(another) Review of Learning Styles

I’ve got to provide an overview of an internal review of ‘learning styles’ this week, and I’ve decided to try to provide something positive that people can use. I know most of this stuff has been said before, but for those new to teaching and learning I hope there is some stuff here you can use to develop your approaches. Many of the points in “Principles of better lesson design” are from Hattie’s latest work (2012)

A group of staff were asked to address the question: “Are we really teaching in a way that promotes effective learning for individual students amongst each of our students, given the sea change in technology and young peoples’ differing backgrounds, skills, attitudes and aspirations?”
The author reviewed the contested issue of learning styles and considered how best to address the need for students to learn in different ways. It was intended that a set of strategies or guidelines could be formulated to help teachers plan and deliver their lessons in ways that would better engage students and enhance learning. An extensive literature search was performed to identify relevant sources to inform the review. The main reports and recent experimental studies were critically analysed, and the key themes that repeatedly emerged across studies were identified. A bibliography of documents consulted appears at the end of this document.

Conclusions: Using Learning Styles

There is no adequate evidence base to justify the use of ‘learning styles’ or brain-based learning approaches that have been used in teaching. These tend to categorise people, or they are used inappropriately to make decisions on teaching strategies.
Staff should not be using learning styles questionnaires to categorise, label or otherwise ‘organise’ students. Integrating learning styles assessments into educational practice and organising teaching and learning around the results is unlikely to impact student outcomes in a meaningful way and is not considered best practice. Tutors would be better advised to plan learning around pedagogical practices that have a strong evidence base.

Why not use ‘learning styles’ in the classroom?

There is a lack of credible independent evidence to support the assertions made about the wide range of learning styles currently available;

The self selection questionnaires used to identify a dominant or preferred ‘learning style’ are unreliable and cannot demonstrate test-retest validity;

Self selection questionnaires are not sampling learning behaviour but learners’ impressions.

The ‘learning styles’ approaches have been refuted by significant independent research and analysis from researchers in England, Wales, the USA and New Zealand eg Coffield (2004), Howard-Jones (2007), Geake (2007), Pashler et al (2008) and Hattie (2012).

Planning for learning

Based on 15 years research involving over 50,000 studies, Hattie (20012; 51) suggests that lesson planning should include five essential components: Challenge, Confidence, High expectations, Commitment, and Conceptual understanding.

Planned lessons should;

Invoke appropriate challenges that engage students’ commitment to invest in learning;

Capitalise on and build on students’ confidence to attain the learning intentions;

Be based on appropriately high expectations of outcomes for students;

Lead to students having goals to master, and encourage them to invest in their learning; and

Have learning intentions (aims) and success criteria (outcomes) that are explicitly known by the student.

(Hattie (20012; 51)

In order to guide tutors to moving towards these principles, a set of guidelines have been drawn from the research.

Principles of better lesson design

1. Start your planning by asking “How can they learn this?” – not “How can I teach it?”
2. When designing a lesson have clear Aims (the learning intentions) and Outcomes (the success criteria).
a. Learning intentions for any lesson need to include a combination of surface, deep and conceptual goals.
i. Surface Learning: Accepting new facts and ideas (content) uncritically and attempting to store them as isolated, unconnected items.
ii. Deep Learning: Examining new facts and ideas (content) critically, and tying them into existing cognitive structures and making numerous links between ideas.
iii. Concept Learning: Building conceptual understanding of new facts and ideas (content) and using this in future learning.
b. Both the teacher and the student must know where the lesson is going.
c. Have a way of knowing that the desired learning has been achieved (the success criteria or outcome). This does not mean knowing if and when the students complete the activities, but knowing whether they gain the concepts and understanding relative to the lesson’s intentions.
d. Consider stating the purpose of the lesson so that students can see how it relates to other lessons, activities or assessment tasks.
3. Keep each activity (or learning episode) to about 10 minutes before doing something different.
4. Identify additional easier and harder learning tasks that keep all students on track longer.
5. Pay attention to each student’s abilities, talents and interests.
6. Decide what is really important in what you are teaching, and teach it and convey it in different ways. There is no need to classify students into different ‘intelligences’.
7. Use multiple ways of teaching, and offer many ways of learning:

Provide abstract and conceptual tasks requiring thinking

Allow time for self study and introspection

Find ways of creating interaction with other students

Get students thinking about tasks, and discussing, working and sharing with other students

Use individual, pair, small group and whole class activities

Involve speaking and listening in the lesson – and not just from the teacher

Find ways of using rhythm & sound

Create opportunities for movement and physical activity

Use drawings and imagery to illustrate the teaching, and for learners to show their learning

Find ways to involve and use of examples from nature
(based on Gardner (1999) and Hattie (2012))

Bibliography

Coffield, F., Moseley, D., Hall, E., & Ecclestone, K., 2004. Should we be using learning styles? What research has to say in practice. Learning and Skills Research Centre, London.
Entwistle, N.J., & Ramsden, P., 1983. Understanding Student Learning. Croom Helm, London.
Gagné, R. M., 1965. The conditions of learning. Holt, Rinehart and Winston, New York
Gardner, Howard., 1999. Intelligence Reframed. Multiple intelligences for the 21st century, New York: Basic Books.
Hattie, J., 2009. Visible Learning; a synthesis of over 800 meta-analyses relating to achievement Routledge, London.
Hattie, J., 2012. Visible Learning for Teachers: Maximizing Impact on Learning Routledge, London.
Howard-Jones, P., Pickering, S., & and Diack, A. 2007. Perceptions of the role of neuroscience in education. The Innovation Unit, London.
Marton, F., and Saljo, R. (1997). Approaches to learning. In F. Marton, D.J. Hounsell and N.J. Entwistle, (eds.), The Experience of Learning. (2nd. edn.), Edinburgh: Scottish Academic Press.
Pashler, H., McDaniel, M., Rohrer, D., & and Bjork, R., 2008. Learning Styles: Concepts and Evidence Psychological Science in the Public Interest (PSPI). 9,3, 103-116

How to cite this blog:
Trangmar, R., (2012) Teaching and Learning for 21st Century Learners. [online] Available from: http://yrathro.wordpress.com/2012/02/01/another-review-of-learning-styles/ [Accessed 17 March 2012]

You can download a PDF file from here: 21cTeachingAndLearning_LearningStyles_2011v3

… and always, keep an eye on Steve Wheeler’s blog here …