Does Every Child Really Learn Differently? No — And That's a Good Thing
In this video, Dr. Justin Baeder discusses cognitive psychologist Daniel Willingham's research showing that children don't actually have fundamentally different learning styles.
Key Takeaways
- Learning styles are a myth - Research by Daniel Willingham and others shows that students don't learn fundamentally differently based on visual, auditory, or kinesthetic preferences
- This is actually good news - If all students learn through similar cognitive processes, we can focus on what works for everyone rather than trying to customize for each student
- Good instruction serves all learners - Clear explanations, practice, and feedback work for virtually every student
Transcript
Does every child learn differently?
I'm so glad Daniel Willingham, the renowned cognitive psychologist who's written many, many books, is saying this so clearly.
In a fundamental sense, no, kids do not learn differently.
Everybody's brain works basically the same way.
And that's really good news for us as educators, because it means we can design learning experiences that are based on cognitive science, and those learning experiences are going to work for pretty much everybody.
We have got to get away from this idea that every child is so different that everything has to be accomplished through differentiation.
Differentiation is not going to get us there.
This idea that if you have 30 kids, you have to teach 30 different ways needs to die.
It is not correct.
We need to teach well.
We need to teach in ways that are consistent with cognitive science.
And this is a great article over at the 74 million, 74million.org.
Cognitive science, all the rage in British schools, fails to register in the US.
And I've spoken with many of the people quoted in this article for my podcast, Principal Center Radio, and I'm really glad that they are bringing attention to the cognitive science that in colleges of education, we have ignored.
Teachers are, by and large, not learning this stuff.
For my lifetime, throughout my career, teachers have not been taught this stuff in teacher education programs.
And I think that's starting to change.
Check it out and let me know what you think.
And let me know if you're still hearing, oh, every child learns differently.
Oh, you have to differentiate everything.
Oh, learning styles.
Please, let's let learning styles go.
Let's let these myths go and familiarize ourselves with the cognitive science that should be informing our field.
Let me know what you think.