What’s your style? Mine ranges from “appropriate for garage cleaning” to “1956 librarian.” Oh, you mean learning, not fashion? Guess what? I have no style!

How We Learn

Eat your vegetables

Diet fads come and go but the boring facts of good nutrition remain: eat a wide range of vegetables and avoid fried foods. There are similar laws in learning. One is that “everyone is an everything learner.” Our brains work better when we get information from different types of input. The 3D movie “Oceans: Our Blue Planet” brought this idea home to me. The visuals were stunning, the narration was fascinating, and the 3D experience made me feel as if I were gliding through the water myself.

Research has also revealed specific learning strategies –the “healthy vegetables”—that are good for pretty much everyone. A Scientific American article by Cindi May lists these “tried and true” methods:

“Students are more successful when they space out their study sessions over time, experience the material in multiple modalities, test themselves on the material as part of their study practices, and elaborate on material to make meaningful connections rather than engaging in activities that involve simple repetition of information (e.g., making flashcards or recopying notes).”

In addition, we all can learn material more deeply if we “slow learn” and if teachers work “desirable difficulties” into their instruction, as explained by Jeff Bye in this Psychology Today article.

The Loch Ness monster of education

Debunked and disproven

But what about individual “learning styles”? The idea that every person has a learning “style” –visual, auditory, or kinesthetic/hands-on (VAK)—that should guide instruction is the Loch Ness Monster of education. It has been repeatedly disproven yet most parents and many teachers continue to believe in it. An “updated” version expands the myth to seven “styles.” Recently I attended a seminar where most attendees were parents. Every one of the parents answered “true” to a question about the validity of learning styles and gasped when told they were incorrect. Colleges rarely debunk it. Too many teachers still send out “what’s your learning style” questionnaires to students.

Why hang on to something so outdated? Scientific studies have been devoted to answering this question. Among the reasons: we like to put people into categories, we don’t like to think too hard, and we don’t like to change our minds. There are significant costs to following restrictive learning “diets,” as presented in a University of Michigan post by Jared Wadley. These include keeping students from using more effective methods and putting artificial limits on a student’s learning potential. There are many examples of why this kind of “boxing” can cause harm and promote stereotypes: the seven “styles” myth implies that people who are good at sports can’t be journalists and that verbally skilled individuals are less logical than mathematicians. It also confuses personality traits like introversion with thinking skills.

Learning Differences Are Real

“It is the hallmark of any deep truth that its negation is also a deep truth.” (Neils Bohr)

Everyone is an everything learner. There are important individual differences in how people learn. Both of these statements are true—the devil is in the details.

An article in Faculty Focus by Maryellen Weimer points out four areas of differences among learners. It boils down to this: students have important differences in abilities that influence their background knowledge and motivation. All of these factors affect academic interest and performance.

I have seen many examples of the impact of prior knowledge and motivation on performance. For example, a number of years ago I worked with a young woman who had serious problems with reading comprehension. She struggled on reading tests until she came to a relatively difficult passage about Cesar Chavez. To my surprise she answered every question correctly. She explained that her fascination with Chavez had led her to a number of documentaries and articles about him over the years. Even though the passage and questions were conceptual rather than factual, her familiarity with the information gave a boost to her comprehension.

Learning Strengths and Weaknesses

It’s complicated

A predominant theory of intelligence lists ten broad abilities and dozens of narrow abilities. You can have strong or weak skills in most, some, or few of these areas.

Language comprehension is one of the abilities that is highlighted in academics. If a student has this weakness, however, that doesn’t mean that teachers should abandon language-based instruction. But they might need to make some adjustments. To continue the diet analogy from above, almost everyone benefits from eating nuts, beans, and whole grains. But after intestinal surgery, creamy peanut butter might be okay while whole peanuts are not. Similarly, teachers can make material more digestible by giving clear and concise instructions, previewing vocabulary before starting a new unit, and breaking down complicated information into small chunks. In addition, the generally recommended strategy of using a variety of formats and materials can be particularly helpful for these students.

An understanding of strengths and weaknesses can explain why some classes or teaching methods are particularly difficult for your child. In the case of language comprehension problems, the source of a student’s challenges is clear. However, teaching methods can make some weaknesses less of an issue. A student with language processing problems might do just fine with a teacher who monitors students’ understanding and makes frequent adjustments. In contrast, if the teacher always moves along at a blistering pace, a student with these same problems might complain of being “lost.”

Case in point: me

Sometimes it’s tricky to figure out why a student is “suddenly” having problems. For instance, I never showed evidence of any “processing issues”—until I did. I breezed through math in elementary and middle school and then (cue scary music) I encountered the algebra dragon. I was completely confused by the teacher’s explanations during class. How could my classmates be following this gibberish? I could listen to the teacher or I could think about the equation on the board but I couldn’t do both at once.

I didn’t know the term then, but I was experiencing problems with simultaneous processing. After a couple of terrifying weeks I figured out how to slay the dragon: I simply went over class material at my own pace at home. I never made friends with algebra, but I mastered it well enough to tutor other students during the second semester.

My difficulty in math classes persisted into college- and graduate-level statistics. Other students nodded their heads, worked problems along with the teacher, and cruised along in fifth gear while I struggled to get into second. But this time I knew what to do—just nod and smile during class then teach myself at home. With this strategy I could make sense of the text and ace the tests. Thus began my life-long love for statistics (really!)

Use the Right Learning Tools

Be a trendsetter

I encourage you to share this post and the articles cited with other parents and with teachers, learning specialists, and administrators at your child’s school. Read the articles in the links to find ways to encourage your child to learn more deeply: ask for or make up practice tests, encourage her to self-question as she reads, help her space out study time. These learning tools will never go out of style.

Resources:

Watch

Robert Bjork about desirable difficulty. This six-minute video introduces teachers, parents, and students to the benefits of “slow learning.”

Listen

Debunking Myths Behind Different Learning Styles. Add “Two Guys On Your Head” to your podcast feed. Short, fascinating insights every week.

Read

Stop Fixing Your Brain in Psychology Today

The Myth of Learning Styles in The Atlantic

Desirable Difficulties in the Classroom in Psychology Today

Evidence-based Practices School Guide in Reading Rockets

Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman. This acclaimed book by a Nobel Prize winner will revolutionize how you think about thinking.

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Talk to me!

Ideas for a topic? Questions? Email me at contact@sjunedye.org