I missed the point on this one, thinking that teachers were being criticized for not checking the research on everything. That’s why I ended up lamenting the lack of time in the school day to do anything, much less research.

Gartner says that people are “smart” in different ways. They have an innate ability to process information in different domains.

The whole Learning Styles inventory movement has to do with achieving outcomes based on learning what an individual’s “Learning Style” is and presenting the information in that mode to that person to get the best result.

Gartner’s theory seems to be supported. At least I haven’t run across anybody who says otherwise yet.

The Learning Styles movement is flawed in several dimensions.

a. There’s not any respected research that says people even *have* a learning style.

b. There’s not any respected research that says presenting instruction that caters to a particular style is more effective than another for an individual.

c. All the results claimed by proponents of “Learning Styles” can be explained by much simpler constructs — like repetition and effective communication.

The real issue is that when you run across something that’s demonstrably false, then stop using it. This whole silver-lining-Pollyanna-have-to-say-something-good idea is problematic. Prensky’s an interesting character. I’m probably going to meet him next week and I’m looking forward to hearing what he has to say.

Being a digital aboriginal myself, I have always held his postulations in a certain light of skepticism. When you deal in absolutes, it only takes one counter example to bring down a whole structure and when it comes to “brains of kids” vs “brains of adults” when dealing with all things digital, I’m the living counter example.