Learning Styles Theory Is Bunk

Cognitive scientist Daniel Willingham explains in a Washington Post blog post that according to data about learning styles, the idea there are visual learners, auditory learners, kinesthetic learners is untrue. He explains that "the lesson clicks or doesn’t because of the knowledge the child brought to the lesson, his interests, or other factors." He further explains that requiring teachers to cater to the whole variety of learning styles isn't entirely helpful, challenging Michelle Rhee's vision of a good teacher being someone who can target multiple learning styles.

Willingham explains that education professionals and leaders of public schools systems are getting bad data about what makes for good teaching, subsequently making a teachers job unnecessarily difficult. The question of bad data seems to indicate a problem that's about more than just learning styles.

[Photo credit: eriwst]