week 7 blog

After finish reading the article, the “learning style” theory interests me a lot, the article reveals this worthless theory step by step, now let’s get into it.
Neil Fleming suggested that people have different “learning styles”, based on his overwatch of teachers and students’ behavior over 9,000 classes, and then he developed the VARK questionnaire to determine someone’s “learning style”, VARK stands for Visual, Auditory, Reading, and Kinesthetic, each one represent a learning type. This theory then got a lot of supports.
However, people are not just one certain kind of learner or another, an example is given in this article. Husmann and her colleagues had hundreds of students to take the VARK questionnaire, the questionnaire determined what kind of learner each student suppose to be and each of them was given an ideal studying strategy which could best suit their learning style. However, the result turned out that those who tailored their studying strategy to suit their learning style did not make any progress on tests.
This phenomenon proved a fact that there’s a study habit for each individual, once they got used to the habit, their learning style became stable and tough to be changed, which means even though one knows what type of learner he actually is, it doesn’t matter anymore. People also set their learning style just based on their preference or what they believe they meant to be.
Therefore, It is not people’s learning style that distinguishes their learning performance, but their abilities.
Taking all these factors into consideration, we can naturally come to the conclusion that it is not necessary to let students know what type of learner they actually are, individuals’ best studying strategy are the one which they got used to. People should stop thinking of themselves as a kind of learner and the “learning style” theory should be banned. Teachers should not blindly believe the “learning styles” theory, they do not need to tailor their teaching style to suit each student, the very factor which can enhance a student’s studying is to let him get into the material, just that simple， there’s no need to give such an extravagantly colorful description, be loyal to the original way is more important.

Comments

  1. AnonymousFebruary 27, 2019 at 1:49 PM

    Thank you for sharing. I totally agree that it is not necessary to let students know what type of learner they are actually, individuals'best learning strategies are the one which they got used to. We don't need to confine students to a fixed circle, for example: you are a good student or you are a bad student. Teachers should abandon the stereotype of students, so as to stimulate the maximum potential of students, in order to achieve better educational results.

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  2. AnonymousFebruary 28, 2019 at 10:08 AM

    Thank you for sharing! It is very interesting to know the "learning style" theory. As you said, "It is not people’s learning style that distinguishes their learning performance, but their abilities", then it is essential for educators and parents to be quite familiar with children's abilities, personalities, and habits. At this point, it is necessary for educators and parents to share or guide appropriate learning methods and strategies, so that learners are able to develop their independent thinking towards learning style. It is also necessary to guide children to develop their ability of introspection, to know their strengths and shortcomings, so that they can constantly improve themselves through their learning process.

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  3. AnonymousFebruary 28, 2019 at 1:07 PM

    Thank you for the blog. I am interested in the learning style theory you mentioned. However, I have a different opinion about what you said that "it is not necessary to let students know what type of learners they are actually are, ... which they got used to". From my understanding, it might be not better or suitable for students to apply the learning strategies that match their learning style, however, it doesn't mean that they do not need to know what type of learners they are. I think students need to know how they learn, and teachers should help them to do that as well, then they can realize the disadvantages they need to improve in learning. The learning strategy that matches a student's learning style may not be helpful to him might be because the he just has not found the suitable learning style for him. Therefore, I think what teachers should do is to help students know their learning process and find a learning style that suits them, then provide suitable learning strategies for them.

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