Neuromyths I have known and loved

In one study Dr. Howard-Jones cites, 48 percent of British teachers agreed with the statement “We mostly only use 10 percent of our brain.” Ninety-three percent believed that “individuals learn better when they receive information in their preferred learning style (for example, visual, auditory or kinaesthetic)” (research actually doesn’t support this), and 29 percent believed “drinking less than 6 to 8 glasses of water a day can cause the brain to shrink” (it can’t). Sixteen percent thought that “learning problems associated with developmental differences in brain function cannot be remediated by education.”

How Brain Myths Could Hurt Kids

I was able to pull the paper, and the data on teacher belief in learning styles is hilarious.

Percentage of teachers who believe individuals learn better when they receive information in their preferred learning style:

93% of teachers in the UK
96% of teachers in the Netherlands
97% of teachers in Turkey
96% of teachers in Greece
97% of teachers in China

Pretty much the entire planetary teaching force.

The deathless meme of learning styles

to Michael Weiss's question re: the death of learning styles, palisadesk has this to say:

No, it's far from done. The critique in Psychology Today may mean that some people are wising up, but the meme is deeply entrenched (along with a lot of other mystical ideas about teaching and learning) in K-8 certainly, and perhaps far beyond.

We continue to have workshops and mandatory PD on how to teach to different "learning styles" (fits in well with "differentiation," you see). And since most of the curriculum people seem unaware of research in psychology or cognitive science, even though the whole idea of learning styles and "aptitude-treatment interaction" has been debunked for decades, articles in jounals are not going to affect prevailing opinion.

My district, and others that I know of, requires teachers to identify students' "learning styles" when developing lesson plans, unit plans, intervention plans, or referring student for assessment. Of course there is no real data to support this stereotyping of students -- typically, a student is labeled a "kinesthetic learner" because s/he is out of seat a lot, or likes to play with Lego. "Interpersonal learners" are so identified because they enjoy chatting with their friends, but not on the basis that this socializing actually improves their learning outcomes (in fact the opposite is more usually the case).

I notice that our psychologists, most of whom have Ph.D.'s and know their stuff, are very careful to avoid falling into the "learning styles trap, and will pointedly say that they do not measure this because it is not scientific and has no reliably quantifiable metric. However, their lack of enthusiasm fails to slow down the train. Our IEP forms have a section for "learning style." Needless to say there is no data-based information to enter there.

The absence of evidence is nothing new. Steven Stahl wrote a good article on the topic for American Educator almost 15 years ago, and it made no difference.

The meme has a life of its own, like a virus, and will be hard to dislodge.

Hegemony in action.

The "Learning Styles" Myth

"...the more carefully designed and controlled the study, the less the data supported the hypothesis that matching learning styles to type of instruction mattered."

Source: What type of learner are you? (And why it doesn't matter)

Can we finally stick a fork in this myth? I think it's done.

in which I stumble upon a learning style that may actually exist

Barry pointed me to a terrific post by Haim, one of the regulars on Math Teach, who writes:

As it happens, a good friend of mine did his dissertation on learning styles some fifteen years ago. He did his study in the context of math education at the college level. I still clearly remember the frisson when he told me that 30 yrs of scientific literature on the subject was thoroughly consistent: not a shred of (real) evidence to support the hypothesis of learning styles.

His study did not perturb the consistency. At the time, I remember thinking "Gosh, after 30 yrs of nothing maybe it's time to look for another fishing hole."

Since then, of course, I have been deeply impressed by the evident fact that 30 yrs of nothing makes not the slightest impression on the Education Mafia. They carry on, exuberantly, as if learning styles are real.

Just a few days after reading Haim, and quite by accident, I came across the possibility that learning styles may actually exist (!)

Just not the learning styles we've heard so much about for lo these 30 years.

Here is Michael J. Frank on  “Go” and “NoGo” Learning and the Basal Ganglia:

We tested healthy college students who were given low doses of three different drugs: a drug that enhances the release of dopamine, a drug that reduces the release of dopamine, and a placebo; each student was tested in each of the three conditions.

[snip]

We hypothesized that all participants would learn to choose A over B, but that they would do so on different bases, depending on which drug they had been given. When dopamine levels are elevated, we hypothesized, participants should learn to choose symbol A, which had received the most positive feedback (that is, they should learn “Go” to A). But they should be relatively impaired in learning to avoid (NoGo) symbol B....

[snip]

We found a striking effect of the different dopamine medications on this positive versus negative learning bias....While on placebo, participants performed equally well at choose-A and avoid-B test choices. But when their dopamine levels were increased, they were more successful at choosing the most positive symbol A and less successful at avoiding B. Conversely, lowered dopamine levels were associated with the opposite pattern: worse choose-A performance but more-reliable avoid-B choices. Thus the dopamine medications caused participants to learn more or less from positive versus negative outcomes of their decisions.

These research discoveries raise the intriguing question of whether individual differences in learning from positive versus negative outcomes of decisions can be found even in nonmedicated healthy people. Indeed, although on average our study participants taking the placebo showed roughly equal choose-A and avoid-B performance, individual participants still performed better at one or the other; we refer to these subgroups as positive or negative learners....[A] mutation in another gene previously shown to control the density of (NoGo) D2 receptors in the basal ganglia predicted the extent to which participants learned from negative decision outcomes. Together, these results provide more-specific confirmation of our model’s suggestion that Go and NoGo learning depends on the D1 and D2 receptors.

I am gobsmacked.

Until the moment I read Michael Frank's research, I believed that positive reinforcement was better than negative. Always. Turns out the truth of the matter may be it depends.

Choose A or Avoid B.

The lady or the tiger.

Barry Garelick on mini lessons and inequality

The history of tracking students in public education goes back to the early part of the 1900′s. By the 20′s and 30′s, curricula in high schools had evolved into four different types: college-preparatory, vocational (e.g., plumbing, metal work, electrical, auto), trade-oriented (e.g., accounting, secretarial), and general. Students were tracked into the various curricula based on IQ and other standardized test scores as well as other criteria. By the mid-60’s, Mirel (1993) documents that most of the predominantly black high schools in Detroit had become “general track” institutions that consisted of watered down curricula and “needs based” courses that catered to student interests and life relevance. Social promotion had become the norm within the general track, in which the philosophy was to demand as little as possible of the students.

[snip]

By the early 80’s, the “Back to Basics” movement formed to turn back the educational fads and extremes of the late 60’s and the 70’s and reinstitute traditional subjects and curricula. The underlying ideas of the progressives did not go away, however, and the watchword has continued to be equal education for all. While such a goal is laudable, the attempt to bring equity to education by eliminating tracking had the unintended consequence of replacing it with another form of inequity: the elimination of grouping of students according to ability. Thus, students who were poor at reading were placed in classes with students who were advanced readers; students who were not proficient in basic arithmetic were placed in algebra classes. Ability grouping was viewed as a vestige of tracking and many in the education establishment consider the two concepts to be synonymous.

The elimination of ability grouping occurs mostly in the lower grades but also extends to early courses in high school. The practice of such full inclusion is now so commonplace that theories have emerged to justify its practice and to address the problems it brings. “Learning styles” and “multiple intelligences” are now commonplace terms that are taught in schools of education, along with the technique known as “differentiated instruction” to address how to teach students with diverse backgrounds and ability in the subject matter. Teachers are expected to “differentiate instruction” to each student, and to keep whole-group instruction to a minimum. To do this, the teacher gives a “mini-lesson” that lasts 10 to 15 minutes; then students work in small groups and told to work together. The prevailing belief is that by forcing students to solve problems in groups, to rely on each other rather than the teacher, the techniques and concepts needed to solve the problem will emerge through discovery, and students will be forced to learn what is needed in a “just in time” basis. This amounts to giving students easy problems, but with hard and sometimes impossible approaches since they have been given little to no effective instruction to the mathematics that results in effective mathematics problem solvers.

[snip]

Brighter students are seated with students of lower ability in the belief that the brighter students will teach the slower ones what is needed. And frequently this occurs, though the fact that the brighter students are often obtaining their knowledge via parents, tutors or learning centers is an inconvenient truth that is rarely if ever acknowledged. The result is that brighter students are bored, and slower students are either lost, or seek explanations from those students in the know. Another inconvenient truth is that in lower income communities, there are unlikely to be students who have obtained their knowledge through outside sources; they are entirely dependent on their schools.

[snip]

Through the efforts and philosophies of otherwise well-meaning individuals, full inclusion and equality for all has served as a form of tracking.

Protecting Students from Learning: Raymond
by Barry Garelick

In my experience, when a school opts for "differentiated instruction," parents have no way to know whether their children are being taught the same curriculum as other children -- especially since differentiated instruction tends to go hand-in-hand with a reduction in quizzes and tests and the introduction of "standards-based" report cards parents don't know how to interpret.

A less-able child is treated equally in the sense of being placed in a classroom with more-able children.

But is the less-able child taught the same curriculum?

Is the less-able child given the same problems to do?

And, if he is given the same problems but can't do them, what then?

In Singapore, somewhere around 4th or 5th grade, less able children are given more time in the day to master the curriculum. Equality means that all children are taught the same curriculum.

Education Non-Myths

I couldn't resist sharing these maxims from a new blog :
www.incentiveseverywhere.com
whose author I know from a previous book he wrote entitled Power Teaching (it's in the list of books I recommended in a post a few months ago: http://kitchentablemath.blogspot.com/2009/02/recommended-reading-from-palisadesk.html



What follows is from the "Book of Right", the set of assumptions which will produce learning.

1. Although students come from different backgrounds, and some are much easier to teach than others, what education brings to the student is much more important than what the student brings to education.

2. All subjects are hierarchically arranged by logic and there is a sequence of instruction which must be followed by all but the most exceptional of high-performing students.

3. Reinforcement is a very powerful determinant of student achievement. The main reinforcer in education is the improvement the student sees in his skills. Ill-constructed curricula, the kind found in almost every government school, result in a steady diet of failure for most students.

4. Having a system of education which is not a civil servant bureaucracy is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for effective education. You can’t do it with such a bureaucracy, but just because you don’t have a bureaucracy doesn’t mean you can do it.

5. Higher order thinking skills are explicitly taught, not fondly hoped for.

6. Methods of teaching are determined by scientific research, not consensus based on experience and sincere belief.

7. Teachers use a curriculum and lesson plans which have been demonstrated to work best and are not expected to create their own.

8. Psychological assessments are used rarely, but assessment of student progress, which means assessment of the effectiveness of teaching, occurs at least daily.

9. Teachers are taught how to teach in detail rather than being expected to apply vague philosophical maundering.

10. Special education is rarely needed because students are taught well on the first go round.

11. If a student does not learn, the blame is not placed on neurological impairment, but on faulty teaching methods.

12. Self-esteem is not taught because it does not have to be.

13. Students are not given "projects" until component skills have been mastered and rarely thereafter.

14. No attention is paid to individual "learning styles" because these hypothetical entities have no effect on learning.

15. Academic success can be measured by reliable and valid standardized tests, although many of these tests are too simple.

16. Students are expected to perform correctly in spelling, writing, reading, and mathematics and it does not stifle creativity.

17. The precepts of Whole Language are not used to teach reading because these precepts are wrong.

18. Students are not expected to create their own reality because this leads to frustration and slow learning.

19. Students are not expected to learn when it is developmentally appropriate but when they are taught.

20. The concept of multiple intelligences is ignored because it has no positive effect on learning.

21. The teacher is a teacher and not a facilitator.

22. The spiral curriculum is not used because things are taught properly the first time.

23. The customer is the parent and the customer must have the economic power to move his child to another teaching situation when unsatisfied.

24. In private education, the cost of education is known. In public education, the cost can never be known because there is no motivation to tell the truth and every motivation not to.

25. The curriculum must be tested on children and provision must be made for mastery learning. Passage of time or exposure does not guarantee learning.

26. Students are not tortured by "creative problem solving" because this is just another crude IQ test and has no value aside from categorizing students yet again. http://incentiveseverywhere.com/2009/10/09/education-non-myths/


I'm not sure I agree that "special education will rarely be needed," because I have observed that students with certain exceptionalities (autism, some LDs, some language impairments) need the same effective instruction but can't benefit from it in an inclusive setting, at least not initially. However, I agree with the general case, that much "special education" is simply ineffective general education, watered down in in a smaller group. As Lloyd Dunne (I think) observed, "It's not special, and it's not education."

All students deserve better.

I see Socrates

Niki Hayes sends a link:

When we consider constructivist teaching, or a constructivist approach to learning, what comes to mind? For me, I see Socrates standing not in the center, but to the side of his students.

I imagine him pondering their comments and questions, and carefully crafting questions of his own, which he contributes -- selectively. Most importantly, he doesn't lead, but follows the line of questioning of the students.

That's really what it's all about: being an questioner, an investigator side-by-side with your students. That doesn't mean we shouldn't have a solid lesson plan ready to go each day, but we should be ready -- and willing -- for the students to take the class into unchartered waters.

Let me give you an example from my own teaching experience. In an American Literature class I taught a while back, we had made our way through transcendentalism, stopping off at Henry Thoreau. Here, I had a few lessons on civil disobedience planned.

Day one, we watched a video excerpt on Rosa Parks refusing to give up her seat...

[snip]

Then, the students began talking about racial profiling and wouldn't move on.

[snip]

Mostly African-American and Latino, my [11th grade] students began sharing stories of racial profiling from their own lives, and the lives of their families and friends.

One thing leads to another, and 2 weeks later students hand in their culminating projects:

• "One group made a brochure titled, 'How to Protect Yourself When DWB (Driving While Black/Brown).'"
• "Another group created a presentation poster on the history and statistics of racial profiling"
• "[Teacher's] favorite project was an instructional video for police officers on how to build trust with the community."

Letting Go in the Classroom by Rebecca Alber 10/6/09

So I guess the entire class is filled with visual learners.

Funny.

You'd think there'd be a couple of verbal/linguistic types mixed in somewhere.

Guess not.


update:

TerriW leaves this comment:

At what point do you really need to stop calling something an "American Literature" class -- what percentage of the class should be, I dunno, American Lit?

I mean, at a certain point, you have to start calling it "cheese food" instead of cheese...

"learning styles don't exist"