Hello Tom:

FYI, I teach K-12 teachers who swear by various forms of differentiated 
instruction, including relating Gardner's different learning styles to their 
students (the last time I read him on TCR below, he said he was still 
developing the theory).   Apparently, for these many, many teachers, 
learning about the different learning styles has answered many questions for 
them and helped them tremendously in their day-to-day pedagogy--I hear this 
from virtually all of  my teachers who, inspite of too-large classes, are 
moving towards development of IEPs (Individual Educational Plans) for all of 
their students.  They are only interested in what works for their students, 
and apparently this works.

Also, in the K-12 literature there is much writing done about learning 
styles.  Check the archives of Teachers College Record and Education Week. 
www.tcrecord.org and www.edweek.org for threads of reference.  It's a 
vibrant and moving field.

I don't know how the ongoing research and buildup of K-12 teacher-experience 
may relate or translate to Adult Education--certainly it deserves some 
thought and probing, at the very least.  However, I think your comment: 
"....or other very malformed ideas" may be premature, and sounds to me more 
like contempt, rather than to the open-mindedness and thoughtful 
evidence-gathering that you so rightly call for in any professional and 
critical environment. Positivism is dying, but oh-so-slowly.

Regards,

Catherine King
Adjunct Instructor
Department of Education
National University
San Diego, CA

----- Original Message ----- 
From: <tsticht at znet.com>
To: <professionaldevelopment at nifl.gov>
Sent: Friday, February 08, 2008 4:37 PM
Subject: [ProfessionalDevelopment 1926] Debunking Multiple Intelligences 
andLearning Styles



> Colleagues: I have followed discussions on several NIFL-sponsored 

> discussion

> lists recently in which people have advocated teaching to learning styles 

> or

> to multiple intelligences. This is strange to me given that the federal

> government has argued for the use of evidence-based, scientifically

> validated approaches to adult literacy education (see the What Works

> Clearinghouse sponsored by the U.S Department of Education). But by even

> loose standards of evidence, there is no credible evidence to support

> teaching to a person's learning style, preferred learning modality (i.e.,

> visual, auditory, kinesthetic), multiple intelligences, right brain-left

> brain preference, or other very malformed ideas. Indeed, there are a wide

> variety of so-called learning styles (impusive vs reflective; introverted

> vs extroverted; field dependent vs field dependent and on and on)and no

> research on how a teacher can take all of them into account everyday and

> over weeks and months. It is not even certain that a learning style stays

> the same from the beginning of a course to the end of the course. While I

> understand the desire of the NIFL to promote useful discussions among 

> adult

> literacy educators, with only a minimum of censorship, it strikes me as

> counter productive to advocate for evidence-based, scientifically 

> validated

> teaching while also permitting the advertisement of commercial workshops

> that are based on poorly formed concepts and devoid of empirical evidence

> for the efficacy of such ideas and the practices based on them. Tom Sticht

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