I first became fascinated with the concept of “learning styles†when in high school. And in graduate school I wrote a 55-page paper on the topic, covering the studies, research, and applications of learning styles in education.
But over the years much of what I’ve seen printed and applied related to “learning styles†have seemed to me to be misunderstandings and misapplications of the concept. As happens often the interpretation of what studies and research actually report tends to be overstated, naively interpreted, and ultimately, misapplied. (And nowhere do I find that to be truer than in the literature related to Christian education).
I know I’m skating on thin educational ice here. The concept of Learning Styles (LS) falls under my category of “things people fall in love with.†And we all know the risk of trying to reason with people who are in love with their ideas.
A recent article in the London Telegraph featuring professor Greenfield from Oxford University states,
. . . Baroness Greenfield, the director of the Royal Institute and a professor of pharmacology at Oxford University, has dismissed as “nonsense” the view that pupils prefer to receive information either by sight, sound or touch.
The Baroness is a braver soul than I in being so bold as to call the concept “nonsense†in print. But I share the sentiment. And I agree with her assessment that “. . . the method of classifying pupils on the basis of “learning styles” is a waste of valuable time and resources.†Not to mention, educationally suspect.
You can read the article here.
