There are different types of learners. There is the visual learner, kinesthetic learner, auditory learner, and others. There are even parents and teachers who are so ingrained with this perception that they apply this to understand how their children and students learn. Say a student seem to understand a lesson better when visual aids are used, the teacher may conclude that the student is a visual learner.
The example might be intuitive in nature but it does not tell it all. Dr. James Witte states that there are various kinds of learning styles. These include cognitive (how we think about learning), affective (how we feel about learning), and perceptual (how we perceive our environment and how it relates to learning). Therefore, kinesthetic, auditory, and visual all belongs to perceptual learning style.
Digging deeper, there are four other perceptual modalities namely print (seeing written words); interactive (verbalization); haptic (sense of touch or grasp); and olfactory (sense of smell and taste). Dr. Witte adds that perceptual learning has a relation with the five senses and the way in which people gets information from their environment. He further reiterated that there is not restrictions as to learning style.
If a person learns better with one learning style, it does not follow he is confined to it or that he is that type of learner over another. It is just that he prefers that learning style he is using to learn better. A thorough investigation is needed before one can conclude that he is the kind of learner he perceives to be. In other words, as Dr. Daniel Willingham puts it, “kinesthetic learners don’t exist, and learning styles don’t exist.” He posited that that the notion of children learning differently is just a prediction. He stated that learning styles has been tested many times over and that some ideas have just been just sort of self-sustaining.
Understanding this, a teacher and a parent can only guide children on how to learn best using their own preferred style of learning, that which makes learning easier for them.
References:
Fahle, M., Poggio, T. (2002) Perceptual learning. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Goldstone, R.L., & Hendrickson, A. (2010). Categorical perception. Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Cognitive Science, 1(1), 69–78.
Karni, A. & Sagi, D. (1993). The time course of learning a visual skill. Nature, 365(6443), 250-252.
Kellman, P. J. (2002) Perceptual learning. In Pashler, H. and Gallistel, R. (Editors) Stevens’ Handbook of Experimental Psychology, Vol. 3: Learning, Motivation, and Emotion (3rd Edition), New York: Wiley
By: Lilibeth G. Navoa | Teacher I | Alauli Elementary School | Pilar, Bataan
