Willingham's idea on myth of learning styles Flashcards
What is learning styles and how long have they been used?
used in education for many years, assumes students have different learning styles and would learn better if teachers created lessons tailored to each preferred style.
LS include : Visual learners = learn from reading
Auditory learners = learn best from listening to teachers
Kinaesthetic learner = ‘hands on’ approach
Who is Willingham and what is his idea ?
a psychologist from university of Virginia . Learners may express a preference of the way they learn but when tested under experimental condition, it makes no difference to their learning. He also observes that although people may state a preferred earning style, if they are asked ow they learn things, people want to know what it is that they’re going to learn first. Suggesting learning objective is more important than learning style.
Willingham suggests that confusion arises from
the fact that diff people have diff abilities. For example: Orla might be good at processing visual information and Joshua might be skilled at processing auditory information. If you show the two a map of Venice and then put them in the city, Orla will be much better at orientating herself while Joshua might get lost. Doesn’t mean Orla learns best from reading and Joshua by listening to a podcast.
Pashler, Mcdonail, Rohler and Bjork comprehensive review of research into effectiveness of students taught by preferred learning styles
- found that Vast amount of research although not follow experimental precedures = not effectively test validity of Learning styles
- For example, after determining people preferred learning styles, participants were randomly assigned to groups recieing diff ways of learning the same info then tested on their learning in same way. Most studies did not do this. Those studies who did use appropiate research methods failed to find evidence that using peoples preferred learning styles improved performance.
Willingham’s suggestion on interest and learning styles
Suggests a persons ability , background knowledge and interest in a subject has a more influential effect on learning than learning styles
Willingham’s suggestion on confirmation bias and learning styles
Suggests idea has persisted because of confirmation bias. Willingham explains that when we are evaluating our beliefs, we tend to take notice of information that supports our views and ignore information that contradicts it, even if there is a lot of contradictory evidence
Willingham states teachers should be more concerned whether method of teaching best fits the content rather than concerning themselves with using a video for visual learners or podcast for auditory
In Willingham’s books, “ Why don’t students like school “ He suggests
knowledge must be meaningful and recommends that teachers knowledge and facts to students create links between information rather than just given facts to memorise ( example of kings and queens )
Most important for learning is thinking about meaning of material rather than trying to teach about preferred learning styles.
How is giving information meaning beneficial ?
Why is drilling info not beneficial ?
info deeply learnt and recall more easily from long term memory. Willingham believes drilling info is damaging for students as it’s boring, makes them dislike education, school.
What does Willingham suggest about homework ?
teachers should be careful w setting HW and consider if it beneficial as it will affect what they remember. Willingham argues knowledge should be meaningful and engage learners, teachers should not try make info relevant to students personal interest as it doesn’t improve their learning.
What does Willingham suggest that is contrary to Piaget ?
- students unable to think like actual scientists or historians as that’s only possible after many years of study. Willingham recommend that teachers need to think carefully about what benefit is there for students to conduct scientific experiments.
2 criticism of Willingham
Many teachers and lecturers at universities would disagree with Willingham’s views about there being little benefit in students trying to be like actual scientists or historians. They argue that it is very
important for students to conduct experiments themselves for the exact reason that they start to learn the issues involved in conducting research themselves, such as the difficulties in ensuring research is replicable and controlling for
extraneous variables that can affect the outcome of the research.
Certain things might benefit from being drilled. For example, learning times tables by (chanting them). If students are able to access and recall their
tables this way, it will help them with their mental arithmetic at school and in the future. While it might not suit every learner, many students would benefit from it.
2 criticism of Willingham
In general, both Dweck and Willingham’s theories favour the idea of nurture over nature as they are learning theories. Willingham states that if the method of teaching best fits the content, then learners will do well. However, by ignoring the influence of innate factors on children’s development – for example, some children’s brains may be wired differently –he may be discounting the fact that those children might need to be taught in a specific way to assist their learning, regardless of the content.
Although Willingham’s theory favours nurture, he ignores the fact that some children are kinaesthetic learners because this is how they were taught at school when they were very young.
Therefore, having been conditioned to learn in that way, children may do better continuing to learn kinaesthetically as they grow older.
