It Is Complicated: Learning and Teaching Is Not About “Learning Styles”
It Is Complicated: Learning and Teaching Is Not About “Learning Styles”
Lawrence, Breanna C.;Ntelioglou, Burcu Yaman;Milford, Todd;
2020-08-27 00:00:00
NEUROSCIENCE Published: 27 August 2020 doi: 10.3389/frym.2020.00110 IT IS COMPLICATED: LEARNING AND TEACHING IS NOT ABOUT “LEARNING STYLES” 1* 2 3 Breanna C. Lawrence , Burcu Yaman Ntelioglou and Todd Milford Department of Educational Psychology and Student Services, Faculty of Education, Brandon University, Brandon, MB, Canada Department of Curriculum and Pedagogy, Faculty of Education, Brandon University, Brandon, MB, Canada Department of Curriculum and Instruction, Faculty of Education, University of Victoria, Victoria, BC, Canada Learning styles is perhaps one of the most widespread and believed YOUNG REVIEWERS: myths in education. The idea is based on the claim that all students EMILY can be classified according to their particular learning style, and that AGE: 11 they learn best when teachers match instruction to the preferred style of the student. This popular theory has been proven false by MIHAJLO many learning scientists. Learning styles theory reduces sophisticated AGE: 16 and complex processes like teaching and learning into overly simple categories and labels students in ways that can limit their potential. Studies performed by scientists who study the brain and education have found that learning and teaching are much more complicated than simply matching teaching to a student’s learning style. kids.frontiersin.org August 2020 | Volume 08 | Article 110 | 1 Lawrence et al. Learning Styles Is a Neuromyth WHAT DOES THE IDEA OF LEARNING STYLES CLAIM? You might have heard some teachers say that students have di erent learning styles. For example, maybe they said some people are “visual LEARNING STYLES learners” who prefer to learn by seeing, or that other students are A theory about how “auditory learners” who learn best by listening, or “kinesthetic learners” people can be who learn best by doing. Maybe you have even taken a survey or test to classified according to a preferred way of find out your own learning style. Many people believe that all students learning, such as can be classified according to their preferred learning styles and that visually, auditory, or students learn best when teachers match the way they teach to the kinesthetically and preferred learning style of the student. Although the theory of learning instruction works best when it is matched to styles is very popular, it has been proven false by many neuroscientists. their preferred way Despite evidence to suggest that learning styles are not true, many of learning. educators still believe it [1]. The idea of learning styles is an example NEUROSCIENTISTS of a neuromyth, which is a commonly held false belief about how the brain functions. In this article, we will describe why the learning styles Scientists that study the brain and how it claim is a neuromyth and discuss why it could be harmful to believe impacts thinking this myth. We will also explain how neuroscience, which is the study and behaviors. of how the brain works, helps us to understand the complexities of NEUROMYTH teaching and learning. A commonly held false belief about how the brain functions. WHY IS THE LEARNING STYLES CLAIM A NEUROMYTH? NEUROSCIENCE The idea of learning styles lacks scientific evidence to support it. The scientific study of However, many teachers, and much of the general population, believe the structure and function of the brain that learning styles exist. Learning styles is perhaps one of the most and nervous system. widely believed neuromyths [2]. One research group [3] found that over 90% of teachers believe in learning styles and another [4] showed that over 60% of teachers think that teaching to students’ learning styles helps the students to learn. Apparently, many people are easily convinced to believe in unproven claims if those claims seem to include neuroscience details. Learning styles is an example of an educational tool that seems so right because there are parts of the claim that are true . For example, people do See have preferences for how they learn, or ways they like to learn the danielwillingham.com best. Presenting information in several di erent ways is an important educational practice that teachers learn about in teacher’s college. However, this does not that mean matching teaching to a student’s preferred way of learning actually improves their understanding, because the brain does not work that way. WHY IS THE LEARNING STYLES NEUROMYTH HARMFUL? The belief in learning styles can be harmful because the theory of learning styles reduces complicated processes like teaching and learning into overly simple categories and labels students in ways that kids.frontiersin.org August 2020 | Volume 08 | Article 110 | 2 Lawrence et al. Learning Styles Is a Neuromyth Figure 1 How you learn info graphic. The info graphic illustrates how you learn is not easily reduced or categorized. Created by Brendon Ehinger (http://ehinger.ca/). Figure 1 can limit their potentials (see Figure 1). It is appealing to assume that students could learn more easily if instruction was simply changed to match their individual learning styles, but the way the brain processes information is much more complicated than that. Imagine this: you determine you are a visual learner, meaning you prefer instructions that are presented visually. In French class, you are working on developing your conversational skills and accent. You read and see many written examples of conversations and there are even phonetic spellings presented (the words are written out the way they sound), but your preference for visual information is really not helping you speak better French. You struggle to pronounce many words and to understand what a French speaker is saying. Your learning style, “visual learner,” does not seem to help you learn better in this situation! Learning a language and the practice of that language require the coordinated use of seeing, hearing, and doing. In addition to these three skills, memory, emotion, motivation, thinking, and imagination are also important parts of the learning process [5]. It is often not possible for teachers to try to limit their teaching to specific learning styles, and it could potentially be harmful to learning if they try to do so—it could create a lot of frustration! We ask that teachers be extremely cautious of the neuromyth of learning styles, because there is no scientific evidence that teaching to specific learning styles actually produces better learning. Instead, learning happens in an interconnected way. When you remember any piece of information, you process that information using multiple senses, combining what you heard, said, remembered, saw, felt, smelled, etc. Therefore, if teachers believe in the learning styles claim and attempt to limit students to a particular learning style, this could significantly reduce which senses and processes are used kids.frontiersin.org August 2020 | Volume 08 | Article 110 | 3 Lawrence et al. Learning Styles Is a Neuromyth for learning, which could impair the ability of some students to learn new information. NEUROSCIENCE HELPS US TO UNDERSTAND THE PLASTICITY COMPLEXITY OF TEACHING AND LEARNING The brains ability to form new connections, Neuroscience helps us understand the complexity of how the brain be flexible, and ability to be modified grows and changes when learning happens. Teachers should know by experience. that neuroscience research indicates that learning is based on experience, not learning styles. Therefore, learning about neuroscience NEURAL NETWORK helps teachers provide better instruction in the classroom. In teacher’s Consist of many college, we learn about how our brains have plasticity, which means interconnected neurons. our brains adapt to our experiences. So, teachers should expose NEURON students to a lot of experiences, in many di erent ways, and also take A cell in the nervous into consideration students’ prior knowledge, abilities, and interests. systems that sends Daily events in our lives and the lessons we learn in the classrooms information to other create neural networks that help us use and remember what we have cells (other nerve cells, learned. A neural network consists of many interconnected brain cells, muscles, or gland cells). Nerve cells are called neurons. At birth, a human has only a small percentage of the considered the basic neural network and the vast majority of the network is created through units of the brain. life experience Meaningful explorations and practice strengthen See https:// neural networks and also help students feel more confident, capable, husman-memory and connected to what they are learning. In response to experiences, .net/brain- neurons -synapses/ neurons form and eventually whole networks of connections can become specialized for functions like speaking an additional language. So, as we learn new things, our brains adapt by creating new connections between neurons, changing the neural network. Learning takes time and practice, just like learning to speak a new language the more you practice and the more you are exposed to the language, the more ecient you will be at processing and performing skills like speaking and comprehending. LEARNING IS COMPLEX The neuromyth of learning styles can be very problematic, as it reduces learning and teaching process into overly simple processes that do not actually help students learn more eciently. Even though this theory has been proven false, many people still believe it! Learning styles is one of the most popular neuromyths among teachers. What is important to remember is that learning actually involves underlying thinking processes and relies on our experiences. We know that students’ background knowledge, abilities, and interests are central to their learning, not learning styles. The process of learning and the ways that our bodies and brains are interconnected is multifaceted, and MULTIFACETED scientists who study learning are still discovering and understanding Includes many parts. how these processes work. Learners need to be exposed to a variety of tasks and have information presented in multiple ways. The ways information is presented must be meaningful not only to what is being kids.frontiersin.org August 2020 | Volume 08 | Article 110 | 4 Lawrence et al. Learning Styles Is a Neuromyth learned (like a new language), but also to the learner. We hope you can see that teaching is much more complicated than simply matching a learner to a learning style! ACKNOWLEDGMENTS We would like to thank those who assisted in the translation of the articles in this Collection to make them more accessible to kids outside English-speaking countries, and for the Jacobs Foundation for providing the funds necessary to translate the articles. For this article, we would especially like to thank Ilona Benneker for the Dutch translation. REFERENCES 1. Riener, C., and Willingham, D. 2010. The myth of learning styles. Change 42:32–35. doi: 10.1080/00091383.2010.503139 2. Newton, P. M. 2015. The learning styles myth is thriving in higher education. Educ. Psychol. 6:1908. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01908 3. Dekker, S., Lee, N. C., Howard-Jones, P., and Jolles, J. 2012. Neuromyths in education: prevalence and predicators of misconceptions among teachers. Front. Psychol. 3:429. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2012.00429 4. Dandy, L., and Bendersky, K. 2014. Student and faculty beliefs about learning in higher education: implications for teaching. Int. J. Teach. Learn. High. Educ. 26:358–80. Available online at: http://www.isetl.org/ijtlhe/ 5. Geake, J. 2008. Neuromythologies in education. Educ. Res. 50:123–33. doi: 10.1080/00131880802082518 SUBMITTED: 02 November 2019; ACCEPTED: 21 July 2020; PUBLISHED ONLINE: 27 August 2020. EDITED BY: Nienke Van Atteveldt, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Netherlands CITATION: Lawrence BC, Yaman Ntelioglou B and Milford T (2020) It Is Complicated: Learning and Teaching Is Not About “Learning Styles”. Front. Young Minds 8:110. doi: 10.3389/frym.2020.00110 CONFLICT OF INTEREST: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest. COPYRIGHT © 2020 Lawrence, Yaman Ntelioglou and Milford. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms. kids.frontiersin.org August 2020 | Volume 08 | Article 110 | 5 Lawrence et al. Learning Styles Is a Neuromyth YOUNG REVIEWERS EMILY, AGE: 11 My name is Emily and I am an 11-years-old aspiring lawyer and astronaut. I live in London, England and will move to secondary school this year. My favorite subject is English literature. In my free time I enjoy swimming, Irish dancing, and reading Harry Potter. MIHAJLO, AGE: 16 Hi. I am Mihajlo and I am currently a sophomore at Third Belgrade Lyceum. My favorite thing about science is that you never know what is going to happen in the end. What drives me to neuroscience is the fact that we know so little about the brain and the nervous system and that there are many things waiting to be discovered by us, passionate scientists. I like learning new things and it is the reason why I do a lot of scientific research with my science mentor. AUTHORS BREANNA C. LAWRENCE Breanna is a professor of educational psychology (the study of teaching and learning) and a counselor educator. She teaches students who would like to become teachers about child and adolescent development and learning theories and also teachers about becoming school counselors. Breanna researches issues related to child and youth resilience, which has been informed by her professional background working in educational and clinical mental health settings with families over the past decade. She loves prairie sunsets and outdoor adventures with her husband and two kids. *lawrenceb@brandonu.ca BURCU YAMAN NTELIOGLOU Burcu is an education professor at Brandon University in Canada. She teaches students who would like to become teachers, and teaches graduate courses to teachers and principals who would like to improve their teaching. Advocating for diversity and equity in education, Burcu is interested in how students develop their languages and literacies in an increasingly global world. Burcu gets to watch a lot of ice hockey games in her free time since she is the proud parent of two boys Deniz (16) and Derin (10) who are both hockey players. TODD MILFORD Todd M. Milford is an associate professor in science education at the University of Victoria and chair of the Department of Curriculum and Instruction. He was a previously a lecturer in the Art, Law, and Education Group at Grith, University in Brisbane Australia. He likes to ride his bike and play basketball in the street in front of his house. kids.frontiersin.org August 2020 | Volume 08 | Article 110 | 6
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