Write one pargraph or two if you can and try use a simple words
Question Here is a spot for your comments and reflections on the Daniel Willingham talk about research in education vs the actual practice of education.
Please respond with whatever you feel you learned from his talk, and how you think you will use that learning in the future. Also, if anything he said really resonated with something in your own history, feel free to include that too ?
Examples
I learned that what we consider learning styles are not what was meant when the theory was created. The learning styles theory says that we can learn in multiple ways like auditory, visual, or kinesthetic. However, we take them as that there are certain ways we can learn better as individuals. This would actually be learning abilities. Building off of this, he said research actually points to the fact there are no such things as learning abilities. Yet, most people still believe and keep telling others that they have a certain learning "style" that allows them to learn better, when in reality people learn better when multiple styles are activated. Taking away from this experience, I think I need to try and utilize multiple styles in my studying to increase my learning and retention.
Something that really resonated with me from the talk was a point that Daniel Willingham made about learning; he said, 'Being a visual learner doesn't mean you are good at learning visually. There is a difference between style and ability. Your style of learning doesn't really matter, it just matters if you get there.' I think that it's important to not compare yourself to other people constantly. We are all different and have different ways of learning and achieving.
Also, it was nice to hear his perspective on how studies will say they are research-based, but the term "research-based" has no set list of requirements or no set definition. However, people will just blindly accept sources if they see that the author or publisher has a title of authority. He recommended that those of us who are non-researchers should evaluate sources using these steps:
1) Be sure you understand what is being claimed/ what they are trying to achieve.
2) Ignore authority.
3) Ask for the research.
4) If you're forced to adopt the intervention, monitor it.
I felt I honestly learned quite a bit from Daniel Willingham's talk. He brought up several topics that I found myself knowing more about than I had realized. He talked a lot about the different learning styles, visual, auditory and kinesthetic. I can remember taking SEVERAL quizzes for this in elementary school and I found it very interesting that this has been proven to be relatively false when it comes to the fact that we do not learn in just one specific style, which makes perfect sense to me.
I also found it really interesting that many teachers have no way of getting the latest research when it comes to the latest findings in education. Clearly this could help with a lot of things, given that a teacher was willing to take the time to learn and digest more information for how to make their teaching style even better. However, what I believe I will take away that it is incredibly difficult to typecast a student as just one style, however it is very very difficult to cater to the needs of each and every student. His proposal to provide research through a common place will certainly help but I wonder if it will still come close to making a true impact on helping students learn to their maximum capabilities.