<story><title>The Myth of &apos;Learning Styles&apos;</title><url>https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/04/the-myth-of-learning-styles/557687/?single_page=true</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>turingcompeteme</author><text>My SO teaches elementary math, and we&amp;#x27;ve had a few discussions about this.&lt;p&gt;When teaching a new concept, say the area of a parallelogram, she will present the concept in multiple different ways:&lt;p&gt;- Give printouts of parallelograms on graph paper, so the students can count the number of squares in a parallelogram. Also give them scissors and see what happens.&lt;p&gt;- Give students two triangles and a square (which they know how to get the areas of already), as well as some tape.&lt;p&gt;- Simply give students the length of the base, height, and the area of multiple parallelograms.&lt;p&gt;The interesting thing is that there will be a somewhat equal split among which way makes the concept click for the students. Some will instantly start counting squares on graph paper and figure it out. Some will tape the different shapes together and go from there. Others will play with the base and height numbers and arrive at a formula.&lt;p&gt;So while &amp;quot;learning styles&amp;quot; may be a misnomer, I do believe that presenting one topic in a variety of ways is beneficial.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>mattferderer</author><text>I strongly agree in presenting a topic in a variety of ways since being able to relate new information to information already known is a major key to learning new concepts. The more ways a topic is presented, the better chance a person&amp;#x27;s brain can relate it to something already known.&lt;p&gt;I have a strong assumption that when many people hear &amp;quot;learning styles&amp;quot;, they assume it to this instead of auditory vs visual.</text></comment>
<story><title>The Myth of &apos;Learning Styles&apos;</title><url>https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/04/the-myth-of-learning-styles/557687/?single_page=true</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>turingcompeteme</author><text>My SO teaches elementary math, and we&amp;#x27;ve had a few discussions about this.&lt;p&gt;When teaching a new concept, say the area of a parallelogram, she will present the concept in multiple different ways:&lt;p&gt;- Give printouts of parallelograms on graph paper, so the students can count the number of squares in a parallelogram. Also give them scissors and see what happens.&lt;p&gt;- Give students two triangles and a square (which they know how to get the areas of already), as well as some tape.&lt;p&gt;- Simply give students the length of the base, height, and the area of multiple parallelograms.&lt;p&gt;The interesting thing is that there will be a somewhat equal split among which way makes the concept click for the students. Some will instantly start counting squares on graph paper and figure it out. Some will tape the different shapes together and go from there. Others will play with the base and height numbers and arrive at a formula.&lt;p&gt;So while &amp;quot;learning styles&amp;quot; may be a misnomer, I do believe that presenting one topic in a variety of ways is beneficial.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>r00fus</author><text>&amp;gt; So while &amp;quot;learning styles&amp;quot; may be a misnomer, I do believe that presenting one topic in a variety of ways is beneficial.&lt;p&gt;Absolutely. I think &amp;quot;learning styles&amp;quot; is a &lt;i&gt;reductionist&lt;/i&gt; view of Universal Design for Learning [1], which is essentially what you described how your SO teaches.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s quite possible that at a given time, someone may be inclined to visual learning, but may be more kinesthetically inclined in another setting&amp;#x2F;moment.&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Universal_Design_for_Learning&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Universal_Design_for_Learning&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>