re: The idea that we each have a 'learning style' is nonsense

i would disagree with this a bit. I can read something over and over and still not get it. Show me something once and I can get it pretty quickly.

In college, as long as i did the physical activity of taking notes (like calc, physics, engineering, etc.), I didn't have to study. I could absorb it quickly.

In classes where it was reading based or just someone talking, I had a very hard time absorbing it and processing it well enough to understand it.

For math specifically, teachers that combined the visual graphing of everything like derivatives, integrals, matrices, etc. it made everything click. When teach just did equations, it was more difficult to piece it all together and see how it was related. But seeing something in graphical form made it super easy to remember equations and such because I could build them based on something i could see or remember seeing.

quote:

---

Do we each have preferences when it comes to how we receive information? Sure.

---

quote:

---

The idea that we each have a 'learning style' is nonsense

---

Holy contradiction

I am primarily a visual learner. If you just describe something to me with no visuals I will be lost. But at the same time I can remember something better short term (like a string of numbers) if I say them out loud.

quote:

---

Holy contradiction

---

Well you obviously didn't real the OP. Which is a terrible way to learn tbh.

Researchers spoke to that specifically. Students who said they preferred certain methods didn't actually fair better when they implemented those learning methods, when compared to the students who didn't use their preferred methods.

They found that by and large the students learned through similar kinds of practice.

quote:

---

Don't most teachers inadvertently hit a few of the styles? They discuss what they're teaching (audible), hand out study sheets (text based) and you have pictures in school books (visual).

---

Absolutely. I find that it takes care of itself, but I don't consciously create a lesson thinking, "What can I do for my tactile learners."

I think this is correct to a certain extent. However, in my own experience, I learn better through repetition and doing it myself after somebody has shown me. I’m not very good at learning via somebody telling me how, I can’t visualize things happening in my head unless I’ve already practiced with it.

What is a puzzle to me is why so many educated people have so little common sense.Wy wife’s family esp.full of highly educated people that can’t seem to get it together in life.My stepson is probably the worst,he is 45,has 3 college degrees but his life has been 1 crisis after another.It’s like he has to learn every life lesson the hard way.Myself,I tended to pay attention to other people’s lives and saw what worked and what didn’t and follow their example.

Learning is a combination of that entire Venn Diagram.

It's on the person doing the teaching to put the curriculum together, in an order that is understandable.

You wouldn't skip from A to C, without B. Or you wouldn't start at B, without having covered A, etc etc.

I don't know if I would say it is completely nonsense. But I dont think it should just be completely forgotten about. I have seen many times where as a student we would have to do whatever quiz activity to determine our learning style, and then they would try to drill it in our heads about the facts related to that style. I never felt that was useful.

But on the other hand, i have learnee over the course of my life there are things that work for me, and things that dont. For example, in elementary school our teachers taught us jingles about everything. From the planets to history facts to geographical countries and even mathematical formulas. Id be damned if i don't remember alot of those same jingles to this day.

Also if Im reading something, it takes me reading it like 2-3 timea befor it actually clicks. In college I would feel so stupid as it would take me ridiculously long just to read the stupid chapters.
Also in college I had friends who would do the old school thing of recording their lectures. This way, either they did not come to class or they would come and fall asleep. That shite did NOT work for me. I had to take notes, go home and read those notes, and oftentimes go over those notes with a classmate, or the professsor himself.

You dont need to focus on the prescribed learning styles. But you do need to figure out what works best for you, as it wont be the same for everyone.