Not sure what I make of this, but though provoking none the less.
(maybe not a good time to post this - right after so many have just left summer institutes where differentiated instruction seems to be the theme of the day...)
Keywords: differentiated instruction
Comments
What an interesting and provocative position. I think it might be fun to show this to some of the self-professed experts on DI and see them squirm.
I found lots of reaction to this video online. Two of the best are Stephen Downes (http://www.downes.ca/cgi-bin/page.cgi?post=45687) and D-Ed Reckoning (http://d-edreckoning.blogspot.com/2008/08/learning-styles-are-bunk.html).
I agree with Willingham that most of what we are trying to teach in school is about meaning. His examples, as Downes points out, are facile. Let's take a topic close to my heart - fractions. We would like students to understand three-fourths as a relationship between a part and a whole - and remember it. Willingham agrees that students will have differing facility with memory. A visual learner - or perhaps in his view, a visual rememberer - might be able to utilize the idea better if a picture of a rectangle split into four equal parts with three shaded is stored. An auditory learner might need a verbal explanation and some sort of cute rap song attached. A kinesthetic rememberer might need a bunch of time with various manipulatives. All of these experiences, if well crafted, may help all the various types of students ("good for all, necessary for some").
Teachers are juggling complicated and contradictory demands all of the time. Willingham argues that they should concentrate on what the best way to teach the meaning is rather than the best way for the learners to remember it. Perhaps they should - first. But master teachers allow more and more information to make their instruction personal and precise. Don't they?