Are Learning Styles Useful?

Every teacher already knows that each student learn differently from his or her peers. In the last couple of decades a theory emerged that a few key learning styles could explain and define some of those differences in how children learn.

The seven learning styles described are based on Howard Gardner’s idea of multiple intelligences. In defense of his work, Gardner himself emphasizes that what he described in his original work weren’t learning styles, but rather different facets of how each mind works. Nonetheless, his ideas have gone on to inspire discussions, infographics, teaching theories and quizzes all based around trying to pin down a clearer understanding of the different ways people learn.

How Not to Use Learning Styles

“Learning styles” has become a controversial term due to the fear that it can lead to harmful or reductive ways of thinking about how we approach teaching and learning. In the worst case scenario, students would be identified as one “type” of learner, and never exposed to other modalities. Most of the risks associated with pigeonholing learners can be easily avoided.

Don’t Let Them Limit Your Idea of an Individual

Each student displays a mix of these learning styles, but most show greater strengths in some of them in comparison to others.Teachers can certainly find value in better understanding the strengths of each student. That recognition can help you understand which assignments a student is likely to enjoy the most and which ones they may perform well on, but it also lets you know the types of work it would be good for them to get more practice in. Even if watching a video might not be the form of learning that works best for them, learning by video is still a worthwhile skill for them to learn.

Don’t Trust Teaching to Learning Styles to Lead to Results

Learning styles have been a popular idea in the teaching sphere for long enough that we’ve had time to test it. The results haven’t been great. Most of the evidence suggests that people don’t actually learn better if they stick to their preferred learning style.

Don’t Assume Every Student Should Stick with the Way They Prefer

Part of the problem may be that we don’t know ourselves as well as we think. The way a person prefers to learn isn’t necessarily the way they learn best.  To complicate things further, the way a student learns best in one subject could be entirely different than how they do in another – and which they prefer in each could have no bearing on the actual results.

Can Learning Styles Be Useful?

In spite of all the criticisms and contrary evidence, thinking in terms of learning styles can provide a benefit to teachers. Technology has made providing a mix of lesson types that speak to these different categories easier than ever. We’ve explored a number of the possibilities before, including many that mix.

Clearly, the examples above are just a tiny portion of the ways that these ideas can be applied in the classroom. We didn’t even get into some of the more obvious options like assigning podcasts or having students create blogs that mix multimedia elements. You have endless options when it comes to giving assignments and doing presentations that mix all these different ways of learning and thinking. As long as you treat these categories as inspiration rather than a limitation, they can take your teaching practice far.