Module 3, Activity 3 Blog Post: Learning Styles

First I would like to briefly comment about what this module has done for me. I see it as more than just a bridge between the associationist world of Thorndike and Skinner and the constructivist methodologies of Piaget and Vygotsky. I see it as an operational set of definitions; we begin to quantify and measure the theories presented to us by those who came before with an understanding of the stimulus-response model and who subscribed to an epistemology which posits a more unified truth relative to a given domain of learning. Perhaps as we have approached constructivism, this firmer quantitative position has experienced a reprieve. Even so, the understanding of information processing has produced new metaphors and an indelible reliance on the quantitative practices of psychology in order to further our understanding of one of humanity's most complex processes.

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I hear it at least a few times a week. Someone at my home institution will say he or she is a visual learner. Often this is a student, sometimes a staff or even a faculty member. I get what they are saying. These declarations indicate a couple of things. First, these people have an awareness that sensory information is important in the learning process. Second, these individuals are differentiating the role these senses play in their own lives. I believe some may be so fixated on the notion that sensory input is solely responsible for some types of learning that it blinds them to a more robust understanding of the subject.

Pashler, McDaniel, Rohrer & Bjork reported the notion that the majority of students learn better via one of their senses than another has been ostensibly debunked. Based on my understanding of our readings this week with help from the theorists we have visited previously, humans are endowed with their sensory perception in order to survive. Therefore, barring any situations where outliers exist due to exceptional circumstances or depravity, our eyes, ears, nose, sense of taste and other faculties have evolved to serve us all similarly. Only rarely might one find an individual who is so advanced in one sensory domain that it obscures the utility and changes the way in which one

While it is understandable that people need an easy paradigm on which to rely, there is an inherent fallacy to this way of thinking.  If you buy into the notion that the information provided by one of our senses is somehow not as valid as that which is obtained from another, you might be invalidating what Pinker says is the mind's attempt to accurately depict the world.

"But just the world we know is a construct of our brain, that does not mean it is an arbitrary construct- A phantasm created by expectations or the social context" (Pinker, p. 199).

Pinker further explains that the characteristics of each of the senses and their vulnerabilities are not as arbitrary as many believe. The very way our brains process information is reliant upon these senses in specific and invariant ways.

The problem with a systematic approach to understanding information processing, in my opinion, precludes constructivist methodologies. Comparing the human brain to a computer may be loathsome to staunch constructivists. Of course Mayer (1996) presented two views of the information-processing metaphor. One in which constructivism and information processing could peaceably exist. Learners actively select and organize their experiences into their existing conceptualizations. The computing metaphor is simply a means of understanding and operationalization. Pashler et al. deconstruct the way in which we as a society have constructed this theory about learning styles. The main crux of their argument is that the brain relative to the processing and storage of information in memory uses all sensory information in order to function and carry out executive mental functions.

We might therefore conclude that although an individual may claim a preference relative to different learning styles, there is currently no evidence to suggest that instructional methods designed to appeal to one sense or another is particularly effective at increasing learning outcomes.


Here is a video which outlines much of what has been covered relative to this module.