British Scientist Upends Learning Orthodoxy
I admit to deep ignorance on the topic, but I’ve always been suspicious of the notion that children have separate and distinct “learning styles,” based purely on the fact that when I was a kid, no one bothered asking us what our learning styles were, and somehow we all managed to learn how to read.
This is certain to stir up the pot. Baroness Susan Greenfield, a professor of synaptic pharmacology at Oxford, calls the idea of learning styles “nonsense.”
“Humans have evolved to build a picture of the world through our senses working in unison, exploiting the immense interconnectivity that exists in the brain,” she told the Sunday Telegraph of London. “It is when the senses are activated together – the sound of a voice is synchronisation with the movement of a person’s lips – that brain cells fire more strongly than when stimuli are received apart.”
Greenfield added that after more than 30 years of research there is no independent evidence that any learning style inventory “has any direct educational benefits.”
Apparently there are academics in Britain who support Greenfield’s opinion, though I’m unaware of any outspoken critics of learning styles in the United States, where the theory originated.
July 30th, 2007 at 22:17
It seems to me there are lots of gaps in this opinion–I’d like to see more documentation. From my experience as an educator it doesn’t make sense; not that individualizing every aspect of teaching is required but understanding learning styles certainly does facilitate learning. As the teacher assesses what might be hindering success in a certain student in a specific area, an understanding of the learning style is very helpful in getting said-student “back on track.”