One thing I've learned about pedagogy is that it's a fool's errand to try to create material that works for everyone, because everyone learns differently. In fact, the meta story here is supposed to be about Liz and Tim having different styles of learning -- Liz learns by exploring off the beaten path, while Tim prefers to stick to the course content. Neither are wrong.
Ok, I didn't realize this aspect of the story, this is actually pretty cool, I agree.
I also like that the story encourages experimenting and testing out your mental models, like Liz did.
It's just the particular way they discover things that feels forced to me. The story is all about them coming to their own conclusions and thinking up their own experiments, but - it being a story - you know, it's actually all guided beforehand.
Maybe what irks me is that this concept of a character discovering "on their own" some ostensible deep truth (which is really just the author's personal opinion about something) has been used for a lot of worse reasons in other stories - even though, in this case, the "truth" is perfectly harmless and beneficial.
Anyway, it's always easier to criticize than to create, so I won't say I really have better ideas of how to do it.
>> I've seen somewhere that "everyone learns differently" might not actually be true.
Even if we assume that people all learn the same way, good learning integrates new facts or concepts into ones pre-existing mental model of the world. Not everyone has the same mental model - of this I am certain. Sometimes new information just hangs on the existing model, and sometimes the existing model needs to be updated. This can make the process seem like everyone learns differently, since different explanations can make more or less sense depending what's already in their head.
On top of that, I think some people have (maybe inherently) very different abilities in things like visualization, memorization, vocabulary, etc... So yeah, I think everyone learns differently even if at some neuronal level it's all the same.
This is saying that VARK method of describing learning styles is incorrect. This does not necessarily mean that there aren't differences in what are the best method's for different people learn. One issue with VARK is that it involves self-identification, as was the case in all studies mentioned in the video. There's no reason to assume that the way people prefer to learn is actually the best way for them to learn, it may be that people choose what seems right to them rather than what actually is. Another issue is, as is mentioned in the video, the domain you are studying also has an affect and multi-modal approaches are most useful. Whether learning styles exist or not, some information intrinsically is better presented as a diagram than a wall of text. And no matter if some people learn better in certain ways, it seem universally true that people learn better if information is presented to them in multiple forms instead of just one.
Which is all interesting, but mostly just disproves VARK and similar approaches to describing differences in how people learn. There are still so many different ways to teach someone something, they're just much more holistic ways of teaching than the simple VARK split. That some people learn better from X course of teaching and others learn better from Y course of teaching still seems likely to me(admittedly, just pulling from personal experience and the anecdotes of others on that ). That we don't have a neat way to categorize that might just mean it's too messy to do so, or could mean we just haven't figured out the right way to look at it yet.
I think “everyone learns differently” is an overblown claim and gets repeated ad-nauseum. It is an escape hatch to avoid deeper discussions of successful strategies, what it means to teach and learn. A sort of a deus-ex-machina of arguments. There are more universals about learning than differences. It effectively surrenders the failure of teaching to “Well, it must be because everyone learns differently”. This way, we can never learn to teach or even debate about it.
This is actually a failure of discourse in many areas of life – "X is hard to solve or haven't thought about it, so it must be that X is different for everyone". Nutrition, Product Reviews, etc. I've learned over years that anyone that claims "X is different for everyone" is most likely exhibiting a defeatist attitude.
The universals about learning, which I've taken away from the discussion, is that active learning and recall is generally effective, while passive learning (e.g. re-reading) is less effective. A good research paper that covers this (which I've mentioned in that discussion) is called "Improving Students’ Learning With Effective Learning Techniques: Promising Directions From Cognitive and Educational Psychology" [PDF]: https://pcl.sitehost.iu.edu/rgoldsto/courses/dunloskyimprovi...
