{"id":4051,"date":"2017-02-01T08:56:07","date_gmt":"2017-02-01T16:56:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/teachinginhighered.com\/?p=4051"},"modified":"2019-11-27T16:02:14","modified_gmt":"2019-11-28T00:02:14","slug":"2-persistent-myths-teaching-learning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/teachinginhighered.com\/2017\/02\/01\/2-persistent-myths-teaching-learning\/","title":{"rendered":"2 Persistent Myths About Teaching and Learning"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I just finished listening to a Teaching in Higher Ed podcast episode with <a href=\"https:\/\/hapgood.us\/\">Mike Caulfield<\/a> on <a href=\"https:\/\/hapgood.us\/2016\/12\/19\/yes-digital-literacy-but-which-one\/\">digital literacy<\/a> that will air on Thursday, February 2.<\/p>\n<p>Not to give too much away, but at the end of the conversation, we chat about the tooth fairy, and other childhood myths.\u00a0I joke about how I have tended to stay away from controversial topics on the podcast, but that I couldn't resist sharing that my husband and I\u00a0don't plan on telling our children that there is such a thing as the tooth fairy.<\/p>\n<p>Since I have started down the path of breaking out of my &#8220;safe&#8221; topics pattern here on Teaching on Higher Ed, I thought I would share two\u00a0myths about learning that are almost always cause for concern by people who have subscribed to them throughout their career as educators.<\/p>\n<h3>We all have one primary learning style that needs to be accommodated for in our learning<\/h3>\n<p>I bought into this myth for at least the first ten years of my corporate training career. Now, I'm confident that believing in this myth actually makes our teaching worse.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.wired.com\/2015\/01\/need-know-learning-styles-myth-two-minutes\/\">All You Need to Know About the \u2018Learning Styles\u2019 Myth, in Two Minutes<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.pbs.org\/parents\/expert-tips-advice\/2016\/03\/letting-go-learning-styles\/\">Letting Go of Learning Styles<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.sciencedirect.com\/science\/article\/pii\/S0360131516302482\">Stop propagating the learning styles myth<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/nymag.com\/scienceofus\/2015\/12\/one-reason-the-learning-styles-myth-persists.html\">One Reason the \u2018Learning Styles\u2019 Myth Persists<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.edweek.org\/edweek\/finding_common_ground\/2014\/04\/the_myth_of_learning_styles.html\">The Myth of Learning Styles<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>One take-away from the research that debunks this myth is to have multiple approaches for helping learners comprehend what you're trying to teach, instead of gearing the students' experiences toward their preferred learning experience. Consider ways of making your teaching visual, auditory, and kinesthetic, using more than one approach at a time.<\/p>\n<p>I once posted about the learning styles myth on my personal Facebook page, having no idea the topic is as controversial as it seems to be&#8230; Please refrain from thinking that showing this myth for what it is (unsubstantiated) does not mean that people don't have learning disabilities. That's an entirely different domain. Yes, dyslexia exists, for example&#8230; and there are ways in which we, as educators, should be accommodating for that disability.<\/p>\n<h3>If we have learners &#8220;practice by doing,&#8221; they will retain 75% of what they're &#8220;taught&#8221;<\/h3>\n<p><img data-opt-id=1552253454  fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-4052\" src=\"https:\/\/images.coachingforleaders.com\/cb:ztCJ~31fd5\/w:300\/h:251\/q:mauto\/f:best\/ig:avif\/https:\/\/teachinginhighered.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/learningpyramid4-300x251.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"251\" srcset=\"https:\/\/images.coachingforleaders.com\/cb:ztCJ~31fd5\/w:300\/h:251\/q:mauto\/f:best\/ig:avif\/https:\/\/teachinginhighered.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/learningpyramid4-300x251.jpg 300w, https:\/\/images.coachingforleaders.com\/cb:ztCJ~31fd5\/w:300\/h:251\/q:mauto\/f:best\/ig:avif\/dpr:2\/https:\/\/teachinginhighered.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/learningpyramid4-300x251.jpg 2x\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/>This learning pyramid has also been propagated across multiple educational contexts. It is meant to encourage us to move up as high as we can on the pyramid, lest we leave people only remembering 5% of what we said. This is not to say that there isn't ample research to illustrate the effectiveness of active learning pedagogical approaches, but doesn't the &#8220;tidiness&#8221; of these numbers make you a bit suspicious?<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/acrlog.org\/2014\/01\/13\/tales-of-the-undead-learning-theories-the-learning-pyramid\/\">Tales of the Undead\u2026Learning Theories: The Learning Pyramid<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/news\/answer-sheet\/wp\/2013\/03\/06\/why-the-learning-pyramid-is-wrong\/?utm_term=.e64e1f9f4f17\">Why the \u2018learning pyramid\u2019 is wrong<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.tandfonline.com\/doi\/abs\/10.1080\/00220272.2015.1088063?journalCode=tcus20\">The diffusion of the learning pyramid myths in academia: an exploratory study<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.logicearth.com\/blog\/five-common-but-inexcusable-learning-myths-about-how-we-learn\">Five common but inexcusable learning myths about how we learn<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Active learning can help motivate students and help them retain more information. However, the process of learning (and teaching) is far more complex than a diagram like this could ever convey.<\/p>\n<h2>Your Turn<\/h2>\n<p>What teaching and learning myths have you observed that have persisted\u00a0for too long now?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I just finished listening to a Teaching in Higher Ed podcast episode with Mike Caulfield on digital literacy that will air on Thursday, February 2. Not to give too much away, but at the end of the conversation, we chat about the tooth fairy, and other childhood myths.\u00a0I joke about how I have tended to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":13345,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"coauthors":[195],"class_list":{"0":"post-4051","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-teaching","8":"entry","9":"gs-1","10":"gs-odd","11":"gs-even","12":"gs-featured-content-entry"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/teachinginhighered.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4051","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/teachinginhighered.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/teachinginhighered.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teachinginhighered.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teachinginhighered.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4051"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/teachinginhighered.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4051\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teachinginhighered.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13345"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/teachinginhighered.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4051"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teachinginhighered.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4051"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teachinginhighered.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4051"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teachinginhighered.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=4051"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}