The “Learning Style” Debate (aka there is no such thing as an “visual” learner)

A growing body of research has now more or less conclusively debunked the theory that people learn in specific modalities or styles. A frequently repeated notion in teacher training and professional development circles, learning styles theory claims that students brains are hard-wired toward a specific modality (e.g. visual, kinesthetic, auditory) and that teachers need to match instructional delivery to these specific learning styles.  I have even experienced a workshop where we took a “learning styles inventory” and then discussed how we should, as teachers, strive to reach each specific preference in the classroom.

This sounds good but the problem is that it’s just not true. A recent NPR story details recent findings as does this article from the Washington Post written by a cognitive psychologist. But importantly, this does NOT discount  the importance of being “multi-modal” in instructional strategies. It seems the baby may get thrown out with the bathwater here.

As a colleague in neuroscience recently told me, “there is evidence for a variety of ways to learn: text-based, pictoral, auditory, kinesthetic, etc. And people do have strengths in different areas. The problem with the idea of learning styles occurs when instruction is tailored in a particular way for particular students and other modes of instruction are neglected as a consequence. There IS evidence that learning is enhanced when multiple approaches are used — reading, drawing, listening, writing, moving, etc. This is likely due to a number of factors: re-engagement of attention, repetition of material, multiple cognitive connections to the information.”

The take-away here is that we must be careful with “naturalizing” complex cognitive functions (you see this same thing with so-called multiple intelligence theory which is also not supported in the evidence). People are not “visual” or “auditory” learners anymore than they may possess natural “spatial” intelligence over, say “musical” intelligence. But, another key take-away is that it IS important to be “multi-modal” in your instruction as often as possible. Not so that you can reach those “visual learners” but so that ALL learners get the benefits of learning in multiple forms and contexts (and this is strongly supported by the research).

So no, you are not hard-wired to learn in a specific way. But yes, you can and should learn in multiple modalities to aid retention and understanding.

Image from: http://ruleof6ix.fieldofscience.-com/2011/05/your-brain-fortress-against-infection.htm

The Science of Experiential Learning

A recent editorial in Nature argues for more experiential, informal curriculum for students in science classes. The editorial titled: “Learning in the Wild” makes the point that informal learning environments are often much more powerful and longer lasting in transfer than formal classroom curricula. They go on to note: “Indeed, researchers say, the personal and idiosyncratic nature of informal science education is precisely what makes it powerful. The question that plagues classroom science — why is this relevant? — never even arises.”

Experiential methodology is getting a little more attention these days as we learn more about how the brain functions in various learning contexts and states. The Nature editorial cites the 2009 report from the National Academies on how people learn in informal settings which can be found here. The National Academies Press also released a very useful text simply titled How People Learn in 2000 that represents a rigorous scientific approach to the issue and summarizes key findings from neuroscience and related studies. Not surprisingly to those of us who advocate for experiential education, these reports support experiential learning methodologies. It would be well worth your time to read these as it is difficult to find rigorous, evidence-based studies of experiential education from such well-regarded sources (e.g. the National Academy of Science). Here is a short-list of findings from the 2000 report:

1. You must work with and address pre-existing knowledge in learners

2. Active learning is a key component to “meta-cognition”

3. Depth of learning is more important than “superficial coverage” of topics

4. Learning is influenced by context. Therefore, attention must be paid to the social aspects of learning

For those who support experiential education, these findings ought to look and sound familiar. They speak to the heart of the experiential educational philosophy and approach. That our “hunches” are now finding support in empirical science is heartening. Here is hoping there are policy makers, school officials, and “curriculum specialists” out there reading more about the science of learning. In the meantime, for the outdoor and experiential educators out there: take heart because the National Academy of Sciences has got your back!

Teaching is Listening; Learning is Talking

Teaching is listening, learning is talking. This wonderful rule of thumb, from the educator and writer, Deborah Meier, reminds us that real learning comes, in large part, from being actively involved in the educational moment. Experiential educators have long known this and frequently advocate for teaching that involves the learner and does not, as Paulo Freire famously described, treat students as empty “banks” in which to deposit information. I once heard a feisty school superintendent from Texas describe this method as the “sit, get, spit, and forgit” model of teaching and learning.

While many in progressive education have believed active learning to be far more effective, definitive scientific evidence has been difficult to come by. There are mountains of educational studies, research, and journals advocating for this method or that, and educational conservatives and progressives both have virtually unlimited amounts of data from which to cherry-pick evidence to support their particular pedagogical approaches. There have been very few studies that have risen above the fray to clearly and succinctly shown significant, generalizable results. Until now.

One of the most respected scientific journals, Science, recently (and without much media attention), published a study that, in its simplicity, is astounding in terms of its significance. “Why Peer Discussion Improves Student Performance on In-Class Concept Questions,” published in the January 2nd edition of Science (vol. 323) is one of those simple research studies that yields powerful results. In the study, researchers used in-class “clickers” (imagine the “ask the audience” function in Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?) to have students answer a conceptual question in class. Then without revealing the answer, the researchers had the students discuss their answer with a neighbor and then “re-vote” after the peer discussion time.

As might be expected, the number of students clicking on the correct answer increased following the peer discussion. We might expect this because students who originally missed the question might be lucky enough to sit next to “Mr. Smarty Pants” who helped them figure out the correct answer. OK. No big deal right?

These researchers took it a step further. They wanted to find out whether peer discussion, in and of itself, increased conceptual understanding irrespective of a student sitting next to Mr. Smarty Pants or not. So, after they asked the first question and performed the peer discussion and re-vote, they asked a second question. This question was what they called “isomorphic” in that it was related, conceptually, to the first question but it required conceptual transfer from the original question. At no point during this exercise was the correct answer to the first question revealed (thus controlling for the Mr. Smarty Pants scenario). The results were astounding.

The number of students who answered the first question correctly increased after peer discussion (again, as expected). But, the number of students who answered the first question wrong, then changed their answer to the correct one after peer discussion also tended to answer the second, isomorphic question correctly. Even more significant, students who got the first question wrong both times still improved on the second question (over random guessing). So what does this all mean and why is it significant enough to appear in Science?

This study shows, very simply but very powerfully, that students learn more and they learn better through talking. Student peer discussion, rather than a waste of time or pedagogical “fluff” as some conservative educational theorists have long argued, significantly improves student conceptual understanding. Indeed, much more than getting the right answer from Mr. Smarty Pants, the students that got question one wrong twice benefited from literally “talking it out” in order to understand new concepts. As the researchers themselves say, “We speculate that when [these students] discussed, they were making sense of the information, but were unable to apply their new knowledge until presented with a fresh question on the same concept.”

This simple study provides strong evidence to something experiential educators have long advocated. Students must be involved in their own learning. The educational process must be active and social, not passive and individual.  Rather than “seat time”  and time “on-task” as the dominant currency of classroom practice, it’s high time we start listening to our students (and letting them talk more to each other) to improve academic performance. Teaching is listening and learning is talking.

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Future Trends in Outdoor Education

As we turn the corner away from the 00’s or the “aughts” or whatever historians will choose to call the last decade, it’s worth taking a moment to look ahead toward future trends and issues that will affect things in the outdoor education field for the next ten years or so. Future prognosticating is, of course, a dangerous game and I make no claims that my reading of the tea leaves is any better than anyone else’s guesses. However, I do keep up to date on the goings on in the field as best as I can and spend a good deal of time talking about these issues with colleagues at other programs, institutions, and conferences. So, without further ado, here are my top five trends (in no particular order) in Outdoor Education for the 2010’s…

1. LOCALISM:  The impact of the “great recession” is certainly being felt in outdoor education. People are “nesting” more, staying closer to home, and looking for ways to enjoy the outdoors in simpler, more frugal ways. This dovetails nicely to the emerging localism movement connected to broader sustainability and environmental shifts in certain segments of the population. Interest in gardening, local green spaces, and getting kids out in nature is on the rise across the board. How can outdoor education, as a field, tap into this social shift in a way that democratizes nature and challenges some of the elitism and narcissism that has defined outdoor pursuits over the last several decades?
2. SUSTAINABILITY: It’s hip, it’s green, and it’s everywhere. Whether you think this new movement is shallow or deep, it is certainly influential. Equipment manufacturers are going green, ski slopes and other outdoor industries are ramping up sustainability efforts, and even travel and guide purveyors like REI are offering carbon off-sets for eco-tourist travel. Green gear lists for programs are on the rise as are attempts to lower the carbon footprints of everything from college outdoor programs to summer camps to environmental education centers. How can outdoor education act as an example of sustainable operations and education moving forward?
3. ACCESS: Population increases and the impacts of urbanization and suburbanization are placing incremental pressures on our natural recreation and wilderness areas. We are, in many respects, “loving them to death.” Yosemite and Yellowstone have smog alerts and traffic jams. Getting a permit in some places is like winning the lottery. As pressures increase, guided outdoor education groups will be under increasing pressure to find less-crowded and permit-driven recreation areas. Programmers can stay ahead of the curve by looking for less popular climbing areas, rivers, and trails that serve educational purposes without adding to the crowds.
4. NATURAL HISTORY: Knowing how to identify trees, birds, flowers, and the like use to be a stronger part of our national K-12 curriculum as well as the informal curriculum passed down from generation to generation. We have several generations of kids and young adults who cannot identify even the most basic plant and animal species in their own backyards let along the basic geological history or watersheds of their region. As the “no child left inside” movement and the concern for childhood obesity rates grows, re-kindling a love of the more-than-human world through natural history is, well, “natural.” How can outdoor educators leverage this emerging need into programs and new educational opportunities?
5. STANDARDIZATION: Travel to many places in northern Europe or New Zealand and Australia and you will find a professionalization and standardization of outdoor education that we have yet to see here in the States. Ropes courses, climbing walls, and other outdoor education sub-fields are all feeling the pressure toward more national standards. This is both a good and bad thing. With increased standardization comes increased need for certifications and training. This makes access into the field more expensive as a career option. But it also, potentially, increases the quality of the educational product and process. Yet, too much emphasis on “merit badges” can take the flexibility and life out of a field that has long thrived on passion, creativity, and sound judgement over rules, credentials, and bureaucracy. How will the field wrestle with the need for quality control against the strong legacy of individual freedom?

Those are my top five. I would be interested in hearing from others. What with the 2010’s hold for outdoor education?

Why You Should Care About Twitter

Twitter? Tweeting? Twibes? Come on, you say, isn’t all that stuff ridiculous? No, it isn’t. Used in certain ways, twittering is an amazing tool that allows you to “map the discourse” of any particular topic or field that you may be interested in. Used properly, twittering gives you access to people, topics, and resources that can help you create virtual communities and networks, generate new ideas, and anticipate trends. If you are involved in the outdoor, environmental, and/or experiential education fields, twittering, done right, has amazing potential.  I have been “twittering” for awhile now and here is what I have learned along the way.

First, twittering is much more than the update function from Facebook on steroids. Sure, you can use it that way (e.g. “I am now going out for coffee,” “I just got on the plane,” “lying on a beach in Puerto Vallarta” ) but to use it purposefully, you need to be more careful and deliberate. Download (for free) a twitter application platform (like tweetdeck http://www.tweetdeck.com/beta/). This allows you to set automatic search functions for anyone tweeting on a topic of interest to you and also display tweets in a quickly scan-able format. My search terms are: experiential education, environmental education, outdoor education, education, and climate change. You can also combine terms into one search (outdoor + experiential education). Once this is set up, it literally allows you to see who is tweeting on those topics from all over the world– pretty cool! I have used tweets and links I have found from tweets in my research, my classes, and to scan for recent events and news that I ought to be aware of in my fields of interest.

Don’t follow just anybody. Make sure they are tweeting purposefully about the topic(s) you care about. The last thing you need is some joker who tweets every five minutes about picking his nose. Post thoughtfully. Just as you should not follow the joker above, don’t become the same said joker above. When you have a question, find a cool website, or have something you want to get out there into the tweet-o-sphere, go for it!

Join a “twibe.” A twibe is a special interest group on Twitter (it’s a brand new function). I started one called “Experiential Education” http://www.twibes.com/group/ExperientialEducation. These can be sites for networking, information sharing, and mobilization on matters of importance to the twibe.

If you are a business or organization, you can also create your own organizational twitter profile. This lets you update folks about events that you may be hosting, new products you wish to feature, or get out any other news. If you are good and you get lots of followers, it can be a tremendous marketing tool. The Wilderness Program at Earlham has a twitter profile and we use it to announce special events to the community. It’s a whole lot easier than updating a web-page and more efficient than Facebook.

The experiential/outdoor field cannot be resistant to technology (in fact, any cursory look at the latest gear shows that we are in fact quite the opposite). Yet, sometimes, we get caught in the mindset that computer-based technology somehow diminishes the Good life. This is not necessarily so. In fact, used properly, places like outdoored.com, blogs, and yes… twitter can advance the field by more effectively and efficiently linking communities of interest in ways we couldn’t have dreamed of even 10 years ago.

So go on, step out of that comfort zone and fire off a tweet or two! http://www.twitter.com