The idea of learning styles has been fairly comprehensively debunked.   It’s origins come from the idea of multiple intelligences.

Here is a bit from Howard Gardner (who started the whole MI ball rolling) about Multiple Intelligences an why they are not  ‘learning styles’

“The basic idea is simplicity itself. A belief in a single intelligence assumes that we have one central, all-purpose computer—and it determines how well we perform in every sector of life. In contrast, a belief in multiple intelligences assumes that we have a number of relatively autonomous computers—one that computes linguistic information, another spatial information, another musical information, another information about other people, and so on.”

He has 2 problems with learning styles.

“the notion of  ”learning styles”’ is itself not coherent. Those who use this term do not define the criteria for a style, nor where styles come from, how they are recognized/assessed/exploited.”

“there is not persuasive evidence that the learning style analysis produces more effective outcomes than a “one size fits all approach.”

“As an educator, I draw three primary lessons for educators:

1.       Individualize your teaching as much as possible. Instead of “one size fits all,” learn as much as you can about each student, and teach each person in ways that they find comfortable and learn effectively. Of course this is easier to accomplish with smaller classes. But ‘apps’ make it possible to individualize for everyone.

2.        Pluralize your teaching. Teach important materials in several ways, not just one (e.g. through stories, works of art, diagrams, role play). In this way you can reach students who learn in different ways. Also, by presenting materials in various ways, you convey what it means to understand something well. If you can only teach in one way, your own understanding is likely to be thin.

3.       Drop the term “styles.” It will confuse others and it won’t help either you or your students.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2013/10/16/howard-gardner-multiple-intelligences-are-not-learning-styles/

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Annie Murphy Paul has looked at a range of papers and in her article, ‘Forget about learning Styles, here is something better’,  has this to say.

The lesson here: The “learning style” that teachers and parents should focus on is the universal learning style of the human mind, and two characteristics of it in particular.

First, students benefit from encountering information in multiple forms. They learn more, for example, from flashcards that incorporate both text and images—charts, graphs, etc.—than from cards that display text alone.

Second, students’ interest is kept alive by novelty and variety, so regularly turning away from textbooks and blackboards is key. As long as the new activity genuinely informs the students about the academic subject at hand, clapping a math lesson—or sketching in science class, or acting during story time—can help every student to learn better.

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My problem with learning styles relates to Gardner’s point 3.  It comes from an experience with a student who claimed that she didn’t like the way I was teaching and assessing because it didn’t suit her learning style.  I had overhauled an old flash card based prac and assessment (which she was familiar with) and replaced it with a simulation that fairly closely mimicked the actual emergency activity the student would be required to undertake in the workplace.  I didn’t get rid of flash cards in the program they just no longer reflected the assessment.

The assessment and pracs were higher pressure, there was less time for reflection and mistakes had consequences that had to be dealt with.   Students had to prove they could achieve the task, regardless of their personal comfort level or notions of a preferred learning style.

Of course not all programs are as vocationally focused as this example, but for me, the desired outcome still drives the design, resources, and assessment.

We start by asking – what do we want the student to walk out the door knowing.  What skills are they going to need.

Then we sit down and look at all our options decide how are we’re going to help students get to that outcome.