As I was reading Victor Hugor’s blogs, I came across the blog “Learning Styles Don’t Exist?” Mr. Hugor must have read my mind, because this was topic that I was going to write about for my assignment this week! I must say that by reading all the information on Learning Styles throughout this course, I am now on information overload!! The facts are that people learn in different ways and have a preferred style of learning. But are these really facts? I’m beginning to think the answer is “no”. I had to think about this for a minute. How is it that I learn best? I am a visual learner. Yep, that’s me. But wait! I now realize that if I combined the styles (visual, auditory, and kinesthetic), I would learn that much more! So what does that mean? Do learning styles really exist? A week ago, I would have said “absolutely!” Today, I’m not so sure….
I think we have a preference, but I don't think that means we cannot learn from a different style. The important thing at this stage, is not if the styles exist or not, but is the student learning? As teachers/facilitators in the classroom, that's what matters.
ReplyDeleteRight there with you on this! I talked about a very similar thing on my blog, so I'm glad I find there are others coming to the same conclusion.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Leonard. Are the students learning? I do think we all learn differently. I do think that the facilitator needs to vary his or her approach. I don't think, however, that in every lesson, you need to have charts and graphs and visuals and lecture and activities to help students learn. Talk about overload. I know I am comfortable learning in a certain way and some ways of teaching bore me to tears. And, if someone was only using charts and graphs, I would be out of my element as I don't think like that.
ReplyDeleteI also agree about the overload...educators in trying to prove some other point or write their thesis, have overcomplicated it.
I don't think that as instructors that we should just create activities that are just geared for specific learning styles. I think that it would be just as easy to create activities that include all styles of learning. For example, in Assignment 4.1 we have to create activities for multiple learning styles. I believe that students would learn so much more if instructors took this approach in their classrooms.
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