It’s starting to catch on, the idea that different learning styles are bunk. A paper that was only cited as forthcoming evidence for this old post of mine has now been published, and it argues that there’s simply no persuasive evidence that there’s such a thing as different learning styles.
(Now, as a parenthetical aside, just because there’s another study with these kinds of findings doesn’t mean that the idea of different learning styles will disappear. That idea has been accepted widely, so it’ll be hard to eradicate it. The seeming anecdotal evidence (“I knew this kid, Johnny, who couldn’t learn till his teacher put the information in Mayan pictograms…and then he became an A student!”) will be taken to outweigh simple scientific fact. So people will believe in learning styles in spite of evidence to the contrary. And it’s such a convenient excuse: if a kid underperforms, well, chalk it up to bad teaching that doesn’t take into account Susie’s learning style. Any idea with that kind of legs is going to be with us for a long time.)
Anyway, let me get to my favorite part of the article:
The brain makes subtle associations between what it is studying and the background sensations it has at the time, the authors say, regardless of whether those perceptions are conscious. It colors the terms of the Versailles Treaty with the wasted fluorescent glow of the dorm study room, say; or the elements of the Marshall Plan with the jade-curtain shade of the willow tree in the backyard. Forcing the brain to make multiple associations with the same material may, in effect, give that information more neural scaffolding.
“What we think is happening here is that, when the outside context is varied, the information is enriched, and this slows down forgetting,” said Dr. Bjork, the senior author of the two-room experiment.
To which I say, well of course! If a student studies the same information twice, more learning will occur. It’s elementary, my dear Watson.
Of course, a student has to study the information once in order to study it again. For some students, that’s going to be where the entire exercise breaks down.
And then again, the article is careful to remind us:
Apparently even science can’t create motivation ex nihilo, so until it can, it would appear we’re stuck with having some good students, some average, and some not-so-good.
3 comments
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September 7, 2010 at 11:32 pm
Dave Mazella
One of the best sources on this question is Marilla Svinicki’s Learning and Motivation in the Postsecondary Classroom. Take a look at her chapter 8, What to do about individual differences in learning. Unlike a lot of other people who do this kind of research, MS is very interested in how this kind of work can be translated into better instruction.
September 8, 2010 at 6:45 am
Christopher Vilmar
Will do–you’re far more expert at this sort of thing than I am. I’m just an internet poker and dabbler.
October 8, 2010 at 11:40 pm
Z
Oh good, learning styles are bunk. My students are all visual learners which means, they seem to think, that they should not speak or listen. It’s a kind of disability I am asked to accommodate — or at least, that is how they present it.