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0:00
Hi. I'm Dr. Cynthia Nebel,
the Director of
Learning Services
at St. Louis University
School of Medicine,
and today I'm going
to talk to you about
Part 1 of learning myths.
0:13
As we go through
each of these myths,
we'll talk about a general
description of what they are,
where they came from,
some dangers
associated with them,
research, as well as
alternatives to each myth.
The first myth we're going to
discuss is learning styles.
0:31
Learning styles is the
belief that people have
that we have
different preferences
in the way that we
take in information.
So some people might
prefer verbal information
whereas other people might
prefer visual information.
The learning styles hypothesis
takes this one step further
and says that while we
have these preferences,
we will actually learn better
if we receive information
in that modality.
So verbal learners
will learn better
with verbal material,
and visual learners
will learn better
with visual material.
However, when we start to
dig into the research,
there really isn't any
research to support this idea
that we learn best
when we receive
information in the
modality that we prefer.
1:21
So learning styles can
actually be a bit of
a dangerous myth for learning.
1:29
The reason for this is that
it really restricts
the human ability to
one optimal way of
presenting information.
I've actually had students
who have said to me,
"I'm so sorry. I'm not
going to be able to take
your class because
it's very auditory,
and I'm a visual learner and
I can't learn this way."
That "can't" is
what really makes
learning styles a
dangerous myth.
