Learning Styles
Having seen my friend Frieda's comments about learning styles - i replied thus:
I’m afraid that ‘Learning Styles’ do not ring my bell – particularly the way they are presented to us. I acknowledge that there is such a thing and that we all possess them, but as they change so often during our lives the science is flawed.
I remember reading once (but have since struggled to find) a paper that suggested that there were over 100 learning styles, a position I fully agree with. Often we try to cram these many styles into neat boxes such as Kinaesthetic, Auditory and Visual (VAK) http://tinyurl.com/b79hnh but then forget to address other theories of learning (I’ll park that there for now).
If we label learners as ‘this’ (and that is what LS Questionnaires are designed to do), they can often miss opportunities to learn in ‘that’ way. I suspect that we all have preferred learning styles and that we know that these change over time; sometimes as frequently as during the day.
For example, let’s take Honey and Mumford’s Reflector, Theorist, Activist, Pragmatist approach – every H & M Questionnaire I’ve ever taken suggests that I’m an Activist. But when I get up on a morning, I’m very much NOT an activist and take a theorist position to my work (because I’m more awake and my brain is working) – as the day progresses I become more of a reflector. And that’s me doing office stuff which involves me learning (all the time). When I’m out on the road and delivering sessions, I become very much an activist (I am rarely pragmatic). How then would someone label me on the VAK scale? I enjoy all three modes of learning.
Moving back to my parked comment, and having (very lightly) explored seven types of learning styles let’s look at how these relate to Kolb. http://www.businessballs.com/kolblearningstyles.htm. [Also see Honey Mumford on same page] Concrete Experience is followed by Reflection on that experience, which is followed by Abstract Conceptualisation, which in turn is followed by Active Experimentation before returning to Concrete Experience and beginning the (Bruner’s spiral curriculum?) cycle again. Isn’t that what Benjamin Bloom was suggesting too?
So – Learning Styles (and particularly LS Questionnaires) – who’d have ‘em?
;-)
