Willingham contends that a topic’s best modality is more important than accommodating a student’s perceived learning style and will result in better acquisition by students. Focusing on the best way to deliver a lesson, the best way to give the topic meaning to students seems the more fruitful approach. Make content more relevant, more meaningful to the individual and the individual will embrace the thoughts and memories associated with learning that content.“An important finding from that research (formal laboratory tasks) is that memory is usually stored independent of any modality. You typically store memories in terms of meaning-not in terms of whether you saw, heard, or physically interacted with the information.”
There may be more use for individual student learning styles in a smaller classroom setting. A student with a specific learning disability may be an excellent candidate for a specific individual based mode selection. But on the larger scale, in for instance, a suburban public school classroom with upwards of twenty five students, mode variations for the same content would be too costly in time and resources.
Naturally, there are better, more meaningful ways to teach certain topics. For instance, a math teacher will see better student acquisition if students bisect angles themselves, hands-on, with a compass, rather than watch the procedure performed on a chalk board. Willingham refers to inspirational martial music of the period and battlefield maps to enhance a Civil War lesson – certainly an improvement over a lecture or textbook passage.
Reference
Willingham, D. T. (2005). Ask the Cognitive Scientist: Do Visual, Auditory, and Kinesthetic Learners Need Visual, Auditory, and Kinesthetic Instruction?
