This is one reason why I worry about overemphasis on “learning styles” in teaching. Yes, we shouldn’t overgeneralize from our own brains to those of others, and different people learn differently. But it’s too easy to say that because I am Not a Visual Person, Having Been Born Blind and Treated By Surgery, I therefore can’t learn to excel at visual tasks.
This internal sense that I am “not a visual learner” caused me serious difficulty in training to do many tasks, until I learned to just compensate by practicing for a longer period of time!
The danger of learned blankness isn’t that it’s entirely inaccurate. A person really might be slower to pick up skills in one domain than in another. The danger, I think, is that we overestimate our own specialization and lock ourselves out of useful and fun skills. I CAN draw and shade a simple shape; it’s not magic. I CAN dissect a small insect in the lab; it just takes longer.
This is one reason why I worry about overemphasis on “learning styles” in teaching. Yes, we shouldn’t overgeneralize from our own brains to those of others, and different people learn differently. But it’s too easy to say that because I am Not a Visual Person, Having Been Born Blind and Treated By Surgery, I therefore can’t learn to excel at visual tasks.
This internal sense that I am “not a visual learner” caused me serious difficulty in training to do many tasks, until I learned to just compensate by practicing for a longer period of time!
The danger of learned blankness isn’t that it’s entirely inaccurate. A person really might be slower to pick up skills in one domain than in another. The danger, I think, is that we overestimate our own specialization and lock ourselves out of useful and fun skills. I CAN draw and shade a simple shape; it’s not magic. I CAN dissect a small insect in the lab; it just takes longer.
It sounds like generally cultivating an attitude of “how much give is there in this situation?” might be useful.
Actually the learning styles thing is basically a bunch of BS. If you want i can find some articles about it.
edit: here is a good one http://voices.washingtonpost.com/answer-sheet/daniel-willingham/-my-guest-today-is.html