Why Multimodal Learning Beats Learning Styles (And How Classkick Makes It Fast and Easy)

Classkick Blog

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Classkick

6 min readApr 7, 2022

by Jordan Williams, MAT, MEd, MA

There are a lot of myths surrounding teaching:

Teaching is so easy, anyone can do it.
Teachers are overpaid and do nothing all summer. (We wish!)
Teaching is just standing up in front of the class and lecturing.

If you’re reading this, you probably already know these are total myths. You probably also care about best teaching practices. If nothing else, you probably care about your students’ outcomes and being the most effective teacher possible without wasting a lot of time and energy.

What you might not know is that a lot of what you’ve been taught about teaching and learning is just as whacky as the above myths. In fact, there’s a 95% chance you believe the one we’re going to talk about today. Many teachers still believe in this educational theory, even though it’s been thoroughly debunked.

Recent grads, you’re not exempt from this either! I encountered these myths in my MAT classes and the Praxis PLT exam as recently as late 2021. A lot of teachers are getting bad information about how learning works — through no fault of their own whatsoever. So let’s take a three-minute dive into one of the most popular myths out there… and then discover what actually works instead.

The Rise of “Learning Styles”

Several different theories around learning styles have been proposed over the decades. The most famous is Neil Fleming’s VARK model (Visual, Auditory, Reading, Kinesthetic) from 1987. This theory suggests that each student learns information best through one of the four learning modalities: visual learners learn by seeing pictures, auditory learners learn by hearing explanations, reader learners learn by reading text, and kinesthetic learners learn by physically doing things. According to Fleming, students will learn best when they are taught in their preferred learning modalities.

What the Research Actually Says

A lot of people have been excited by learning styles, and many researchers have tried to find proof they exist. However, there are some problems with this theory:

Neither teachers nor students themselves are good at determining a student’s individual learning style.
People (even amazing teachers) frequently confuse “recalling” with “learning”. (Sorry, Bloom!) Even if unique learning styles worked, their ability to help students absorb information and recall facts does not necessarily mean they also promote deeper understanding or schema organization, which are far more important.
There is no credible evidence suggesting that teaching for different learning styles helps with anything from basic recall to deeper learning.

So if learning styles don’t promote student learning, what does the research say actually works? As it turns out, multimodal instruction and metacognitive strategies for schema construction improve outcomes for every single learner in every single content area! Every student has a completely unique learning style that can’t be categorized into three or four boxes. By giving students a variety of modalities during instructional time, teachers can support every student’s diverse learning style, leading to academic success for all.

Why Does Multimodal Learning vs. Learning Styles Matter?

All right, so there’s no proof learning styles exist. But what’s the harm in believing in them, you ask?

A lot, as it turns out.

Widespread belief in learning styles can actually be harmful to student outcomes — and student outcomes are more critical than ever right now. These are just a few of the ways learning styles can harm students:

Limited budgets may be wasted on ineffective products or testing.
Precious teacher planning time may be wasted. (!!!)
Students may be implicitly or explicitly discouraged from pursuing activities, classes, majors, or careers they would love.
Students may develop a sense of learned helplessness and believe they can’t possibly succeed in an activity, test, class, etc. if they don’t have enough access to their supposedly preferred modality — which can often be a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Students with diverse learning needs (such as learning disabilities or limited English proficiency) might not get everything they need to be successful.
Some teachers might go overboard and actually try to differentiate by preventing students from having access to materials outside their supposedly preferred modality.
Students and teachers may unconsciously limit their definition of “learning” to merely “recalling.”

Best Practices: Teach Smarter, Not Harder

If you’re like me, discovering that learning styles aren’t real — and can even harm students — is a lot to process. But here’s the good news: even if you believed in the VARK model, you’re probably already following the actual best practice completely by accident!

When you sit down to create lesson plans, you probably don’t say to yourself, “All right, how can I restrict students to a single modality?” (Because that would be slightly nuts, and also because it would take way too much time and energy.) No, instead of restricting students to one mode of learning, you probably try to accommodate all four learning styles with a single, multimodal lesson plan:

You include visuals or graphic organizers to ensure comprehension.
You include audio explanations through videos, direct instruction, or student group discussions or activities.
You put text on slides so your students can read clarifying info (or be exposed to words, if they do not yet read English).
You have students do some sort of practice, or perhaps they even move around the room for a whole-class activity.

Congratulations! By working smarter instead of harder (and, let’s be honest, weirder), you are already following best practices and supporting multimodal learning. However, I have a teaching lifehack that can make your content delivery more effective and multimodal — in even less time.

How to Teach Even Smarter (and Faster) with Classkick

I may work for Classkick now, but I also used the app in my classroom when I taught middle school ELA. And let me tell you, Classkick is an AWESOME way to make lessons, homework, graphic organizers, and even worksheets multimodal for all students! Yes, it’s great for online teaching, but I used it exclusively in-person, and it was incredibly helpful to me. Even as a newbie teacher and MAT student, I was able to teach effectively in an in-person classroom using Classkick. No matter what instructional strategies you prefer or what instructional settings you’re in, Classkick supports multimodal learning.

Here are some easy ways to use Classkick for faster, more effective, multimodal teaching:

Swipe a pre-made lesson plan from our continuously growing and improving assignment library and use it as-is, or put your own spin on it.
Click the microphone button and talk to include auditory input or read-alouds on any part of any page.
Add manipulatives to activate the “movement” part of students’ brains.
Upload PDF worksheets, texts, or graphic organizers, and then encourage students to highlight text, write notes, draw pictures, and create diagrams on your slides, just like it’s a notebook.
Enable peer helpers and let students use Classkick’s multimodal canvas tools to learn through teaching.
Add links to videos or helpful supplemental materials instead of reinventing the wheel.
Check all students’ moods or understanding at a glance using the Single Question View on a slide with emoji manipulatives, multiple choice questions, fill-in-the-blank prompts, or drawing spaces.
Conduct instant formative assessments, adjust your instruction on-the-fly, and add real-time feedback with autograding and stickers.
Encourage students to respond to you and help each other with text boxes, voice clips, and drawings.
Hide text or picture hints under manipulatives so students can self-scaffold.
Stick bonus activities, practice, games, or resources on your last page so early finishers can self-extend.

This isn’t just a good way to save time and get brownie points from your principal; it will also have a huge positive impact on the students who most desperately need highly effective teaching right now. In a matter of minutes, you can use Classkick to meet the needs of every single diverse learning need in your classroom. Classkick makes it easy to meet the needs of gifted students, English learners, early/emerging readers, students with learning disabilities, and yes, all the others in your classroom, too.

Conclusion

Even though learning style theory is debunked and potentially harmful, we continue to teach and test aspiring educators about it. Thankfully, most teachers are already inadvertently using best practices despite this. And now that you know the truth, you can use Classkick to make multimodal teaching even faster, easier, and more effective.

What do you think? What multimodal teaching strategies do you already use? Which ones will you use after reading this article? Let me know in the comments — I love hearing from fellow educators!

Want to start making awesome multimodal lessons with Classkick? Click here to get it free!