# 9 Is Learning Style a Thing?

Episode 9 Learning Style: Is That a Thing?  talks briefly about the controversy around the concept of Learning Styles, and it explains why Learning Styles (aka Learning Preferences) are  so very important to being a successful student. 

Transcript

Mickie Hayes  0:00 
Today we're going to talk about learning styles. And the title of this episode is called, "Is Learning Style a Thing?" The reason that I gave it that name is because there seems to be a lot of controversy wrapped around learning styles, so I want to unwrap some of that controversy, explain what it all means and help you understand that learning styles are really learning preferences. Welcome to College, Disabilities, and Success Episode nine,  "Is Learning Style a Thing?" by Mickie Hayes.

Mickie Hayes  0:34  
If you listen to my biography, in Episode One, you know that I've been around for a while. When I started out, research only use the term learning style and it was used for a method called VAT/K: visual, auditory, tactile-kinesthetic.  And around 1992, Neil Fleming in New Zealand came up with an alternative way to measure learning styles by using VARK  vark, visual aural reading, writing and kinesthetic. Now, as I researched VARK versus VATK, I have kind of come to the conclusion, in my opinion, that they're generally saying the same thing, that in both of these cases, we're not looking at learning style so much as we are looking at learning preferences. Although when you look at the literature, the literature will call it learning styles. It's very common for things for them to be referred to as learning styles. But in reality, we're talking about learning preferences. Each and every one of us has our own preferred way of learning and memorizing material, the VARK method and the VATK method have their challengers. When the systems began, and learning styles were looked at pretty closely. The general rule of thumb was, if you taught a student in their preferred manner of learning that they would learn better, but the research doesn't support this. A person doesn't just learn with one learning preference, that all of us have a more varied approach to the material. Even though we may have a primary learning preference, we will still have other preferences that help support that. And so when you go to look for study material, you'll have a primary approach, but there may be other ways that you learn, in addition to that primary approach. When you're dealing with multiple children in a classroom are multiple adults for that matter, in a classroom, you don't have the ability to switch things around per student. So a good teacher will teach using all of those techniques, will teach using visual, will teach using auditory, will even teach using tactile kinesthetic. Reading, writing, however you want to call it all of those learning styles, or learning preferences are used generally by teachers to get their message across. So the theory behind that is, if I am lecturing, and I'm not writing anything down, that's really great for the auditory learners, but not so good for the visual learners. If I am writing things down, but I really don't explain them very well, it's good for the visual learners not so much for the auditory learners, a person who struggles with taking notes is not going to be real interested in tactile learning in the classroom, because tactile learning involves writing. And if you have trouble taking notes, writing is going to be a problem. Just like if you have a vision, disability, visual is going to be a problem. If you have a hearing disability, auditory could be a problem. All of these things have to be considered when you are teaching students with disabilities and with various learning preferences. I'm interested today in learning preferences for you, as you go to study the material you need to learn. So my focus today is not so much on what the teacher is doing to teach it, but on what you are doing to help yourself learn it and using your preferred learning preference or learning style to do that. So keep in mind as you go through the next several podcasts where I talk about individual strategies that will help you memorize and learn the information for the tests that some of those strategies and ideas that I have to help you retain information will appeal to some learning preferences, not everybody's learning preference. So some people will like look at all listen to one thing and say, hey, that's a pretty good idea. And somebody else may listen to another strategy and say, Oh, that one won't work for me. And the reason for that is because as I was developing all these strategies, and researching, researching them, and gathering them from everywhere that I could get my hands on, I realized that what I was doing was collecting a lot of techniques that would help people with a lot of different learning preferences to retain information. So This following series of short podcasts that are dealing with different techniques are going to be dealing with different learning preferences that will hopefully help you to retain and memorize information for your tests in school. Now to answer the original question that we posed is learning style a thing I would say it's a thing if you understand that a learning style is in reality a learning preference. I hope that helped clear up some of the confusion. Regardless of whether or not you're old school like me with VATK, or the later research with VARK vark. Regardless of which type of learning preferences you follow along with, in reality, the idea is figure out what your preference is so that you can make the most of the situation. I'll talk to you again soon with my first learning strategy. But in the meantime, if you have any questions, feel free to email me at mickieteachers, m i c k i e teachers@gmail.com. Have a great evening, and we'll talk again soon. Bye. The information contained throughout this podcast has been gleaned from my own personal experiences, but to ensure accuracy, please contact the Disability Services at the College of your choice to have first hand information and the most up to date, policies and procedures follow for your particular institution of higher education. The content in any of these podcasts is not intended as a substitute for information from legal, educational, or medical professionals. Always seek the advice of your attorney or qualified health care provider with any questions you may have with regards to legal, educational, or medical concerns.

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