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Teachers must ditch 'neuromyth' of learning styles


FSFRebecca
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This is an interesting article from today's Guardian.

Teachers must ditch 'neuromyth' of learning styles, say scientists

I know that when I was teaching KS1 and KS2 in the late 90'/00's I attended course after course about different learning styles. We were constantly being reminded that we needed to ensure all our lessons were not only differentiated to take account of different levels of ability but also differentiated to enable all children to access them equally. I have a vivid memory of teaching fractions and percentages to a year 6 class with practical table based tasks for some children, lists of repeating questions for others and then I had one group on the carpet putting large envelopes on their heads like hats to demonstrate that 'although 50% of children have an envelope on their head, 50% of these, so 25% of the whole, also have their jumper tied round their leg' ... crazy days. But they all still had to sit the same end of KS2 SATs, in the same way.

 

Is it also true of Early Years? - we have known for a long time that some children just learn better 'outside' hence our ongoing mission to provide every learning area outside as well as inside. I wonder where the differences are; is it emotional, physical or cognitive development that makes the difference? If, for older children (as in the research group) we assume they have all reached the same physical development have they also reached the same emotional and cognitive stage?

 

I have long had questions about providing children with resources and experiences that appeal to their particular schema ... after all, if you decide that they are 'all about enclosure' for example and provide activities that develop and extend this what about the other schema? What if the child you saw was on the cusp of another schema but this never gets explored fully because your planning 'steers' them with the 'enclosures' schema..... I am musing! Interested to hear your thoughts!

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We were discussing this at work the other day....... sadly, as with all conversation's carried out 'at work' with the early years, we got disturbed mid-discussion .... and then totally forgot all about it!!! :rolleyes: :1b

 

I may try and revisit the discussion again tomorrow.

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