimodal...
The – differently imperfect, one person to the next – memory of each modality is statistically separable...
Giving effective triangulation...
First of all, knowledge discerned by experience or intuition is not "bunk" because it has not (yet) been shown to have some validity in controlled studies.
Secondly, speaking as a former math teacher, to teach how to understand and use each math concept is preferably taught in, say, three different ways. The reason for this is not simply that some students will understand better with one way than the other, but, more, so that every student can discern the concept from several vantages and thereby greatly gain more sophisticated comprehension and mastery.
29
As for me, I hate videos or anything auditory. Very Slow. Just to load it takes forever.
I want a map or a diagram and wont used navigators either. I dont want directions coming at me - I want the map!
Reading is under your control, videos are not.
50% to 90% of anything... is repeated information - an explanation of what a molecule is, a long tutorial on Darwin to introduce an article on evolution.
Skip it. If its written, its easy, but vid or audio in much harder to skip.
19
I don’t know if other teachers saw the same I did (seventh grade math),but I definitely noticed different learning styles than the ones I was taught. There were the kids who had to vocalize the new concepts to feel confident. For just about every new set of practice problems, they’d raise their hand, and I would stand there in support as they soliloquized their way through the first problem. On the other side of the spectrum were the students who would huddle by themselves with their papers hidden under their arms glaring at everybody who passed by until they had finished the practice set and checked their answers themselves. There were the students who wanted me or their neighbors to confirm their answers to every problem as they went through the set, contrasted with the angry learners, who feverishly attacked the problems as if the textbook author had insulted their mother. I’ll never forget the boy who jumped up and down in his fury screaming “1/2 plus zero is zero!” Mid-leap he realized his mistake and offered me the sweetest, most sheepish grin.
6
I have 11 years’ experience home schooling my daughter, a visual and auditory learner, that says you’re wrong, Mr. Willingham.
3
"But there’s no good scientific evidence that learning styles actually exist."
Yes. But, we have known this for 30 years. So, why has this infernal idea not gone away, already? Because the problem is not scientific, it is political.
Scientifically, half the children are below average in intelligence. Scientifically, we will never have equal outcomes for all children. You know, "No Child Left Behind". It is impossible. Set any standard---except a standard that is no standard at all---and some number of children must fail to meet it. The higher the standard, the more children will fail. It is a law of Nature.
Nature may demand it but politics rejects it. The central organizing doctrine of American public education is No Gaps. No gaps of any kind in achievement. No high achievers and low achievers. No gaps between Whites and Blacks. No gaps between boys and girls. Oh, you found a gap? You must erase it!
Therefore, whether it is Whole Language reading instruction, or Fuzzy Math, or Learning Styles, or any of the myriad educational superstitions that come in and out fashion over the years, there is an insatiable hunger for that magic elixir of education that will erase Gaps---the Holy Grail of education that does not exist.
Learning Styles will never go away until we unchain ourselves of every other educational superstition, most especially the superstition of equal outcomes.
12
@Haim, nobody ever asked for equal outcomes. Equal opportunity, on the other hand, is the supposed American way.
2
Thank you. Years ago, a student dismissed some explanation I gave with, "I'm a visual learner!" Even if there are learning styles, that does not answer a question George Miller once put: Should we play to a student's strengths, or shore up their weaknesses?
The world is not exclusively verbal, or auditory, or intuitive, or visual. Most of us are apt to be better off if we can grapple with it in a variety of ways.
33
@Mark Well put.
1
Not concerned about “styles” of learning, what concerns me are the various “trainers” that can’t be bothered to wait while the student takes notes and asks questions for clarification.
Truck drivers are not inclined to tolerate anyone attempting to take notes.
Humans are very versatile to adapting and are both. I prefer visual unless it is a 'made in china' product' and both the instructions and visual instructions are nothing like the reality of putting the whatever together.
In our family we never followed instructions and only looked at instructions if something went wrong!
1
I think it's a good idea to incorporate as many different styles of teaching/learning as possible. No matter how one best learns, this can greatly enhance overall understanding and learning enjoyment. As far as disabilities - I've had quite a few deaf students, one completely paralyzed student, and one totally blind young lady. These were all in my college biology and math courses, in Massachusetts. But this was a state college, and ample funds were available to assist these students. The greatest challenge for me was the blind lady in Intro Bio laboratory, which was almost entirely microscope-based.
1
The Prof sounds like he sought out data to confirm his preconceived notion. I have seen a dyslexic child struggle mightily to read. Testing showed that she was in the 90% percentile in some areas, in the 10% percentile in others. She changed schools, got specialized one on one instruction and 10 years later scored in the top 1% on the SAT. Changing teaching methods really worked for her and she overcame her early struggles. She still has dyslexia, but she has learned new techniques for learning. Tossing the idea of learning differences in the waste bin because one research effort failed to confirm the existence of learning styles seems like a terrible idea.
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@Matt Learning disabilities is a totally different issue from learning styles.
2
I have researched and presented to educators on this very topic and I agree with the author that learning styles are not helpful to students or teachers. We should not pigeonhole ourselves or anyone else as this or that style. Instead, teachers should use the sensory methods best adapted to teach the task at hand, and appeal to as many senses as possible. Would you teach people to recognize birdsong by talking to them? Surely one needs to hear the songs to recognize them...When teaching other educators about the weakness of learning styles theory, I found many, many of them resistant to changing their thoughts on it---and others were very relieved to be done with this theory.
16
As my old dad used to say, "Once something gets into the textbooks, no matter how wrong it is, it's almost impossible to get out."
34
Not even a mention of disability? Really? So if someone is deaf or blind does your rejection of visual or auditory learners still hold up? Are you including people with dyslexia and other language based learning disabilities in your research? How about people with typical acuity but impacted auditory processing? You may be right to question learning styles but you have ignored everyone who is atypical. Check out the work of David Rose and Universal Design for Learning for a model that supports the growth of flexible, strategic learners but does not ignore those of us who do not have a choice when it comes to our intact learning channels.
30
Although I was (briefly) a special education teacher and (longer) worked with kids of all abilities, I never really bought into this concept of different learning styles either. As with all new pedagogical approaches, it takes time and experience to cherry pick the best of a new concept and leave the rest.
Also, while a child may find it helpful to know that he or she seems most comfortable with a certain style of instruction or thinking, it should never be conveyed as "so, the way you're wired, you can do this and you can't do that." I don't think most teacher were saying that, or believed it. I think it was "pop science" that trickled down that sounded good to parents and people who talk about education (but haven't actually taught) who were. Teachers know better than to set kids up like that (good ones, anyway).
For myself, I have always felt I was "not good at" deductive reasoning. This is because other ways of reasoning were far easier so I relied on them. Deciding this was unacceptable, I worked at Sudoku starting with children's level puzzles and am now doing adult expert puzzles.
It was a muscle that had not been flexed. Whether my success with Sudoku style deductive reasoning could then be applied to other mental challenges, I have no idea.
4
The author makes some valid points. In particular, that a student needs to adjust their learning style to the task. As a teacher with decades of experience, I find it most effective to present material in multiple-sensory modes which does not mean multiple learning styles. The assertion that we should be able to ascertain a student's learning style and adjust for it has never happened or been proven attainable. However, the idea that using different sensory pathways to engage a student does work for me and my students. Of course all this presupposes that a student is not affectively blocked.
14
As a retired teacher, thank you. Defining a child’s learning style leads to its not my fault I didn’t learn it.
34
Thanks to the researchers; teachers always knew, by experience, this was nonesense.
18
The idea of learning styles presupposes that learning is going on at all. Critical thought is on the wane. On a positive note, with only menial service jobs out there, a lack of critical thought can only enrich your life, let you enjoy the moment, and value style over substance.
7
I have always thought as a teacher that the learning styles movement was flawed in this exact way. It is a relief to see that this study has revealed the best way to frame learning: expose your students to a broad variety of information types so that when faced with any task, learners can rely on both visual and auditory avenues of interpretation.
38
@Teresa Vigo
Where does it say that?
I would argue a person's best "learning style" is the one they enjoy the most. Making learning something new a positive experience makes it most like they person will actually learn it. When possible I prefer tinkering with a problem with little guidance and direction in order to solve it. It gives me a bigger sense of accomplishment when I figure it out and I think by failing until I come to a solution I learn more about it as well. But I am also wise enough to know that sometimes a problem is complex enough that guidance and direction are necessary. And other times, time itself has more value then gaining an intimate incite to the problem at hand.
1
@Still Waiting for a NBA Title I think the point is, we dont have learning styles, we have strategies that adapt to the specifics of the problem.
1