Any good educator is likely to write their lesson plans in a way that students can understand, or at least they think they do. As an educator they try their hardest to allow students to retain as much information as they can through understanding that everyone learns differently. So, they keep in mind different learning styles. However, through further research there is a new way of approaching this ever growing way of understanding how we process information; multiple intelligence. This means that the way educators' approach learning should evolve. Thus, learning styles may have evolved into multiple intelligence.
If we break it down there are only a few major learning styles: kinesthetically, auditorally and visually. In "Learning Styles Don't Exist" Professor Daniel Willingham explains repetition and diversity may be the reason for students retaining information not necessarily the different modalities, when he set up testing for auditory learners in form of words of objects being displayed and images of the same objects displayed for visual learners the results did not yield that the modality corresponded to more information being retained. People who are so called visual learners learned just as much by being presented with information that was meant for auditory learners and vise versa. However, the idea of learning styles is not such a bad idea. Anything that gets our teachers thinking about how students retain information and how to better their abilities in presenting what needs to be learned is a step in the right direction for our education system.
Learning how students process and remember information is key to how educators teach.Thus comes in to play, the theory of multiple intelligence. In "Multiple Intelligences: What Does the Research Say?" it explains that there are 8 different ways of learning: "verbal-linguistic intelligence refers to an individual's ability to analyze information and produce work that involves oral and written language, such as speeches, books, and memos, logical-mathematical intelligence describes the ability to develop equations and proofs, make calculations, and solve abstract problems, visual-spatial intelligence allows people to comprehend maps and other types of graphical information, musical intelligence enables individuals to produce and make meaning of different types of sound, naturalistic intelligence refers to the ability to identify and distinguish among different types of plants, animals, and weather formations found in the natural world, bodily-kinesthetic intelligence entails using one's own body to create products or solve problems, interpersonal intelligence reflects an ability to recognize and understand other people's moods, desires, motivations, and intentions. and intrapersonal intelligence refers to people's ability to recognize and assess those same characteristics within themselves." One may wonder how this can be implemented in the classroom. First, the type of learner according to these perimeters much be identified, which you can do by taking the multiple intelligence survey. I personally took this test and I am a musical, spacial and natural learner. The evaluation was sound as per my personal experiences with learning as well as my own self evaluation.
If we were to compare the two theory's to approaching learning, learning styles simplify that students learn best by information being presenting in one of three ways. Some students may have to see a picture or hear instruction to learn while others may have to physically do something to commit anything to memory. In contrast, multiple intelligence dives into the minds of students and identifies specific ways of comprehension rather than using a black and white system of "you must fit into one of these categories." Multiple intelligence focuses on brain processes and a more scientific approach, learning styles are more simplistic, which leads one to believe that one has evolved into the other through further understanding of how individuals comprehend and retain information.
Clearly, through scientific discovery and understanding of the brain our ways of thinking and approaching every day activities has changed over the years. Learning styles are out of style and are too simple to be a structure in which teachers should base their lesson plans. Multiple intelligence is a more elaborated understanding of human comprehension and is more advanced. Therefor, learning styles have evolved into multiple intelligence. However, one thing is certain, no matter which way you look at it, these theory's are pointing educators into the right direction by getting them to think and plan with students comprehension and retention in mind.
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