I just read a WSJ review of a book. The book is called Why Don't Students Like School? by Daniel Willingham. Click here for the review. I've seen books written for teachers by psychology professors. I've read one called Secrets of the Teenage Brain. As a Psychology teacher, I really enjoyed it. It discusses how to maximize teaching and learning by employing what scientists know about how our brain works. In other words, the book explains some of the brain-based methods of teaching. Anyway, Willingham's book seems to debate the existence of learning styles. He is apparently a big fan of traditional teaching methods such as making kids memorize stuff instead of having them employ higher-level thinking all of the time and having kinesthetic learners use their hands.
Here is my philosophy: Memorization is good. Doctors need to memorize the parts of the heart and the brain. History students need to know certain dates and dead White guys. Also, teaching the same material in a different way is good. Variety is good for the sake of variety. If you want to drill and kill, then that's fine. However, please don't bore your students into submission by doing the same thing all of the time. I'm certain that if they first read Chapter 5 then are shown Chapter 5 (via Power Point) and given a fun review (like Jeopardy) then that's a good varied way of teaching the material.
Whether we have "learning styles" is an important question for academics, but in reality we should all teach in a varied and interesting manner. You don't need to have a learning style to appreciate good teaching. Do what I try to do: Teach to the mind; teach to the eyes; teach to the hands; teach to the heart.
