Module 6 Reflection

In the article Advice about the Use of Learning Styles: A Major Myth in Education, there is a huge industry of books tapes, and consultants that have developed around learning styles in education. Some researchers felt that students who understand their learning styles improved their learning effectiveness in and outside of the class. Other researchers said that the better you know how you learn the more you should be able to concentrate on your study task. Based on researchers, there are several questions that need to be asked: First, are learning style instruments valid and reliable? Second, do students benefit when the type of learning matches their learning style. Third, is their evidence that learning styles improve concentration, memory, self-confidence and reduces anxiety? When answering whether or not instruments are valid, one must look at the "face validity" and "construct validity". A second battle, one must see if the instrument is reliable. As good as it sounds that teaching students in their learning style is good, there is no evidence to support this theory. This thought was based on the lack of well-designed investigations.
In the article The Myth of Catering to Learning Styles, the thought that children learn best when instruction is tailored to their learning style seems like it would be true, but, research has shown otherwise. Research has shown when students are taught according to their learning style they become overconfident in their ability to learn, and they put less effort into learning the content. On the other hand when students were taught in ways other than their learning styles, they felt the task was more difficult, thus putting more effort into actually learning.
Two ideas teachers should keep in mind when teaching lessons are that concrete representations should precede abstractions, and new information is always filtered through prior knowledge.
Teachers toward students' preferred learning styles has no solid research. Teachers need to scaffold between concrete and more abstract representations. Finally, when students struggle to understand a lesson, teachers need to look at both the nature of the content as well as the prior experiences of the student.
Both articles today present research that show when learning styles are used to teach, it does not benefit the student. On, the other hand, it may do more harm for the child than good. While reading the articles I was amazed at how much research was shown that teaching to specific learning styles does not benefit the child. After learning this fact and seeing the research I'm sure it will alter the way I teach my lesson in science. One of the articles mentioned you should do hands on activities prior to reading the text. It was also mentioned that a teacher should offer a wide array of teaching strategies. One valuable lesson I learned from the text is to try to vary my teaching strategies or styles and not limit myself to PowerPoints and quizzes.