
Students are not hard-wired to learn in different ways - rbanffy
http://theconversation.com/students-are-not-hard-wired-to-learn-in-different-ways-we-need-to-stop-using-unproven-harmful-methods-63715
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mattferderer
I find, through personal experience, that the most important way to teach
differently to students is to build upon what each student already knows &
their interests outside of the subject.

For example, a student who loves football might learn math better by creating
games that incorporate popular players' & teams' stats. It is more likely to
keep them interested which seems to be at least half the battle. It also shows
them how learning this is useful in an area they're already interested in. A
minor benefit, if you can truly create unique content for each student, you
make cheating more difficult.

Through individualized content, students can also progress at their own rate.
I find these methods of learning to be much more important than classifying
things as "visual" or some other method.

This was always my understanding of why it is important for students to be
taught in different ways.

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MrFantastic
I'm not sure I agree.

In sports some people can watch a new technique and instantly be able to copy
the movements. Other people have to be guided through each step. It's a
combination of visual data and proprioception.

Personally, if if calculations come up conversationally, I have to see the
numbers, I can't process calculations aurally.

I also remember names better if I can see them in print.

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uryga
About the math: I don't think it's just you. I'm pretty sure math is easier
for everyone when visualised. So there's no need to introduce a theory of
"learning styles" \- it's just that some subjects are better understood using
one sense, period.

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copperx
I'm always aware about Dijkstra's comment on visualization of math. His
concern was that math concepts can't be visualized; take for instance the
concept of a triangle. The moment you visualize it you're seeing a specific
instance and you forgot about the general model.

Maybe animations can help. You could animate a triangle morphing into a myriad
of instances, even bizarre ones.

~~~
uryga
That may be a valid concern, but isn't that how we learn about all things?
Generalize "chairness" from many examples of chairs we've seen? I feel like
visualising is really helpful while getting to the point where you actually
"feel" the concept of a triangle in your mind. Animation sounds like good way
of doing that too.

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kendallpark
My experience as a student is that there are methods of learning that work
well for me but not all my classmates and vice versa. I feel like the issue is
that these small preferences aren't generalizable into these abstract forms
like "auditory learner."

I also feel like teachers catering to "styles" of learning cripples students
in the long run. Instead students need to be encouraged to figure out how to
manipulate the material into content that's understandable to them. For
example, I hate PowerPoints. I don't get anything out of PowerPoints. But at
my school, 99% of lectures are given in ppt, so I have to figure out how to
distill that information into something useful. And that's MY struggle. No one
is going to help you when you get to college or graduate level education. It
would be far more helpful to teach students how to take charge of their own
education.

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todd8
Having three kids navigate the US school system, I have become very skeptical
of the justifications given for almost any teaching method. I was saddened
when my daughter came home from school with a one page worksheet that
purported to show that she was a "kinesthetic" learner. This division of kids
into categories makes them feel they can learn in only one way.

Other experiences with the education establishment included:

Early introduction of laptop/tablet convertibles in the sixth grade (an
approximately $2000 Toshiba) with Windows XP, a stylus and an unresponsive low
resolution screen. This was supposed to facilitate math instruction because
homework problems and answers could be written out on the tablet instead of on
paper.

Later when the tablets didn't work out they introduced iPads for use instead
of textbooks.

World history being taught out of an Art History book (we were told that
subjects like the Monroe Doctrine weren't going to be covered).

Everyday Math, from the University of Chicago. This math method introduces its
own varied algorithms for the basic four arithmetic operations. I ended up
having to buy some Singapore school system math books to teach my daughter
over the summer.

I met with the headmaster of the school several times to inject my opinion,
but naturally, not having an Education degree kind of disqualified my opinions
from being taken seriously. (I have Math, EE, and CS degrees).

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JoeAltmaier
How about adults then? My buddy can't abide lots of drawings and diagrams -
his eyes glaze over. He wants to read it in prose. Never mind how dense; he
learns (prefers) only from written descriptions.

My wife had a classmate that paid someone to read his textbooks to him.
Couldn't process it visually.

I know its anecdotes; but these folks have at least a very strong preference
for different modes of learning.

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jawns
> If learning styles exist at all, these are not "hard wired" and are at most
> simply preferences.

What does it mean for a learning style to be simply a preference?

I would think that such a preference (for, say, visual rather than text-based
descriptions of a geometric concept) would be founded on something. And I
suspect the "something" is that it's easier to understand.

Yet even if we all agree that it's just a preference, not something that's
"hard-wired," does that really require a practical shift in how we teach
things? Should we not defer to people's learning preferences, even if they are
just preferences?

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kringldt
Two I know of, Sternberg's and Gardner's, both have no real evidence for. I
think it's part of the difficulty when you try to come up with a model of
learning that ignores the g-factor.

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awesomerobot
If you start to look at the "different ways" claims, they fall apart pretty
quickly with basic logic.

One of the most common claims I hear is that someone is a "visual" learner.

If that were true, wouldn't it also mean that we're leaving kids behind that
learn through taste? What if I'm an olfactory genius and I should be learning
maths through scent?

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nanny
>One of the most common claims I hear is that someone is a "visual" learner.
If that were true, wouldn't it also mean that we're leaving kids behind that
learn through taste?

How does that follow at all? I fail to see any logic here, let alone "basic"
logic.

~~~
awesomerobot
If someone learns better through sight, there must be someone that also learns
better through other senses right? What are learning "types" often limited to
only cognitive/spacial?

~~~
nanny
>If someone learns better through sight, there must be someone that also
learns better through other senses right?

No? Why does the existence of a sight-learner imply that there _must_ be a
taste-learner?

