Learning Styles - True or False

I am reading another "business model" educational reform book. Its title, Disrupting Class: How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns, suggests that education needs to be shaken up. It is a very dense book that we will use this semester in one of my doctoral classes. It is a more interesting read than some of the texts we have had but it is a pop science book so I have a hard time putting a great deal of faith in it's propositions. What it suggests seems to make "common sense" but this is my first clue that it may not make a real difference in how schools work or be scientifically sound. Some of its endnotes are particularly educational though. In it are references like, a paper about children in Africa who are extremely adept at knowing how to operate in their environment but are not able to do basic "school" type tasks.

Christensen's basic theory is that because all students learn differently we should create a new type of schooling, using 21st century tools, to customize learning for every student. This new way of teaching should use a "modular" logic that provides different learning style options for the same content. It all sounds good from the point of view of a teacher who sees learning styles operating in my classroom every day. I have at least three learning style groups in my preschool class. The groups are the verbal learners, the kinesthetic learners and the visual learners or to put it comically, the can't be quiet group, the can't sit still group, and the don't say anything but can draw well group. The theory of learning styles is a useful tool for teachers who are trying to help every student become proficient in the various disciplines.

However, it is easy poke holes in theories.

Here is someone who would completely disagree with the foundation of Christensen's theory about modular teaching to learning styles. Dan Willingham is a cognitive psychologist from University of Virginia. I learned about him from my good friend Nancy Flanagan who wrote a rebuttal post on her blog in response to the video below only to have him comment and refute her assertions.

Where do I stand? I think that there may not be learning styles as we traditionally relate them to content areas but there are most definitely learning preferences. I would not necessarily organize learning styles the same way that Gardner does although I was an early recruit to Gardner's tribe back in the 90's. His Unschooled Mind was the first education book I ever read for fun. Since then my perceptions about learning and learning styles has changed. A couple years ago I completed a survey and participated in training around a personality theory called Emergenetics that basically grouped learners into social, analytical, conceptual, and structural tendencies for thinking combined with behavioral attributes of expressiveness, assertiveness, and flexibility. The theory emphasized that everyone had some capacity in all the areas but preferred one over another. I was a strongly conceptual processor which helped me to understand why I have always preferred to understand the big picture first and then break it down when I encounter new information. It was a way of thinking about learning styles that did not use Gardner's suggestions that have strong links to content areas.

Chistensen proposes that the reason kids don't take "hard" classes like math and science in prosperous societies is because there is not enough external motivation to make them want to.
I propose that prosperous societies allow students to move towards disciplines that more closely match their learning preferences in how they are taught.

If science were taught the way my art classes were taught, in that you were shown some basic materials, given some basic skills, and told to create/make something, I might have been a scientist. Instead they were taught with the goal of mastering certain scientific truths as the goal and discovery and creativity was not a part of it at all.

What Dan says about learning styles makes sense but I am not sure it gets at the reason why they are useful. I try to teach my pre-k kids in all of the major "learning styles" so that I am sure to meet their needs. Besides, at 4 years old who doesn't like to sing the alphabet, dance the alphabet, and watch the alphabet on the computer?
What do you think? Are learning styles real? Does it matter if they are or are they just a way to talk about something it is difficult to understand, how our students learn what we teach?

image from: http://www.mnispi.org/cartoon/2001/pages/Learning%20Styles_gif.htm
video from: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sIv9rz2NTUk

it doesn't matter how rich your kid is

Kids who go to preschool make gains, no matter their SES. You gotta love it if you are a preschool teacher.
Another, (yes another) preschool study covered in USA Today found that preschool benefits all students.
This is another log on the fire for expanding preschool services to all students.
Steve Barnett, the godfather or preschool research and the head honcho at NIEER said,

"It's the whole city, it's all of the kids, it's done through the public schools and it seems to produce pretty big effects for all of the kids,"

Now when we combine this with economic research on the costs and benefits of preschool we find we got good deal on our hands.
According to Dr. Timothy Bartik of the Upjohn Institute for Employment Research (2006), while investments in luring businesses can create large financial gains for a state in the short term these benefits are likely to plateau after several years. However, after an initial short-term increase in jobs by creating preschool classrooms, a time release earnings boom begins to tick when a state invests in universal preschool. Bartik also suggested that the return to the state may be less than the return to the nation because 2/3 of state program participants are likely to leave the state in the 12 years that it would take to realize the return on investment. But this benefit to the nation, in terms of higher income and less stress on social services also suggests a stronger federal role in funding preschool initiatives.

How about a preschool Title in NCLB?

When will it happen? Watch me turn blue while I hold my breath ...............................

photo credit: http://blogs.zdnet.com/open-source/?p=981

think outside the bubble

Have you ever seen a kid learn something you weren't teaching them at the time? When did learning actually occur? Was it while you were teaching, when they were doing seat work, in your class discussion? Was it valuable? Might it help them later in life?

The paradigm we operate with in education today is entirely technical. Policy makers and the public believe that students learn what we teach them. Period. But what might they be learning while we are busy trying to teach them to pass a test? If we only look for student achievement in relation to what we have taught we might never talk about the elephant in the room, that kids might not need everything we are teaching them. Or, kids might be able to learn some things that could be essential to their lives, if we only stopped paying so much attention to those test scores. If we become aware of what happens outside of the mind control testing we might see what is really happening in our students' lives.



This is what the post-positivist paradigm has brought us to in education. We have become bean counters. On TLN a teacher in New York has been discussing hourly measurable objectives. Yes, hourly. Can you imagine what that is like? Measuring ... constantly. Maybe it only bothers me because I am in preschool where the standards have only begun to quantify our students' learning. When we focus on quantity what do we sacrifice in quality? This is what testing has wrought, a world where nobody is looking at what really matters, kids lives.


Think outside the bubble ...


p.s. This video is based on some visual cognition research done at the University of Illinois. Check it out, its fascinating. As an avid road cyclist and commuter I am asking you to please take this public service announcement to heart while you are driving to work. You could save a life.

Questioning our Questions

The question seems to be the building block for education in this accountability driven era. However, why and how questions are asked can differ from one social setting to another.

I just read an ethnographic study conducted from 1970 - 1975 by S.B. Heath. This study is a seminal work that was published in a book titled Ways with Words in 1983.

In this classic the researcher conducted her research in response to requests by African-American parents in her community and white teachers of the community school to help them find out why students where not succeeding academically and where turned off to school. The study talks about how the the changes resulting from the educational reforms of Brown v. Board and the E.S.E.A of 1965 (now known as NCLB) brought black students into schools with white teachers.

What struck me was that the research that was conducted then is still applicable today and it could still be affecting how well students from different backgrounds succeed in school.

The study examines reasons for questions in homes of working class Blacks, in the public school, and in the homes of the white teachers of the school.

The reasons for questions in the teachers homes and in the school were often questions the teacher already knew the answer to, sometimes questions the adult didn't know the answer to, or veiled "directives or condemnations" of children's behaviors. Often these white adults asked their children and their students to give information out of context. They might ask, "What color is that?" The questions the adults didn't know the answer to were questions mostly about a child's preference, "What do you want?" and the third type of question asked, "Why can't things be simpler than they are?" was clearly rhetorical and considered the "polite" way to chastise a child.

In contrast, in the students homes, they were not asked questions that took objects and events out of context. Instead of three types of questions there where five types of questions in children's homes.
1) Questions in children's homes might ask a child to relate an object or event to another that they and the questioner both understood. (What's that like?)
2) They could serve as a "story starter" (Did you see Maggie's dog yesterday?)
3) An accusatory question (What's that all over your face?) When asked a "condemnation" question students could either, bow their head and say nothing or tell a story or joke that would cause the questioner to "forget" why they asked the question.
4) A question of preference "What do you want?"
5) Or, a question that the questioner and the child both new the answer to. (What's your name?) In this last situation the student is expected to give the the questioner the nickname that the questioner calls him or her and it is meant to affirm their relationship.


Needless to say, I thought a lot about the questions I asked my preschoolers today. I tried to be more balanced about the types of questions I asked but, I know I am part of a system. I asked kids to read words, tell me numbers, and describe the relative weights of objects. I also tried to ask, "What did you have for dinner last night? What word does that sound like? and Where were you when the police called about your sister?

I have seen all of the behaviors described by Heath to greater or lesser degree in my classroom. The best part of the study was Heath's refusal in her description or her reporting to condemn the students or their parents way of using language. Her ideas about a "two-way path" for language understanding in schools and communities ties democratic ideals to academic research and education.


I have had a colleague tell me about her experience serving on a test review committee. When too many African-American boys got a question right on the test the question was deleted from the test. So my question is, are we asking the "right" questions?

The nature of doctoral studies

I will begin posting my work from the doctoral classes I am taking at VCU. Part of the work of the foundations class is to post on a blog. The teacher has added questions and we are to respond and comment on each others' thoughts. So here is my first post from a couple weeks ago. If you are interested in related literature shoot me an email.

I have been warned of the unintended consequences of my pursuit of a PhD by several people. I was especially concerned when a faculty member at the university warned me against the pursuit because I was "not like" the people I would be in the cohort with. I am hoping that this difference will enable me to bring something valuable to the field of education and possibly the sub-disciplines of teacher leadership and early childhood education. I am concerned that an unintended consequence will be that I will be forced to decide on a specialty when I really am interested in both fields.

As an accomplished teacher I have seen the benefits and responsibilities associated with perceived expertise in the field of teaching young children.
I am asked to do more, but also given more opportunities to influence the greater world of education. It is this influence that has called me to pursue the doctorate. I can see that as a teacher, often the "university" set who try to direct teaching in the classroom from afar are disdained. This is a consequence that has caused me to keep my pursuit of a doctorate a secret from all but my closest colleagues. I know that, in my inner city elementary school I will be seen as a know it all. It has taken me a long time to gain credibility as a white male from a middle class background in a school of teachers made up mostly of African-American women from lower middle class backgrounds teaching children of poverty.

I see also a danger in disconnecting from the experiences that I have had to gain this credibility. I have seen that the right person, in the right place, at the right time can make a huge difference in the lives of children. I have spent the last ten years refining my ability to interact with children. Although this pursuit is challenging I am interested in using more of my talents and abilities to make a difference for children and the doctorate will earn me the designation of expert that will enable me to influence the larger world of education. It is this designation that I am seeking. It will empower me to be the right person. I am fearful of the unintended consequence of forgetting where I came from, the classroom. This is a struggle that many individuals go through and which Ruby Payne has described in her work concerning socio-economic mobility. She describes how, when a person moves from one social structure to another they must sometimes lose their connection with the people from their past in order to fully immerse themselves in the new culture.
After acculturating to the new situation the walls between "worlds" can become more permeable.
This unintended consequence is one that I see as inevitable though I don't necessarily know how to cope with yet.