Veritasium - 2021-07-09
You are not a visual learner — learning styles are a stubborn myth. Part of this video is sponsored by Google Search. Special thanks to Prof. Daniel Willingham for the interview and being part of this video. Special thanks to Dr Helen Georigou for reviewing the script and helping with the scientific literature. Special thanks to Jennifer Borgioli Binis for consulting on the script. MinutePhysics video on a better way to picture atoms -- https://ve42.co/Atom ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ References: Pashler, H., McDaniel, M., Rohrer, D., & Bjork, R. (2008). Learning styles: Concepts and evidence. Psychological science in the public interest, 9(3), 105-119. — https://ve42.co/Pashler2008 Willingham, D. T., Hughes, E. M., & Dobolyi, D. G. (2015). The scientific status of learning styles theories. Teaching of Psychology, 42(3), 266-271. — https://ve42.co/Willingham Massa, L. J., & Mayer, R. E. (2006). Testing the ATI hypothesis: Should multimedia instruction accommodate verbalizer-visualizer cognitive style?. Learning and Individual Differences, 16(4), 321-335. — https://ve42.co/Massa2006 Riener, C., & Willingham, D. (2010). The myth of learning styles. Change: The magazine of higher learning, 42(5), 32-35.— https://ve42.co/Riener2010 Husmann, P. R., & O'Loughlin, V. D. (2019). Another nail in the coffin for learning styles? Disparities among undergraduate anatomy students’ study strategies, class performance, and reported VARK learning styles. Anatomical sciences education, 12(1), 6-19. — https://ve42.co/Husmann2019 Snider, V. E., & Roehl, R. (2007). Teachers’ beliefs about pedagogy and related issues. Psychology in the Schools, 44, 873–886. doi:10.1002/pits.20272 — https://ve42.co/Snider2007 Fleming, N., & Baume, D. (2006). Learning Styles Again: VARKing up the right tree!. Educational developments, 7(4), 4. — https://ve42.co/Fleming2006 Rogowsky, B. A., Calhoun, B. M., & Tallal, P. (2015). Matching learning style to instructional method: Effects on comprehension. Journal of educational psychology, 107(1), 64. — https://ve42.co/Rogowskyetal Coffield, Frank; Moseley, David; Hall, Elaine; Ecclestone, Kathryn (2004). — https://ve42.co/Coffield2004 Furey, W. (2020). THE STUBBORN MYTH OF LEARNING STYLES. Education Next, 20(3), 8-13. — https://ve42.co/Furey2020 Dunn, R., Beaudry, J. S., & Klavas, A. (2002). Survey of research on learning styles. California Journal of Science Education II (2). — https://ve42.co/Dunn2002 ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ Special thanks to Patreon supporters: Mike Tung, Evgeny Skvortsov, Meekay, Ismail Öncü Usta, Paul Peijzel, Crated Comments, Anna, Mac Malkawi, Michael Schneider, Oleksii Leonov, Jim Osmun, Tyson McDowell, Ludovic Robillard, Jim buckmaster, fanime96, Juan Benet, Ruslan Khroma, Robert Blum, Richard Sundvall, Lee Redden, Vincent, Marinus Kuivenhoven, Alfred Wallace, Arjun Chakroborty, Joar Wandborg, Clayton Greenwell, Pindex, Michael Krugman, Cy 'kkm' K'Nelson, Sam Lutfi, Ron Neal ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ Research and Writing by Derek Muller and Petr Lebedev Animation by Iván Tello Filmed by Emily Zhang and Trenton Oliver Edited by Trenton Oliver Music by Epidemic Sound https://epidemicsound.com Additional video supplied by Getty Images ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀
I worked as a high school teacher for thirty years. Over the years it gradually dawned on me that the many educational theories, which were forced on us were based on absolutely nothing but unproven theory. Learning style was just one of many. Nearly every year a new style or theory would be introduced. Nobody ever rigorously challenged these theories (presented as facts) demanding evidence and proof. Ever. Yet if you did not adapt your teaching to incorporate these unproven styles you would be judged to be a failing teacher. So you had no choice. At least whilst being observed!! I became quite cynical in the end because I realised the new methods were invented and then promoted by people just trying to further their career with something for their CV. And each method would last a year or two before going out of fashion and being replaced by a new one. God forbid anyone would actually just leave the teachers to use their own experience, education and intelligence.
@Tatii Lange Probably because you argue on one hand that it is methylation causing the change or potentially causing the change. On the flip side you would also appear to argue that we should not pursue research into the probability of fixing the potentially reversible problems nor advocate for fixing it due to the social stigma it creates to tell someone suffering from being broken that they are broken and should not be that way.
It appears my second post is being filtered by Youtube. Cannot have a real discussion, so it is not worth it.
@Tatii Lange Very few ASD people would not be glad to be rid of the mental burdens from ASD. The same can be said for ADHD, anxiety etc...
With the trans community and the homosexual community they argue we should celebrate it. Embrace it. Talk about it etc... Not create social stigmas around it by researching cures and causation.
Autism should not be celebrated. ADHD should not be celebrated. Anxiety should not be. They should be researched and cured. So should homosexuality and transgenderism.
Now as to where my argument go and why I bring up certain subjects... too many discussions through the years. "Homosexuality people are born that way and it is genetic."
When they spent billions of dollars and did lots of research to find the gene causing it they could not find it.
The story changed that it is cultural and should be celebrated because it is different.
The trans community has largely been arguing they are born broken. But like homosexuality Twins studies do not support that conclusion.
ASD Twin studies has always pointed to the genetic link
@Veevslav1 i wouldnt even say I argue that methylation is a cause, im not knowledgeable enough on the topic to make such a claim. There may be no link at all as far as I know. The reason I mentioned it is just for you to broaden your thoughts regarding the matter. I dont think that id be able to change your pov, that would be futile (same viceversa) , but to share something that has affected the way I take my stance on these topics, that being that there are many things withing genetics and development that are very nuanced and dont work as text book genetics says they should. You seem to be interested in the science, so I think you could like those topics. I never presented myself as having an answer to the matter, I dont think there is a well established consensus at the moment.
You are putting words in my mouth as i never once talked about the how to treat the issue, nor that research shouldnt be pursued. But you would still be right, that is my stance. As conversion therapy has historically been extremely detrimental to the treatment of individuals and has no scientific basis as far as im aware of.
I think you could try to be understanding towards the reason of why saying that would carry a stigma. The way most 'anti trans' people conduct themselves is not with the persons best interest in mind and they advocate for discrimination that only makes the suffering worse. (Not saying this is your case, just trying to explain why you would get a knee jerk reaction to such comments)
I saw your other comment saying that someone with ASD, autism, etc would be happy to get rid of their syndrome, in contrast with homosexuals and trans people. I dont have a well thought argument regarding this other than I guess it should be up to the individual IF there was a proven therapy to help them, but there isnt, so for the meantime I definitely think people with autism as well as trans people should be treated with respect and are valid.
Id like to repeat my comparison to people who believe in a God, even though I think there is no basis for it, it doesnt mean I should oppose it.
Youtube comments is def a bad place to try to have a conversation, i didnt intend it to drag like this. I hope you can see now the intention behind my first comment and hopefully you find the topics an interesting read even if it doesn't change your pov.
@Tatii Lange I quit reading when you said broaden your thoughts on the matter. It indicates that you did not even bother reading all of my previous posts.
I indicated that it was potentially caused by things introduced in the womb by outside chemicals etc... Or more likely it is caused by trauma after birth.
"I saw your other comment saying that someone with ASD, autism, etc would be happy to get rid of their syndrome, in contrast with homosexuals and trans people. I dont have a well thought argument regarding this other than I guess it should be up to the individual IF there was a proven therapy to help them, but there isnt, so for the meantime I definitely think people with autism as well as trans people should be treated with respect and are valid."
Yet in an earlier post you argue for the normalization of the syndrome in society. That train of thought that you take also leads to elimination of a search for a cure. Which is what certain people within the trans and homosexual communities argue for. You directly argue to take away the right for people to try and get cured of it.
So what is treated with respect? For me, I find their efforts to target underage children with their garbage disgusting. I think it would be respectful for them to leave the kids alone. Let the kids be kids and not subject them to the garbage that they are doing.
Respect goes both ways. Making a mess of the language is not respectful to society.
You keep bringing God up, well the Bible teaches us that it took an act of God to confuse the language of the people... We are doing it to ourselves voluntarily because the "enlightened" among us think it makes society work better...
Now whether the Bible is fact or legend, there is wisdom in all the old stories.
And dumb people are promoted just by using the catch phrases, and tonnes of money are poured into "multiple intelligence" classes. It is just so wrong.
So conclusion: HOW you learn depends on WHAT you are learning.
It's the subject-at-hand that induces the style of learning, and not the person.
You can't learn how to skate by just listening. Revolutionary.
I know I'm a little late to the party, but this comment right here, absolutely just lost it, that is hilarious.
😂😎
When I was a kid i found an owner's manual for a Cessna 172 aircraft. I studied it and studied it, made my own drawings, reread parts, made lists of positions of controls, etc. After a year I was certain I could fly a plane. As luck would have it, a few years later I had the chance and...I couldn't.
I learnt the theory of skiing by reading one book. Fifty years on and I am still learning through practice.
I feel like the "learning styles" myth has ultimately HELPED teaching, though. It's encouraged teachers to be more multimodal in their TEACHING style in order to (in their minds) reach a wider variety of learners. Even if the hypothesis was wrong, it's ultimately created a stronger teaching style.
I'm not so sure.
There's a plague of administrators asking PE and music teachers to submit their course materials to ensure they're meeting VARK standards and then scheduling follow-up meetings to discuss why their content isn't VARK enough. It's an absolute waste of time. If the task you're asking students to perform is auditory (e.g., identify a C note) then the teaching should fit the task.
I actually spent an entire term learning about VARK in undergrad with the suggestion that each time I run a course I should be giving all my students a VARK test and then learning their style and making my content fit their stye. This doesn't actually encourage multi-modal learning at all. It instead encourages I do the work of creating multi-modal learning but then just expose the kids to a single mode.
@prrithwiraj barman You first need a teacher to teach you proper grammar
Exactly. This guy just wanted to virtue signaling by presenting teaching theories incorrectly. He made it seem as though you are only allowed one teaching style, when in reality, a properly trained educator can utilize teaching styles when relevant and in layers.
@Adam Zollo that doesn't have to do with the theory itself. That has to do with the poorly structured education system and how they choose to lazily enforce regulations and standards. You can replace the VARK theory with any other theory and it will still suck if these schools aren't properly utilizing it.
You are just as manipulative as this video. You see how easily these virtue signal videos affected your opinion....
I disagree. I think it got so overblown and it hurt a lot of kids.
I had an excellent, and very intense mathematical statistics professor for whom varying teaching style WAS his teaching style. I recall, one day for an hour long lecture, he came in and wrote notes and provided examples and proofs, and he never said a single word. In another day, he switched his handwriting to beautiful, perfect cursive. He was a bizarre teacher, but pushed me to the absolute limit. Great prof!
Read a teaching book entitled "The Silent Way" by Mario Rinvolucci.
Which university does this prof teach at?
And most of students hate him as teacher
i had an excellent east asian mother. today every adult in my family is an accomplished expert in their field and not a single one regrets our mother's teaching style that kept us away from a loser's fate of making <$15/hour.
My math teacher that I once had, was able to teach me math by introducing visual, kinetic examples along with text on those things. Whilst explaining them audibly.
It was the only way for me to properly learn math, we'd usually learn math just by looking in a textbook. I wish I had him more
i'm a pressure learner, i only learn school material when there's severe stress and doubts about my future imposed on me
Lmao me too. And that pressure only starts when there's like 2 days before the exam so that's when I actually sit down to study
Are you a jee aspirant/s
@Sam Sawyer wow, I like your honesty
I think we all have that kind of learning style
😂😂😂
In 2010, my son at primary school was told he was a visual learner. I told the teacher this was denying him all the different ways he could employ to learn and therefore to discontinue putting him into a 'learning box'. The teacher agreed I was correct that there was no evidence to learning styles. I told my son to use every which way he could learn and not to simply use one learning style. Honestly, it is just common sense!
The teacher didn't correctly apply the theory. Thats because the school wasn't presenting it in its true way but in a way that "saves budget".
Visual learning theory is correct, but that means that your son should've been entitled to joining the same lesson, but having the option to use visual prompts when he feel needed. visual learning theory doesn't mean they only are allowed visual learning. Its a theory just meant for extra support for when the original lesson wasn't achieved alone.
The school, instead of doing the example i gave, will just lie to you he is only allowed to learn visually.. even though thats not what VARK theories are supposed to be..
Thats the issue. These school want to use these theories but not as a whole. All because they don't want to put the effort into it.
A lot of early/pop psychology can be described as "someone felt like putting things in arbitrary categories". 5 stages of grief. 16 personality types. 5 love languages. 4 attachment styles. 8 stages of development. 3 stages of moral development. Left brained and right brained. The ego, superego, and id. Hierarchy of needs.
Most of it is just astrology with extra steps. The only thing we can learn from it is that people just really like putting things in neat little boxes.
Ppl also like being exceptional.
- You're no longer a visual learner. You're the same learner as anyone else.
- Wait, what?
- But it's superior - to be able to do it in all ways!
- How come? How I'd differ from the rest 8bln ppl on Earth...
Twenty years ago I gave a small talk about VARK to my fellow educators. The key point in my plenary was that learning styles are not separate, but complement each other in a holistic manner. Over 47 years I have found many 'keys' to assisting students to learn : humour, comfort (having eaten, slept well, etc.) pause frequently to review points, question your own knowledge openly and invite students to do the same as they learn. I loved teaching and was only persuaded to finish when the paperwork before AND after took more time than the educating.
@uhmhahayeah i take it you never had a real job with real prospects to know that the only way up is to produce tangible results.
@Pepe Le Pew i take it you've never felt the warm, loving touch of another human.
@uhmhahayeah i suppose thats you since i already have a daughter. broke much? get a real education then and a proper career.
@Pepe Le Pew i hope your daughter grows up to be a stronger, smarter, and kinder person than you
@uhmhahayeah she wont grow up penniless thats for sure. whatever she will be, at least she will know how the world works. throwing anything hoping something sticks?
When I was in school I remember a teacher say "You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink" They are basically saying it's my job to present the material and it's up to the student to learn it if they want. I have come to believe that this mindset is a cop-out/excuse for their students not learning and failing. I base that last statement on something that I was told years later, that is "You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink; however, if you feed the horse salt first, when you lead the horse to water you won't have to make him drink, he will want to drink."
As an educator, I was taught learning styles theory, and we were told to try to incorporate some or all of them in the lessons. The result was teaching the same material in a few different ways so that you'd reach everyone. The actual outcome was the material was presented multiple times, so the repeated exposure through a variety of styles helped everyone remember better. Don't just teach visual learners visually and kinesthetic learners with experiments; teach everyone with everything.
@K A this is why I also incorporate extra targets of social/emotional/metacognitive targets for those who already got the basic theories down. Memorizing is one thing. Utilizing your metacognition to layer these theories together is another thing that not many students get to experience. My students who finish ahead usually enjoy these extra targets I leave for them
@Plant Based for the Whole Family sorry but you need a legitimate argument, not the outdated and disproven Binet theory of intelligence.
Which btw, the theory of intelligence actually favors and endorses repition. Intelligence is as subjective as beauty, and the whole gage of being intelligent is just to recite and memorize what your society deems as "smart".
My advice is to just let go of that outdated theory and then you will comprehend these discussions.
@Marc-André Berthelot um in case you didn't bother reading the whole comment, he clearly said he does more than just recite a textbook he also does hands on and visual prompting.
How embarassing of you 😂
@toastybillionaire they are refering to a simulation (aka experiemnt). Its hoe these theories are created. You have a seperate laboratory come in, survey schools that are outliers to the prediction of VARK theories, and take a sample group of the students and have them learn one mode and compare it to another. The schools don't fund that nor are they allowed to conduct it.
Just stay in your lane next time, buddy.
@K A I often drew and read during class. I'd rather have the leisure time to self educate than get more information crammed into my education by someone else's dumb SAT question requirements, personally.
My high school physics teacher taught very similarly to Veritasium. Would always start with the counterintuitive situations, and always start with the misconceptions. At the start of the year, I didn't think I had the aptitude for physics. At the end of the year I topped the class (granted, there were only four of us). Now planning to major in astro at uni. I love my physics course.
Good luck! I’m in my final year of Astro :)
i have no idea how my high school math teacher conducted class but he has always been my favorite teacher. this is because he left me alone to daydream and read comics in class knowing i had mastered each lesson months before he taught them.
today im a bulge-bracket banker, obviously my math teacher got things right.
People tend to learn best when they're learning learning about a mistake they made. Want to be right so learning that something is a falsehood puts us in a state of distress and motivate us to correct a mistake steak harder than simply passively learning the right answer. I wonder if that worked for a lot of students
Did you happen to go to school in Kansas? I had a physics teacher who did this, too. I’m sure there’s other teachers that fit these very generalize criteria, but figured I’d ask😅
@Pati Flores No lol, I am in australia.
Shortly after I qualified as a teacher in 1990, I was working as a supply teacher in a primary school and the class I was working with each had a label stuck to their desk with what their learning style was and I was told to bear these in mind when working with the class. Their learning styles had been 'revealed' by a multiple choice questionnaire of around a dozen questions. Thirty years on and these types of learning styles questionnaires are still widely used as far as I know. The amount of money that must have been spent over the decades delivering training on this rubbish to educators must be huge. I used to explain to my learners how I would be addressing their preferred learning style. It went something like this: "If you're a visual learner, look this way. If you're an auditory learner, listen and if you are a kinesthetic learner, put your hand up if you want to ask a question." Sorted.
This is so interesting! I just finished the VARK test and got Kinesthetic as my learning style. But this concrete explanation helps me be critical of my beliefs and opens my eyes to how we learn in the best way: it depends on what is inside our minds and how much we get involved in the materials we are learning.
Thank you, Veritasium!
I always learn things much more easily when I draw pictures of them;
I have had this experience many times. So yes, I am in fact a visual learner.
What else would you call the ability to learn much more easily from information that contains lots of images and drawings?
id say whether im interested in the topic or not matters more than how its presented to me
Why are you here what
Correct: motivation matters so much more than phony learning styles.
When I was in grad school learning styles was a huge fad.
What the video doesn't quite show is the cost of that fad. One cost is that emphasizing the idea implies to students that they are siloed and deficient. If you think of yourself as not a reading/writing learner, should a teacher show you pictures instead, or encourage you to work harder at reading and writing, because you can improve at it?
More costs: teachers were encouraged or coerced to apply learning style theory when it didn't fit. If a student is having difficulty understanding a concept, we were told, then determine their learning style and approach in that manner.
This is stupid for multiple reasons. First of all, there is no scientific way to determine the style. Second of all, it really matters what you're teaching. (Try teaching dance non-kinesthetically.. Good luck.) And most importantly, teacher and student time are finite resources.
While scrambling around feeling guilty because we're not coming at a student in a manner appropriate to learning style, what we're not doing is just as important. Or what the student is not doing. For example, a student who struggles understanding a reading passage can imagine that pictures would help, but you know what would really help? Reading it a second or third time.
But let's not go too far in hating on educators. One of the big frustrations I have is that the world seems to think that education is not an area of study, just a series of hunches, and that success is a matter of finding a good teacher. Well, that helps, sure.
But most of what works in education is well known to educators. It's just hard to implement in school systems. Motivation matters. Social context matters -- people make meaning with each other. Watch the video above with the group of three people trying to remember. They are helping each other, and that's a very powerful tool, which is why teachers were always putting you in groups. Time and space without distraction also matter. Students who can be in a quiet place with the material will do better.
And, most important and most difficult to resolve: being in a good place as a person helps a great deal. A student who is having mental health challenges, or comes from a family that is struggling in any way a family struggles will likely do far worse than a student from a more calm, supportive, and confident background. That stuff really really matters. Learning styles is just a hoax.
I agree, but then interest is not a form. (can you imagine that i got this alarm 3 months after the fact)
And how much the teacher can make it engaging. American curricula isolate subjects into cold separate containers and include dull regurgitation
jk hunk n jym
I have done several of these “learning style” tests at different times in my life. On EVERY occasion but one, I scored the exact same score in every category. The only time that wasn’t the case, there was a 1 point fluctuation between categories but almost perfectly equal again. I feel this belief that they don’t exist.
The very first day of my organic chemistry 1 lecture, my professor explained learning styles and how she incorporated them in the classroom. I will forever be grateful for college professors that are in touch with their students. Being a few years into college already, I found out that professors sometimes don't make good teachers. Yes, they are knowledgable in their fields. However, that doesn't make someone a good teacher. I had a physics professor who did little to no work on the board and talked through the lecture just reading off equations on the PowerPoint with some concepts here and there. He loved to brag about how much he knew physics and all the papers he has published during his career, but lacked the awareness to teach the subject. In physics, concepts can take you so far, but when you are graded on a quantitative level, his teaching didn't do anything. Students averaged terrible scores on his exams. Instead of trying to improve his classroom, he would frequently tell us that we didn't understand concepts because, "Physics isn't rocket science." As a prospective professor, I want to be as helpful as I can in the classroom for my students. College tuition isn't cheap by any means, and I want to be a tool for my students to succeed. Utilizing different methods of teaching to accommodate for the different types of learners is something I strongly advocate for. I want to follow in the footsteps of my organic professor.
I find it hard to believe a physicist would say "physics isn't rocket science", because it is
@Logan Myall Right lol. The man sent an email out to his class before the semester started that was basically a whole essay about a bunch of bs. He just seems out of touch lol.
THANK YOU FOR THIS.
I work in learning and Learning Styles are a pet peeve of mine. It's catchy pseudoscience and often the only thing that non-learning professionals know, so I find myself coaxing people out of it over and over again.
I once did a learning style test and I found that I fit into most of them, depending on the context. I believe that that is evidence that how people learn best is not constricted to one or the other. In fact, for me, mixing learning styles together seems to be the most effective.
"When we already believe the world to be a certain way, then we interpret new experiences to fit those beliefs."
@Niall Tracey that doesn't make it okay. Religion is more likely to lead to harm for some people such as your gender, your sexuality, your disability, and your race. Murder is also a human trait, doesn't make it okay.
@Fizzypopization learning styles hypotheses claim that normally able people have styles. The claim that blind people can’t learn visually is trivially obvious*, and says nothing about non-disabled learners.
* although less obvious than you might think. I seem to recall that people who aren’t blind from birth use visual processing to learn anyway, and that even congenitally blind people use the visual cortex for spatial reasoning.
@Fizzypopization I didn’t suggest that being human nature made it acceptable. My point is that people will find bogus justification for discrimination with it without religion.
@Fizzypopization this is a pop science video, not hard science. That means it doesn’t give the proofs. However, it is a fairly accurate summary of the understanding of the topic in academia, so arguing that it’s fair to claim it’s wrong in the grounds that it doesn’t conclusively prove its case is an appeal to ignorance.
The only thing really good he said in the video
I never thought I fit into one category, since I always knew it depended on subject and/or if I could actually process the info. In school, I've struggled with reading explanations, deciphering diagrams, and I still have issues with solely hearing things. But def knew I worked best with multiple modes.
The whole point of "learning styles" is to encourage multi-modal teaching, not to separate kids into distinct groups and ONLY teach them in one style. I have never seen/heard of people doing that.
Also, "people learn better when they are paying attention and thinking" is not a groundbreaking assessment. It is obvious. But HOW to get people to pay attention and think, especially those who do not have an interest or aptitude for the info, is what we need to figue out and what learning styles was trying to answer.
I have a bias on this, because when talking about this in my educational psychology class in college, I mentioned learning better from lectures than reading a book. The professer looked at me, in front of the entire class, and said, "so what you're saying is you're lazy and you won't do your homework, but instead just coast through your classes from only listening to the lectures." And then he continued teaching. He publically criticized me in front of the class, and I still don't know why. I had raised my hand, he called on me, I wasn't interrupting. And for the record, what I meant was that when reading, I need to take notes on what I read to remember it, so actually I do MORE work for homework, not less. I don't know what his problem was. I did all my homework up until that point, but after that, he lost my respect, and I stopped caring about his class. Wow, I stopped paying attention and thinking because he was rude to me... imagine that.
I've always kind of doubted the learning style theory, because I always found the best way for me to learn is when every single style is Included. Like for your typical minimum wage jobs any idiot could get, they will train you with every learning style, reading/writing, conveying information through text, auditory and visual through training videos, and then finally kinesthetic, your actual hands-on training shifts, where you use your memory and repetition to master the tasks physically.
Edit: also I found that depending on the topic, the way that it is taught is dependent on the medium, as was mentioned in the video. Such as music, you can look at theory all day but what good is learning theory if you can't practice that theory physically on an instrument? Or learning geography using maps. I remember when I was in high school geography there was a student who claimed to not be able to read maps, and so the rest of the class suffered because my teacher had to figure out a different teaching style that left out alot of information and made the test of the class struggle. I honestly think that's kind of selfish, if you are having trouble, talk with your teacher or spend extra time after class to finish nf a way to understand the information presented. I have ADHD, technically a learning disability, but I don't claim it as such, and I don't expect the world to cater to me, I needed to learn to understand how it affects me and my learning and develop strategies to overcome it, I need to focus more on focusing than the average person, but if I am able to do that I am better for it. I'm not going to force the whole class to slow down, that's not fair to the rest of the students or the teacher. It bothers me when people declare that they have ADHD and it's a learning disability. I ask what medication they are taking and they say they don't take it. Upon observation it just seems like they are generally uninterested and bored and using this now giant umbrella of learning disabilities to shirk any personal responsibility.
Or Maybe I'm just bitter because I'm just old enough to have finished school without any of this hand-holding and mental health and learning disability awareness. While it is definitely a good thing overall, I think that there are a ton of people using the learning disability umbrella as a cop out for their "undiagnosed" learning disability instead of applying themselves. It hurts them, the students around them, and the teacher. Everyone has a learning disability these days, and schools don't have enough funding or time to cater to each and every single person. My mother has worked for a few public school boards across Canada and most teachers treat it as a retirement plan, alot of teachers have no passion, and I think that is the biggest issue of all, nevermind learning styles and learning disabilities and catering to them.
I had a lecturer for 4th year physics on electromagnetism. He was famous across the campus for his teaching style and though we were a total class of a dozen students, the first class attracted at least a 100 students. We'd heard that his class attracted this number but we didn't know why (it was tradition to keep it secret for the surprise), and we were told it was only for the first class. So the lecture room is full and Prof Jones comes in, and a hush falls across the room. He puts up an overhead slide (showing my age) which has info on the readings and references for the week's materials. He says hello and welcome and introduces himself in classic physics professor style; he's mumbling into his collar and barely looks up at the students through his thick glasses. He then clears his throat and surprisingly speaks very clearly in introducing the topic title and the class starts. It's what he does next that is why everyone else is there, but what we 12 have to adjust to for the whole semester. Jones picks up a chalk turns to the blackboard put up the chalk to it as of about to start writing, then just starts talking. For the whole 50 minutes. Like that. When his arm gets tired, it comes down and he talks to the dot point left by the chalk on the board. Not once did he write a word the whole semester, not once did he turn to address us. But he narrated entirely clear instruction and meaning and even talked personally too about his fascination with electromagnetism. That first class was the only time we had that crowd but I have to say they were respectful and didn't laugh out loud or jeer from their seats, and they left quietly during the lecture as well. Jones forced is twelve to get to know each other better by sharing our thoughts about the class with each other and to work together to get through the course. Like this video, Jones forced us to be the entire spectrum of learning because he only taught how he did.
My learning style is: being interested in the subject.
ADHD
@Tommy GX x^n means that x is multiplied by itself n times i.e = 1* x * x * .... n times
when n=0, x is multiplied by x 0 times i.e = 1.
You can also think it this way, n<1
x^n < x
examples are cuberoot of x, square root of x etc.
now n -> 0 can be written as, h -> infinity and n = 1/h meaning you are taking the hth root of x which will tend to 1.
These things you can think on your own.
If learning style is not present, I will basically not do anything
And that is universal, and that's why unschooling works and traditional education doesn't
so thats why i almost failed 3 times in a row in geography
I always thought I was a visual learner but I guess based on the video, we are a combination of all learning methods. It does make sense as drama was my favourite subject but I preferred to read and write in other subjects. As for my qualification. I graduated as a Primary School teacher (graduated, not registered) but I work as an Outside School Hours Care Educator. But I also have a certificate four in educational support.
I've been a teacher for 3 decades and specialize in one on one lesson structures. We do have learning styles but we are often almost always a combination of them rather than solely existing within one or the other. Certain material may be easier for some to learn in one way rather than the other, it all depends.
There are specific memorisation skills which rest heavily on visual learning for example visual mnemonics. One can memorize a list of items by visualizing a wild story in their head and clearly seeing those images, the list then can easily be recited backwards and forwards and produces longer sustaining memory.
There are people with Aphantasia, where they cannot see images within their minds eye. So these kind of people often struggle to visualize ideas. So to say that they are also visual learners would be quite wrong and they rely on other avenues instead.
Great video that really helps shatter a persistent myth. Another I would add to this list is "I know this". Our lack of awareness of the holes in our own learning that do not become apparent until we actually have to use the knowledge/skill is amazing.
Great mind opening video. At first of the video I was a little concerned, because I tried to identify myself with a certain leaning way and even if it would be the easiest to assume that I'm a visual one, I have a lot of exampled that contradict this. The end of the video was the pure fact I couldn't speak but I've felt: "You're not a visual learner, nor an auditory learner, nor a kinesthetic learner, or more accurately, you are al these kinds of learner in one." And "The best learning experiences are the ones that involve multiple different ways of understanding the same thing."
"I prefer to learn about things that I want to learn" - best learning style
Not really. Some things we learn because we have to. Otherwise it is easier to take advantage of our ignorance for malicious intents. People keep thinking that everything is about schooling and not learning itself. Big difference.
@Linkario86 x
Yes, but you have to combine that with ACTUALLY LEARNING on your own--i.e. READING. Not jus sitting around expecting it to happen.
@Nej Snek if you need something you will want to learn it when you need it so no your wrong
yes.
The only reason I'm ok teachers/professors keep believing it is because, as someone with ADHD, teachers who believe in learning styles seem to have much less of a problem with me doodling instead of taking notes during a lecture. They'll assume I'm a "visual learner" and it just makes more sense for me to doodle whatever we're learning about.
Teachers/professors who either don't believe in it or don't care have (albeit anecdotally) seemed to have a bigger problem with me not taking notes.
I didn't get diagnosed with ADHD until 26 years old and so I was actually done with grad school at the time... Now I know in order to be able to explain to lecturers at continuing education programs (if they ask... But weirdly CE instructors seem to care a lot less about what I'm doing in their class than teachers and professors did)... But it has nothing to do with being a "visual learner".
I've done some little mini experiments myself and it doesn't seem to matter whether I'm doodling pictures related to the discussion or doodling random shapes and lines.
In reality, taking notes in a lecture makes me so focused on "getting the important stuff" down on a page that I miss what's being said while trying not to forget whatever it is I'm writing... Because if I don't actively hold onto whatever I'm trying to write down I lose it.
If I'm doodling it keeps my hands busy which is good for my need to fidget but it doesn't distract me from what the person is saying so I can take it in better.
The only way I take notes well from something that's auditory is if I can pause it while I'm writing. I love learning from videos for this reason. I can pause and go back as many times as I need to if I do forget what I was writing and I don't have to worry about what's currently being said that I'm missing if it's paused.
When I have live CE's I usually ask permission to at least voice record for this reason. But it's got nothing to do with learning "style" and everything to do with my brain pretty much either works as "highly focused on one thing" or "jumping around between everything and so not really focused on anything". Not much in between.
Thank you for the video, everyone uses different learning styles. Visuals helps to see things clearly when text is difficult to understand. These kinds of unproven theories put lot of pressure on teachers who has a proven methods that comes of his experience.
I did a presentation similar to this on “The Theory Of Multiple Intelligence”. There is believed to by eight possibly nine learning styles. It is believed that people have multiple of different types of intelligence not just one. If you want to know all nine look up the theory.
I’m wonder what the research establishing no evidence for learning styles would look like in the context of learning disabilities. Because when I was eventually tested and diagnosed, a lot of things suddenly got a lot clearer. I was struggling in certain subjects because I had extreme difficulty processing the information in a meaningful way. I’m not intending to disagree with the research but I feel like there should be explicit mention that some neurodivergent people have a diminished or even nonexistent ability to interface with information presented in some formats.
Yes! I was dismissed when I told a teacher I wasn't good at auditory learning, but now I know I probably have auditory processing issues, so it was indeed valid.
I’m a “memorization” learner: I memorize the material, pass the test, then immediately throw it out of my brain.
@Mach not exactly, i learn mandatory french class for 3 years, today french language is useless to me it was a waste of time and resource.
@Aperson101 See the funny thing about that, if that were the case, why am I far less successful outside of school than I was in it?
I've gotten a little bit better now, but socially I'm still far far worse as an adult than I was as a kid. I was far better with dealing with boredom, time management, and many more things as a kid than I have ever been as an adult.
In the real world outside of school, even in highly technical careers, the ones who are passionate about certain subjects, like IT, Computers, etc are simply better at knowing how to google something more efficiently than someone who isn't highly technical. Most of the IT jobs I've had over the years don't expect anyone to remember every single thing from a test for certification. Instead remembering key words that fit into how to solve the problem, then using those key words to pull up the article or answer on google, scouring the article, performing the work and if it works, awesome! Earmark that under a keyword or a bookmark and then work on the next problem.
They merely ask you questions to see what you can remember and where you might need more training. I've learned so much better from working at numerous jobs over the years than I ever learned in school.
Memorization isn't really learning. Especially if there is a test afterwards, memorization doesn't attach anything emotionally to the answers.
Oh I tried this and I was able to fix a customer's problem and then that customer had a reaction that gave me quite the dopamine high, the fact that I was able to help someone was what would lead me to remember it better, not reading it out of a textbook.
@Javier Rojas This is not always the case. Often we are FORCED to learn things that have nothing to do with our major. Maybe more so in the USA, but we are required to take numerous classes that have nothing to do with our major.
Say if I was an English major, I would still have to learn all the way through Algebra, despite not needing it for my major or my career path.
If I am a Computer Science Engineer or Microbiologist, I would still have to learn about things that have nothing to do with my major, because the "Major" is more like the minor. You spend far more time on topics you don't like just to get the stupid piece of paper that says you did them than the actual subjects you're interested in.
In fact, often your major is less than a third of your college credits. Everything else is "Basic Education Courses."
Complete waste of time and money.
@Aperson101 That's what most college classes are for
that's not learning that's called BEING STUPID AFTER THE TEST
Knowing that there are different ways to learn is a great thing for education. Assigning a particular learning style to a particular student is short-sighted. The solution is not in separating students into various herds who will all be expected to learn in one way, because that limits what those students will be taught. Instead, it's up to each student to know the various ways to learn, and up to educators to allow all the different ways to learn and let the students find the modes that work best for them...which, as anyone could guess, varies with the kind of subject a student is trying to learn.
I got classified as a kinesthetic learner in 6th grade, and then went into the shop-class herd. There was no longer any emphasis on language learning or art classes (art and shop were considered "electives", and they voted shop on my behalf every time) and I began to be bored with school as of 7th grade. In 3 more years, I dropped out of high school and tried to complete my education on my own.
Meanwhile, I'm sure the school board claimed it did its best to give me an education, because they used the VARK model to sort me into a category they thought was the most suitable.
sincerely,
Got my "degree" from trade school
I think learning differences exist in terms of learning disabilities which make some learning strategies a-lot harder for some people for exam dyslexics are probably not going to be so suited to reading and writing over visual (just as an example) but I think the general population learning styles are a bit too broad.
With several decades of work under my belt, I know a few things: most people learn by doing. There is an incredible memory attachment to any hands on experience. Some have a gift for listening - which they "visualize" [better put as imagining something taking place], but thats a secondary event teeing up the business of doing while absorbing the verbal [or written, which presents as a very close cousin]. Great professors are usually great listeners by the way.
There is a fair amount of brain power drained by the visual - enough that it almost rates as a distraction, making it rate dead last For top athletes, it IS distracting: there is a certain point where they stop watching the ball, as they execute [using a baseball swing as an example]. Bowlers will call it the "steady eye": affix on one lane spot during approach so the brain does not need to recalibrate surroundings/process new visual information And that is why ideas communicate better by listening [to the radio lets say], than by television. Try throwing a sheet over the tv and suffering the evening news as an experiment: it is positively frightening how little information is actually conveyed. If you were not constantly bombarded with new images, you would likely never tune in again.
In short... "visual" learners have poor imaginations. That can be largely avoided by reading to your children as early as possible, which brings up illustrated stories. Yes there's something visual, but it's not moving/changing in a book- that leaves room for embellishments of the imagination, and the business of hearing has primacy.
I'm an undergraduate student. For the first time, when I observed that there is such classification of learning styles. Then, I believed that I am difinitely kinesthaetic, but later on I could learn better by combining them all.
"People learn best when they are actively thinking about the material."
This is it.
@Michael Pye Looking over these comments, I realized that Micheal Pye is probably the creator of this video--in which case, I have a far more appropriate observation. I was teaching mid-level college writing and looking at a promotion to upper-level when I dreamed my boss (department head) called me in to beta test a new intelligence assessment he'd developed. It was a white shirt box; he left me alone with it. Inside were a map like that on a game board, but players advanced by answering riddles grammatically. At different stages of achievement, different prizes materialized: things to draw or color, sound chips with music or praise or more riddles, and wrapped candy for markers. I answered the questions, painted the pix, labeled the diagrams, listened to the music, and ate the candy. When my boss returned, he was surprised that I'd finished the test, astonished that I'd drawn and illustrated so well, and freaked out that I'd eaten all the candy. He assured me that I'd passed, but seemed inexplicably disturbed. In the dream I couldn't tell if he was shocked by my stellar performance or annoyed that I'd left no candy for him.
@AdeebaZamaan nope not me.
@Michael Pye 😁 Oopsie. Oh well, nice "talking" to you anyway.
@Mark Arca Wow, I guess my struggle with math just had to do with the fact that I didn't want to learn how to do it. Then when I got a certain teacher in college I did want to learn how to do it. Thank you.
True
Someone once taught me a trick that works--at least for some types of information. I was told that pictures tend to be more easily recalled than words; so, it helps to attach words to an image--preferably a bizarre one.
For example, if I want to remember the word 'Veritasium', I might picture myself taking a 'Veritasium vitamin'. Then, when I try to recall the name of this channel, I will likely first see myself eating a vitamin by a name that sounds somewhat similar to the word vitamin before the word 'Veritasium' will pop into my head.
I know for me, no traditional school learning system works. My dyslexia makes it extremely hard to take in information from reading, my spelling is okish but reading to learn is very hard. It's wasn't until I was around 20 years old before I learned how I learn... In these steps/order.
1. Just listen to say a podcast a couple of times.
2. Watch (YouTube) so I can get the visual answers I need from stuff I didn't understand from listening.
3. Hands-on practical labs.
I would suspect that this approach would take longer to learn something for somebody that is a good strong reader but for me I retain the information for a longer time this way.
I wish I knew this when I was younger and still in school.
Emotions are strongly linked with memory. You will remember the lines from that movie you just saw much better if you remember how that scene made you feel.
Also when listening, respect for the teacher and/or the teacher's delivery style and passion is critical as well.
Also also, the learner has to understand WHY they're learning and agree with what they're learning and being free to disagree. This leads to motivation to learn.
It wouldn't take an experiment to prove that a motivated student learning from a respected, passionate teacher with a good delivery style and some emotional connections would perform better than an unmotivated student who doesn't understand why they need to know what they're being taught and is being taught by a boring, disillusioned teacher.
The part at the end, where he talks about searching for pieces that prove your thoughts on something. I had that exact conversation with a friend about covid. She only looked up articles that proved that this is being made into too big a deal. Thus her further researches about covid was ridiculous cuz she already found what she wanted to "prove"
I always figured the learning styles were idleness, procrastination, and unproductivity
@James he didn't say the bad teachers did it better... he said they were able to reach some students that the good teachers were not. Overall, I'd expect the good teachers reach more students than the bad teachers.
Yeah just don't do anything and then study the last 10 minutes you will remember it all
@Alibaba Intelligence why? theyre no one
I fit under all those learning styles
cheers to that
Hello Veritasium, please can you include citation pop-ups in your videos whenever you say something like research shows, body of evidence says... so I don't have to go through every reference document you've provided. Your videos are a huge body of knowledge and literature references for people writing papers. ❤
I was told that I couldn't see images in my head so needed to learn with images... but when they were doing that test, they used math with tricky questions. I already sucked at math in the first place! So what helped more was to re organize the sentences so it actually made sense, rather than drawing or having an image. I still failed my maths until the end tho.
Ironically, I aced my history, geography, ethics, English and especially art classes! So I definitely didn't had a problem visualizing. Most likely my adhd or undiagnosed autism making it harder to understand math problems 😅
I have been a tutor for years and previously struggled with math, big time. A lot of students internalize past struggles with math as being something concrete about who they are. In reality, “good at math” comes from a combination of regular exposure to it, learning to take good notes and “explain” the process to yourself, a positive attitude towards learning math, and lots of practice.
Early struggles make learning math unpleasant, so students avoid it as much as they can, and comments from teachers and peers make them feel ashamed or embarassed - more negative emotions. So, they avoid situations with math when they can. The cycle of feeling bad, struggling, shame, and avoidance creates a major deficit over the years.
The good news is it IS possible to not only learn math but become good at it, if you want to. And it WON’T take 12 years to catch up 12 years of school math! Way, way less than that, depending on the time you have to devote to it. :)
The most important factor for learning something new is that it has to be linked with something which you already understand,(In other words there has to path that you have to take to go from A to B without the path you can't reach your destination). That's why babies are born with the ability to make noise or sounds which is the first step then the steps that follow until they can speak is are the points on the path.
strangely i took a visual/auditory/kinaesthetic learning style test in school a while ago and got ~30% on all of them. i’m literally tied lol and i assumed that it made sense because i’m better with all 3 at once
adam mac - 2021-07-09
Interesting. My learning style is: slow.
Who Knows - 2022-10-19
Lol same😂
NYChotdogstand - 2022-10-20
😂
seun agboola - 2022-10-21
Me too. Very slow sef
paola vega - 2022-10-23
🤣🤣🤣 me too
Kamna Sharma - 2022-10-26
😂😂yes me too