OU students who are or once were enrolled on the U101: Design & Creative Thinking in the 21st Century will no doubt recall the TMA11 assignment, which despite the odd numerical sequencing, is actually the first TMA that U101 students encounter on the module. For those who aren't familiar with it, The nature of the assignment is to get students to undertake a series of non-threatening activities,such as finding as many uses for a paper bag within five minutes, or, using a series of circles printed on a poster, to draw 'roles' that exemplify aspects of their lives. Additionally, students are asked to make comment and pronouncements about their learning styles as determined by the undertaking of an online learning style survey, the results of which lead to the following learning style categories:
- Visual Learning Style
- Aural Learning Style
- Verbal Learning Style
- Physical Learning Style
- Logical Learning Style
- Social Learning Style
- Solitary Learning
For me, most importantly in my role as a tutor, this is where things get tricky. As part of the feedback, tutors are expected to make meaningful comment on the student's indicated 'preferred' learning style and - more significantly - there is an implicit concomitant assumption that tutors will then use the information to adapt their teaching and tutorial support for each student based on the students indicated learning style preference. That’s quite an assumption. The shocking and inconvenient fact of the matter is that when it comes to learning styles and the effectiveness of teaching in response to learning style preferences, I've found myself moving from a position of relaxed agnosticism on the issue to one of deep skepticism. In short; I've come to think that designing instruction for learning styles is largely an alchemical delusion.
There is something undeniably appealing about the notion that one can teach so much more effectively if one somehow modifies ones approach to the particular preferences of any number of students. But one has to dig only a little below the surface of the idea to become very much aware of real and persistent nagging doubts. But let's go with the flow for a moment. A teacher, faced with a class of, say, 30 students, is fired up with a determination to deliver instruction that responds to the learning style preferences of the assembled students. The obvious first question is, Well, in real, practical terms, how precisely is s/he going to do that? Even assuming that the students learning style preferences fell neatly into any one of the seven learning styles listed above, how can the teacher accommodate all these contrasting learning styles at the same time to all the assembled students within a single lesson time slot?
A more personally empirical piece of evidence that has long cast suspicion in my mind that the learning style mantra is somehow fundamentally flawed is that whenever I take one of these learning surveys I never seem to get the same result twice even when I do the same one in rapid succession. Some of them have me down as a hardline logician, others as some sort of day-dreaming visual learner or as a physical learner with a fondness for risk taking and experimentation. The stark and inconvenient reality is that I am, of course, all those things and a great deal more too; as most people are in life. Surely, if these learning style surveys were worth their salt then they would over time at least flag up a statistically better than evens chance of showing a consistent learning style flavour for any particular individual?
It's a topic I hope to come back to, but in the meantime I leave with the words of Richard E. Clark, Professor of Educational Psychology and Technology Director, Center for Cognitive Technology, University of Southern California:
"Three major reviews of the research on learning styles have been published in top journals in the past decade. All of them have reached the same conclusion. Learning styles do not predict learning under different instructional conditions. There are no "visual" or "verbal" learners etc. No reviews of the research on learning styles have reached a positive conclusion. There are studies of learning styles (many of them designed by advocates or sales people for different style measures) that reach positive conclusions but the reviews conclude that those studies are poorly designed (or at least designed to find positive results for favored style measures)."
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An interesting blog entry. Hmm, learning styles. I was a Head when it became a very important aspect of learning and teaching. As a new learner in OU its an interesting concept. I would have said I learn more effectively when it's physical so here I am working in such an alien learning style(s). Is it working for me? Well, I am learning, well i am taking in new information but i am pretty sure I would have learnt a lot more with a more interactive approach. Sometimes, my frustration of such a limited learning style with the OU, creates a block for learning, real intense and challenged learning.
On saying that, I am loving learning and I am going to continue.
Good luck with the feedback, my feedback, so far, has been of the highest standard. Very impressed.
Gillian
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Thank you Gillian, really interesting thoughts there. In your role as Head, how did you implement a respect for learning style strategy? Was/is it successful? Were there lines of resistance from staff or students?New comment
I started the process by all the staff going through some very inspirational training with Trevor Hawes and another day with Alistair Smith on accelerated learning. As a Head I was in such a privileged position to attend the courses I wanted to, across the country. Local authority courses were so unoriginal! I wanted everyone who worked with our children to share their enthusiasm. When introducing anything very different and scary (I guess for some teachers), i always found that hearing things from the horses mouth with that passion they have for their theory was far more effective. It created huge debates and wonderful discussions and was one of the two factors that raised standards with a bang in our school. learning styles went through everything and were all in it together, took a while but it worked.I have to say, there was no choice but I led by example where ever I could, teaching,assemblies,staff meetings, with honest and open feedback from everyone. It opened up the abilty to give and receive criticism.
The other big influence on our school was 'raising self esteem' through an American program called Investment in Excellence. The two 'things' worked hand in hand.
We were a big primary school in Stoke on trent so it wasnt an easy catchment but learning styles are so important to a learner. Children in the Early Years learn in such a creative, investigative and natural way, where every learning style is there and then we fall into the trap of spoon feeding our learners. The teacher talking begins and investigation and creativity starts to disappear. By secondary school our learners are restricted to maybe a couple.
I miss the interaction, as you can possibly tell, with an on-line course, it doesn't suit me at all and i feel i am not achieving as high a level of thinking as i could. I'm not challenged by people's questioning. Who knows what my potential could be if other ways of learning were there? This could be applied to the students in our schools. We don't know what their potential is do we? It's impossible.
I'm sorry-I have gone on a bit. I loved being a Head, such an amazing position to be in. I have semi-retired now but still have a passion for the learning process.
What course is it?
Gillian
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Wow! That sounds fantastic, Gillian. It's clear that you and your team invested a significant effort into providing your students with a rich, stimulating and thoroughly engaging learning experience and I'm minded to think that such richly textured teaching and learning is immensely enjoyable and effective - and that's a least half the battle!
Was there much scope for your team being able to tailor the offering on an individual student basis, for instance, for those who might have preferred a more solitary, introspective experience?
It's the relative paucity of the online learning experience as against the far richer and culturally complex experience you describe that is at the heart of my current academic interest, so this is fab material, thank you.
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Good morning Clive, I had my poetic head on yesterday so i apologise for the delay.
I have been thinking about your question and have also talked about it with my husband who was a head of a special school 3-16. In our school, there was very little scope for on-line learning but lots of opportunities for solitary learning. In Years 5 and 6, each class each week would hold a 1 and a half hour learning conference where the groups discussed and made decisions about what they were going to learn within a broad themed area. for example, hot and cold-which aspect of science would they explore and would this be in pairs, groups individually etc. This was an opportunity for students who didn't always want to participate in group work. All students were encouraged to work in groups, individually etc depending on learning activity and student style. There was also class teaching. It was very diferent but ofsted loved it! but only because our results were good and the children came from a toughish area. We didnt follow the literacy or numearcy strategy but used some of its elements.The students could use different media for their learning and the novelty of using art and IT soon wore off and became an integral way of providing evidence of things learnt from the students.
I hope you are following this!
We also had 2 families move into the area who home schooled their children. This was interesting for us as we worked with the children to provide some learning situations they could pull on via the internet and also they would come in and do things in the calsses if it was appropiate for them. They were particularly keen to come for problem solving in maths. This went down like a lead balloon with the LEA because they wanted the pupils in school and said i couldnt do it so...i just didnt tell them. As you can probably tell, i was their wild Head, and when ofsted put our school forward to be a beacon school, i talked to the governors and we refused. I wanted the children to have the best and i just didnt want the staff going off to talk to other schools and have broken teaching. The staff were pleased too. Of course we had lots of people come and we enthused on courses but at the end of the day, its got to be the head, a passion of the head and it will work.
I loved being a head and was there for 10 years and we were even lucky enough to work under the PFI scheme and design a new school (with a well being centre for the wonderful people i worked with). It was wonderful and that was the point i needed to go. I was 45 at this time and although i did a little work for the National college of leadership and i was an ofsted inspector (mainly to pick up ideas from other schools!) i didnt want to work where there werent children, they are just so honest and non-cynical, despite some of them having horrible times at home.
So, there you are...a long story-now you can see why i am doing a writing course, i can write a story and someone has to mark it!!!
In the special school where my husband worked, some of the learning had to be solitary-the skills for working in a group with some of the students (mld) wasnt an option, or was it their preferred learning style? His school did a LOT of work on learning styles and the staff had to develop many skills. Trying to teach someone with a preferred learning style of say physical in an auditory way was a walking disaster. I can tell you more if you want,about either school but i really dont want to bore you!!!!
let me know if you want to know anything else
gillian
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You sound to me like the dream Head, Gillian! I get the strong sense that you had a very clear idea of how to engage your team and students, but importantly, you clearly understood that at the heart of all the politics and Ofsted hoop jumping it all boils down to giving the children the best possible education. I love the bit about keeping schtumm on the home schooled children - priceless.
Thank you so much for your wonderful insights. Beyond any academic interest, they warm the cockles of my grizzled old heart at a directly human level. I'm sure there's a generation of children growing up who'll always cherish their time at your school. Brilliant!
Clive
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Good morning. Thank you, that's a really lovely thing to say.
At the moment I'm based in the UK (to do the course) but I will move back to La Rioja in Spain in June where I do a bit of English teaching to pay for the wine!!!Fantastic life.
Looking at your wonderful second portrait, is it something you will do more of? Do you think taking courses in any form of creativity, kills the creativity in someone?
Enjoy your day.
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Ah! Rioja in Spain - I'm sick with jelousy!
Thank you for you kind words on my painting. I am aiming to keep up a steady flow of work if I can and it's simply very handy that I've always got my face with me when I paint! My own view on creativity is that any form of creative engagement can only be a good thing and that courses on creativity can be really rewarding - even revelatory.
Beyond any other factors, it was partly the consequence of seeing a procession of U101 students suddenly discovering their own inner creativity that helped serve as a trigger for me getting back into painting. I also especially like the contrast of working with my hands with raw ingredients as opposed to the computer-based digital nature of my professional creative output.