What Crafters Need to Know About How People Learn

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Do you absorb information best when you doodle, diagram, or a listen to a lecture? Whatever you think the answer is, don’t be so sure.

Almost everyone is familiar with the concept of Learning Styles, which claims different people learn most effectively in different ways. The theory has been making its way into conventional wisdom since the 1970s, but Christian Jarrett, a cognitive neuroscientist and science writer, says the scientific research just doesn’t back it up.

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In the Wired article “All You Need to know About the ‘Learning Styles’ Myth, in Two Minutes,” Jarrett says most studies have found particular teaching styles don’t work better for some people than others.

"Usually the most effective way for us to learn is based not on our individual preferences but on the nature of the material we’re being taught," he says. Visual learning works better for, say, geometry. But that’s true for everyone, not just so-called "visual learners."

Furthermore, Jarrett says, most people aren’t good at identifying whether they’re a “visual learner” or a “tactile learner,” or even explaining exactly what they mean when they use those terms.

Jarrett cites research by Paul Kirschner and Jeroen Merrienboer, who explain that people’s self-reported preferences are poorly correlated with their actual performance.

"A person might think they learn better, say, visually rather than verbally, but their performance says otherwise!" they write.

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Jarrett suggests people waste a lot of time and money trying to figure out their personal learning style, and that in any case, we’re better off pushing our brains to learn in new, uncomfortable ways.

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But don’t panic just yet. There are still experts who think you teach yourself better ways to learn.

There are many theories, books, and TED talks out there, of course. But one place to start might be “metacognition,” which is the ability to think about your own thoughts.

Researchers Donna Wilson, Ph.D and Marcus Conyers argue that metacognition is ”one of the most powerful thinking tools” that can help people learn more efficiently.

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The term may sound daunting, but the self-awareness skills they recommend will sound familiar. Metacognition teaches students the importance of “keeping their workspace organized, completing tasks on schedule, making a plan for learning, monitoring their learning path, and recognizing when it might be useful to change course.”

Their guide to teaching students how to “drive their brains” can be found here.  Conyers and Wilson also argue that neuroplasticity (the brain’s ability to change) can help encourage learners. When students remember their brains do actually change, they may feel less deflated when they hit natural learning road blocks.

In any case, remember that studies also show that crafting is good for the noggin. So find a way to learn new skills and techniques, whatever works for you, and make sure to keep those synapses firing.