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Sara Merkle

Prof. Craig

EDU 360-01

20 September 2017

Learning Styles Reflection Paper

The concept of having different learning styles can be very controversial and discussed

quite frequently in the educational realm. As discussed in our textbook, there are three main

learning styles: visual learning, kinesthetic/tactile learning and auditory learning. The author

amongst many other educators and researchers proposes that teachers should be teaching

material according to how their students learn best amongst these three different learning styles.

In contrast, many researchers have found that the concept of learning styles is a myth.

Specifically in All You Need to Know About the Learning Styles Myth in Two Minutes the

author discusses how believing in learning styles could cause harm to students because the

teacher would only be teaching to their strengths and not to the students weaknesses. Similarly,

in Using Metacognition to Reframe our Thinking about Learning Styles the author proposes

that there is never just one learning style that students use- more than one can be used for

different subject areas. I found this article to be very interesting and I tend to agree more with the

authors of this article. While I do believe that I personally have a predominant learning style, I

do not believe that it is good to just limit oneself to that learning style strictly. I believe that,

ideally, teachers should change up their teaching styles so that all students can benefit from

instruction and so that all students can figure out how they learn things best. For example, one

student may find that in English literature studies, they are more of an auditory learner but when

learning math, they are a visual learner. I really liked the ideas that the authors of Using
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Metacognition to Reframe our Thinking Styles proposed, which was having the students reflect,

either in a journal or to their peers, about how they learned a specific activity the best. Overall, I

believe that it is up to the teacher to promote intrapersonal reasoning in students, at a young age,

to see which methods work best for them. As long as the students are learning the material, they

should use whatever method/methods work best for them and they should receive support from

educators in doing so.