Teaching trends come and go, but one theory has persisted for decades, having earned a foothold in our culture: the concept of learning styles. The idea is that people learn material better when it is taught in a way that suits their individual strengths. While there is no agreed-upon definition of learning styles, there are generally some similarities across the different iterations. VARK is the most widely-cited.
The acronym stands for visual, aural, reading/writing, and kinesthetic — the primary sensory modes of learning information. According to VARK, some people purportedly learn best by reading material, while others are more visually-oriented and must see something to understand. Others might fall into the auditory learning subtype, meaning they tend to comprehend material by listening to instruction. There are also kinesthetic learners, or those who learn best through hands-on activities.
Learning style theories had their heyday in the 1990s, when Beth Rogowsky was ...
