If you really want a binary system of learning styles, I can come up with something better than learning through sight and sound. Some students need substantial outside assistance. Others need very little. We could view this as dependent and independent learning.
Although this is certainly a better concept than learning through sight and sound, it suffers from many of the same flaws. This is an either-or proposition that doesn't address variables and lacks depth.
Among the problems with dependent and independent learning is that there are variable levels of dependence. Saying that one person needs more help than another is insufficient to establish how much help an individual needs. It also fails to address the kind of help that would be beneficial and numerous factors unrelated to the level of dependence. It is still no shortcut for learning about a learner's unique needs.
Something else to keep in mind is that needs are not always constant between the type of learning or the subject. Saying that someone needs help learning how to walk does not establish that the same person will need the same amount of help learning the alphabet.
For anyone who has been reading this series of posts, I hope you caught something in that last sentence. The development of skills and abilities is very different from long-term memorization. Learning styles should never be used accross everything that some people classify as learning. Of course, the level of dependence is not just variable between learning and concepts misrepresented as learning. Different lessons will typically have sub-conscious components that can influence the level of assistance required. For example, people are unlikely to need the same amount of help in subjects that interest them as much as in subjects that don't.
No comments:
Post a Comment