Academic Musings & Tech for Learning

Sept 14, 2009: The Washington Post Blog: The Answer Sheet – Willingham: Student “Learning Styles” Theory Is Bunk.

Learning styles gets a lot of attention in current teacher education. Daniel Willingham, guest blogger. cognitive scientiest and author of Why Students Don’t Like School, “It doesn’t work–not only for the visual-auditory-kinesthetic theory, but for many other learning styles theories that have been proposed and tested since the 1940s.”  He goes on to state that, “Suggesting that teachers cater to learning styles—when teachers must already do some differentiation based on what students know—makes a teacher’s job much more difficult with no benefit to students.”

But the bottom line seems to be that categorizing students within the framework of auditory, visual and kinesthetic is meaningless. I would comment, however, that varying delivery methods can make for a more engaging classes. Learning often involves repeated exposure and actual use of information; doing that in different ways is certainly more interesting than doing it the same way all the time.

Tim Holt blogs about MI’s in this post on his blog.

“I propose that there is a multiple intelligence for students that related directly to technology. I call it Multiple Technology Intelligences (MTI).”

• Animation Intelligence: Student learn by creating drawings and animations.
• Gaming Intelligence: Students learn through simulation, whether creating or playing.
• Video Intelligence: Students learn through the creation of multimedia video content such as digital storytelling.
• Music Intelligence: Student learn through the creation of music, ringtones, jungles, etc.
• Podcasting Intelligence: Student learn through the creation of audio narratives.
• Office Intelligence: Students learn best through the use of traditional office-style programs.
  
• Connecting Intelligence: Students learn best through the use of social networking. This also includes video conferencing.”

In creating assignments for students, it is important to allow them a choice of avenues for learning and presenting.This list of multiple technologies is an exceptionally great way to look at it and compare it to Gardner’s categories. Go to the post for some insightful comments. I particularly like adding Programming to the Gaming category.