I will try to make this very explicit since I seem to be failing to communicate since I thought my last two posts stated the entirety of my view. Two points:
1.) There is a large variance in the human population. There are people who experience numbers in extremely different ways from others. There are people who experience the senses in very different ways than others. In order for me to believe that these differences play no part in the learning process, I will want to see some arguments as to why, theoretically, they don’t matter as well as some experimental evidence that they don’t. This is the primary cause for my large (not insurmountable) priors.
2.) The current studies are, to the best of my understanding which is rather limited, directed at testing the learning strategies that we have hypothesized so far. These learning strategies strike me as fairly petty and overly hopeful—“if I just say this him, he’ll understand and if I just have her read this, she’ll understand.” I accept that these styles are not genuine styles. But I don’t see reason to go beyond this to say that there are no useful differences in styles.
If you want to convince me, tell me why my intuition in number 1 is wrong or show me a study that has managed to go beyond the existing spattering of fad learning styles and has systematically shown that the existence of any learning styles is very unlikely. Preferably both. I am genuinely interested in hearing counter-points to this position, but am growing tired of restating my position. I hope this time has clarified exactly what I think.
I will try to make this very explicit since I seem to be failing to communicate since I thought my last two posts stated the entirety of my view. Two points:
1.) There is a large variance in the human population. There are people who experience numbers in extremely different ways from others. There are people who experience the senses in very different ways than others. In order for me to believe that these differences play no part in the learning process, I will want to see some arguments as to why, theoretically, they don’t matter as well as some experimental evidence that they don’t. This is the primary cause for my large (not insurmountable) priors.
2.) The current studies are, to the best of my understanding which is rather limited, directed at testing the learning strategies that we have hypothesized so far. These learning strategies strike me as fairly petty and overly hopeful—“if I just say this him, he’ll understand and if I just have her read this, she’ll understand.” I accept that these styles are not genuine styles. But I don’t see reason to go beyond this to say that there are no useful differences in styles.
If you want to convince me, tell me why my intuition in number 1 is wrong or show me a study that has managed to go beyond the existing spattering of fad learning styles and has systematically shown that the existence of any learning styles is very unlikely. Preferably both. I am genuinely interested in hearing counter-points to this position, but am growing tired of restating my position. I hope this time has clarified exactly what I think.