Learning Styles

The Chronicle of Higher Education online had an interesting post on an article published in Psychological Science in the
Public Interest(PSPI) Volume 9, Number 3, titled “Learning Styles: Concepts and Evidence” by Harold Pashler, Mark McDaniel, Doug Rohrer, and Robert Bjork. The Chronicle article is found at http://chronicle.com/article/Matching-Teaching-Style-to/49497/

As you read the Chronicle article and the article itself you note that the authors are not saying that different ways of presenting material are not important. What I think they are saying is that the subject matter, not the student, should determine method used. Their argument is, according to the Chronicle article, “… teachers should worry about matching their instruction to the content they are teaching. Some concepts are best taught through hands-on work, some are best taught through lectures, and some are best taught through group discussions.”
The responses to the article are interesting reading.

In the Multimedia class that I teach the text I selected is “Empowering Online Learning: 100+ Activities for Reading, Reflecting, Displaying and Doing” by Curtis J. Bonk and Ke Zhang.( 2008), San Francisco, Jossey-Bass. The authors detail activities that they claim “address different learning styles and various generations of types of learners in an online environment. “ (p.x). Students in the class, who are already educators training to be online instructors, find the book useful.

Which is correct? Should we match the learning style to the content or to the student? My thought is that, as teachers, we should be aware of the different ways we can approach content. When I have students learning a new procedure I give them three options:
1. Read the manual and figure it out yourself. Some students like to do this.
2. Watch an online video.
3. Read step by step directions
Most students use a combination of two and three. They watch the video while looking at the written instructions.
Maybe students can figure out how they can best learn if options are available to them.