In this video Daniel Willingham "debunks" the theory of learning styles. First of all, this video is incredibly annoying to watch. First, Daniel's narration is so quiet that I had to lean with my head next to my speakers with the volume all the way up just to understand, and his voice is so boring that I could hardly pay attention. Daniel should hire someone with a sense of inflection to read his narrated scripts. Secondly, seeing Daniel sitting in front of a stack of library books, with enormous bags under his eyes was severely distracting. That part should definitely be cut out, and the video should focus on "making meaning" of the content.
That said, the conclusion of the video is certainly correct: Good teaching is good teaching. Whether you believe in learning styles or not, as teachers and learners we intuitively know that people learn differently. We have all had the experience of struggling with a concept until suddenly, someone presents us with something that allows us to approach the material in a different way, and, EUREKA! we've got it! We also see this in our students, as in the example of the structure of the atom being analogous to the structure of the solar system. SO in the end, learning styles or lack there of is nothing but psycho-babble. Good teaching is good teaching, and we need to differentiate instruction such that students can approach content from various angles, and construct understanding from an authentic experience.
My portfolio has some examples of differentiated instruction, including think-tac-toe, and 20 points assignments which I have created, and will work well for diverse learners and mixed ability classrooms.
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The thing that makes me so hostile toward Daniel is his pompous attitude. Like we are all so ridiculous for jumping on the idiot bandwagon and entertaining the idea of learning styles. If he adjusted his attitude, and reworded his comments to be more objective, factual, and less cocky, he would be much more effective.
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