I have probably heard a hundred times, since I started in teaching a long time ago, various versions of the we-all-learn-differently myth: 1) ‘Of course we all learn differently!’ 2) ‘I don’t learn that way! I can only learn this way…’ 3) ‘Because everyone’s different, we are bound to all learn in our own different ways!’ 4) ‘I prefer to learn in this way (referring to a specific learning technique)’ 5) ‘That’s not how MY child learns!’
I think I understand why people say these things but, with the exception of number 4, they aren’t true. The idea that everyone learns differently is a myth that apparently still has some traction in 2023, which is astonishing to me. I think that mostly when people say we all learn differently, they’re saying it not because they have a sound grasp of the underpinning learning science in the field, but because it feels intuitive to them that that should be so – after all, everyone is a unique individual, so why wouldn’t the learning process be unique for each one of us?
Because the key word there is ‘process’: ‘learning’ is a process that happens in the brain. Our brains are mind-bogglingly complex organs, as are our eyes and ears and hearts and lungs, and digestive systems and so on. But does everyone see differently, hear differently, breathe differently, digest food differently? No. The processes involved with the functioning of those other organs are largely the same for us all, if not identical (unless, of course, we have some impairment or some other physical characteristic that amends the typical process). So it is with the learning process: when we interact with the world, information assaults our senses continuously and some of that information finds its way through our short-term memory into our long term memory, either by chance or through the use of dedicated techniques. In terms of the chemical processes involved in our brains, those processes are common to us all (unless we have a specific impairment as already mentioned). Schooling, in particular, involves staff using techniques deliberately designed to bring about learning, the chemical processes that happen in the brain when learning occurs don’t change whether we are in school or in bed or on holiday.
Let’s lay to rest the easiest part of the we-all-learn-differently myth first: there are around 8 billion people currently on this planet; is anyone seriously of the view that each one of the 8 billion of us learns differently… 8 billion individual ways of learning, each one unique to each one of us? No, I don’t think anyone is seriously saying that – so we can confidently drop the ‘all’ bit.
Which brings us to the real question: are there different ways of learning things? Yes, there are, but to bring more clarity to the question, we ought to decide what we mean by ‘different ways of learning’. I think that what most people mean when they say they learn differently or their child learns differently is that they prefer some particular learning techniques or activities over some other ones – this is undoubtedly true – at least some people do have preferences for the activities they might do to learn.
Some Year 11s came to see me last school year to discuss the school’s use of the Look-Say-Cover-Write-Check-Repeat technique as our expected way of doing learning homework (they weren’t happy with it). I remember the conversation well; these were serious students who were all working hard both at school and at home. One of them said to me that he liked to make flashcards and use them to revise and another talked about using past exam questions and the accompanying markschemes. Those are two great things to do, and I told the students this at the time, but in terms of learning processes they work on exactly the same principle as Look-Say-Cover-Write-Check-Repeat: each of these techniques involves the use of questions, trying to answer them, and then filling in any gaps that become apparent from the attempt.
A significant issue with some people’s learning preferences is that they are ineffective, or certainly less effective than some of the available alternatives. My son prefers to revise his maths with his music on loud, pausing frequently to Snapchat with his mates and maybe watching a bit of Netflix every once in a while, but he absolutely, categorically doesn’t learn well/better that way. I remember one student I taught a long time ago insisting on copying down from the board every word I wrote on it as I was explaining something to the class – ‘Copying things down is how I learn best!’ he would say, with genuine sincerity. In terms of cognitive challenge, copying is one of the lowest-challenge activities we can engage in; it is far less effective than many other well-founded techniques for turning ‘information’ into ‘knowledge’; and while he was copying down one thing, he wasn’t listening to my verbal explanations, so he tended to miss a lot of the key information he needed to make sense of the concept. In 2023, fortunately, the science of learning points to a number of ways of learning, or learning techniques, that are relatively more effective than others – and that is my key point here; there are some learning techniques that by and large will work well for everyone*.
Less effective techniques for learning include the still enormously popular ones of just re-reading text from a text-book or from notes (ie doing that on its own) and highlighting or just re-reading and underlining text (on its own), alongside, frankly, all other techniques that do not impose a cognitive challenge that is pitched at the right level for us – for the kinds of things we tend to learn at school at least, we all learn best by doing challenging things that are challenging for us. That’s why the Hinchingbrooke Science department, all of whom are qualified graduates of science, don’t just start teaching Year 7 students third-year degree-level science – that would certainly be ‘challenging’, but it would not be challenging at the right level for our Year 7 students. We have to do the right activities, at the right level of challenge.
The more effective techniques are ones where we are challenged to think hard. Re-reading text does not challenge us to think hard; highlighting or underlining text does not challenge us to think hard; copying notes from a text-book does not challenge us to think hard. Done right, Look-Say-Cover-Write-Check-Repeat challenges us to think hard; as do well-made flash cards, high-quality practice questions, well-made online learning programmes, teacher questions in class, and so on. In my own view, the use of ‘the testing effect’ – posing questions, thinking hard about the answers, and filling in the learning gaps – is by far the most effective technique for learning for us all, once new information has been presented.
Schooling only works because as learners we share many characteristics in common; it is precisely those shared characteristics that make it possible for people to be taught in large groups. It is probably true that no learning technique works perfectly for all learners all of the time – there are just too many variables at play in learning situations for that (a student’s prior knowledge and level of motivation for the subject/topic being two obvious ones). Teaching in schools generally therefore works on the basis of best bets: those teaching techniques, that are now well-founded in learning science, that are most likely to work best for the majority of people the majority of the time. Fortunately, then, we all learn in remarkably similar ways*!
The take-aways
- The belief that ‘We all learn differently’ is a myth
- We learn in remarkably similar ways
- This is just as well because otherwise schools would not be able to function, given our large-class teaching model of schooling
- Learning science has reached a point where we can say with a good level of confidence that some techniques for learning work better than others – these are our ‘best bets’
- The best bets involve providing learners with a cognitive challenge at the right level, based on where learners are in their learning
- We should all focus on those best-bet techniques in schools; techniques that include the use of questions – ‘the testing effect’ – are among the most effective ones
*Here is a brief experiment, if you disagree: try learning a poem by heart. I am confident that we don’t ‘all learn differently’. If a hundred people were to try to learn the same poem by heart, there would be very little variation on these activities:
- Reading the poem many times; some people might also like to hear a recording of it, whilst reading it
- Saying it out loud a lot, probably one verse at a time
- Trying to say it, bit by bit, without reading it, and checking/filling in the gaps where we can’t remember (the testing effect at work)
- Keeping practising saying the poem, to build up fluency and embed it in our long-term memory
