The problem with learning styles

Learning styles theory proposes that educators use students’ learning style preferences to differentiate their teaching, and thus enhance learning. This theory is persistent and widespread, yet there is little evidence to support it and it has been thoroughly discredited. Although seemingly harmless, belief in preferred learning styles can negatively influence students’ choice of subject, and …

Using the Alexander Framework to reflect on approaches to teaching

Abstract The Alexander Framework invites us to reflect on our underlying beliefs and assumptions about teaching and learning. In this article, Rebecca Fairley, Programme Leader for Textiles at the Open College of the Arts, provides an example of how the Alexander Framework can help educators achieve new perspectives on how they approach their teaching. Published …

Things fall apart: what can we do when nothing seems to work?

Abstract Mentoring in an art institution seems to be a particularly vulnerable line of business. You devote yourself to a small number of students each year, give your energy and creativity to their wellbeing – and with some of them, it’s as if your meetings had never taken place: each session you start from more …

A tale of two workshops

Whether dealing with latecomers, the prevalence of mobile devices, or the incidence of learning and language difference, approaches to facilitation can have dramatic effect on the experience and outcomes of education. Two contrasting examples are placed side-by-side in this narrative description of a hypothetical digital workshop. The first person narration takes its reader on a …