Teacher here. Unfortunately this myth is incredibly resistant to attempts to dispel it. It is still included in teacher training and professional development and many schools still require teachers to address it in their learning plans.<p>I feel it's hard to address because, among other reasons,
1. Its useful for administrators. Parents and students want to feel that you are teaching them on an individual level. Learning styles is "legitimate" enough to point to for administrators.<p>2. It's something of a personal belief for many teachers.
But lets pull out one key point from amongst all the negatives in this article: "Students will improve if they think about how they learn"<p>The formal frameworks we have come up with haven't been effective, and trying to put them in a classroom haven't been effective. But that doesn't mean that everyone learns the same and we should just force everyone into the same box either. Our educational systems need work. We may not have the best answers yet, but we should keep looking.
Perhaps instead of considering students to have different learning styles, it would be more appropriate to say they are more or less resistant to various "teaching styles" (used as a catch-all term for teachers' cognitive biases that leave some students behind more than others).
I've been struggling with this a lot lately. I'm in a Masters program. I'm struggling. After a lot of reflection, it's due largely to the way the class is taught. I need lots of examples over the field. Don't throw a wall of math at me. Show me how to do Thing1, then Thing2, and then Thing3. I'll induce a process.<p>So while it's not the types of learning offered in the article, I think there is style around inductive learning and deductive learning. I think the math folk are deductive learners, and teach that way. People like more, more on the art side of software design spectrum, are inductive learners. The two don't mix.<p>So neuroscientists reading this post, please to to the NSF for grant money about this. We might get more masters level or PhD's if a) there is such a distinction and b) we can adjust programs appropriately.
One thing I notice in learning styles - is they don't seem to test retention rate months later.<p>I may be able to cram my brain with crap - but in 2 months time, i'll be able to remember what I can visualise, not what i heard or learnt with a lecturer yapping on about.
I could very well agree that there's no evidence for, but I am not convinced that there's sufficient evidence against.<p>I'm finding it really, really hard to believe that everyone learns the same way... and I don't trust the current system to be capable of making such an assessment, learning styles or not. It may not be written vs visual, it may be something else, maybe it's a lot more complex.
My entire life, listening to classroom lecture has been an absolute struggle for me. It requires a monumental amount of effort and willpower to pay attention, process and retain all that info at the same time.<p>On the other hand, I can read something once and If I can handle the material, I typically retain it effortlessly. I know a lot of other people that cannot self-educate via reading.<p>This study seems to be suggesting something similar to a denial that introverted and extroverted types exist. How can they not?<p>Im a little suspicious of the proposition:<p>poor results when current matching styles to lessons = learning styles do not exist.