The evidence
Each thing the lesson crosses out, with what was tested, what was found, and where to read or watch it yourself.
Study a paper or review in a research journal. Explainer a researcher or university writing for everyone. Video someone explaining the studies on camera. The course’s own what the course itself links to, so you can see the claim being taught. Where a source could only be checked second-hand, it says so.
Learning styles
You’re a visual learner. Find your type and study to match it.
What was tested. The claim has a name: the meshing hypothesis. It says you learn more when the teaching matches your preferred style. In 2008 Pashler, McDaniel, Rohrer and Bjork went looking for studies designed to test exactly that. They found almost none, and the few built properly found no such effect.
What is true inside it. Preferences are real. Some people would rather read, some need to move, some love diagrams. What failed the test is the step from “I like it this way” to “I learn more this way.” Those are different things.
Why it is still taught. It is simple, it is flattering, and it gives a teacher something to do on Monday. Most teachers surveyed still believe it. This course is a live example: it teaches the four types as fact.
What works instead. Testing yourself and coming back later, for everyone. The lesson’s Section 2 is built on that, from the Dunlosky review below.
Fair caveat: the Pashler review is a “no evidence found” finding, not proof that preferences do nothing, and research design in this field is weak on both sides. It is still the best answer anyone has, and it has held since.
Read it yourself
- StudyLearning Styles: Concepts and Evidence Pashler, McDaniel, Rohrer and Bjork · Psychological Science in the Public Interest · 2008The review that named the meshing hypothesis and found no properly designed study supporting it. Also at the journal.
- ExplainerLearning Styles FAQ Daniel Willingham · University of VirginiaThe psychologist’s written answers to the usual objections, in plain words.
- StudyImproving Students’ Learning With Effective Learning Techniques Dunlosky, Rawson, Marsh, Nathan and Willingham · Psychological Science in the Public Interest · 2013Ten study techniques graded on their evidence. What to do instead of finding your type.
- StudyAnother Nail in the Coffin for Learning Styles? Husmann and O’Loughlin · Anatomical Sciences Education · 2018Anatomy students’ grades had nothing to do with their VARK type. The study strategies they actually used did predict grades.
- StudyNeuromyths in Education Dekker, Lee, Howard-Jones and Jolles · Frontiers in Psychology · 2012Over 90% of teachers in the UK and 96% in the Netherlands believed in learning styles.
- StudyHow Common Is Belief in the Learning Styles Neuromyth, and Does It Matter? Newton and Salvi · Frontiers in Education · 2020Pooled the surveys: roughly nine in ten educators believe it, with no decline over time.
Watch it
- VideoThe Biggest Myth In Education Veritasium · 2021 · about 14 minutesWhere the types came from, the Pashler review, a direct experiment, Willingham interviewed, and what actually predicts remembering. The one to watch first. Its references.
- VideoLearning Styles Don’t Exist Daniel Willingham · 2008 · about 7 minutesWe learn by grasping meaning, and meaning is not visual or auditory.
- VideoWillingham’s follow-up Daniel WillinghamAnswers to the objections people raised to the first video.
The course’s own
- The course’s ownWhat kind of learner are you? The 4 different learning styles Clipboard Classes · about 5 minutesTeaches the four types as fact. Watch it after the Veritasium video and see the claim being made.
- The course’s ownHow to Study for Your Learning Style HACC Central Pennsylvania Community College · about 4 minutesStudy advice built on the matching claim.
- The course’s ownUnderstanding your learning style University of Waterloo tip sheetThe same claim on paper.
Handwritten notes are always better
Take notes by hand. Typing doesn’t stick.
What holds. Not always. The famous 2014 study that started this was tested again by other researchers and the advantage largely disappeared. And for people with more inattention, the effort of handwriting itself competes with paying attention: in a 2025 study, the more inattentive symptoms someone reported, the more typed notes helped and the more handwritten notes hurt.
The better question. According to whose brain, doing what task? Notes you actively make in your own words beat notes you copy, in either medium.
Read it yourself
- StudyNote-taking modality and ADHD inattentive symptoms Shimko and colleagues · Applied Cognitive Psychology · 2025As inattentive symptoms rise, digital notes produce better learning gains and handwritten notes worse ones.
- StudyThe Pen Is Mightier Than the Keyboard Mueller and Oppenheimer · Psychological Science · 2014The study that started it: laptop users typed more word-for-word notes and did worse on conceptual questions.
- StudyHow Much Mightier Is the Pen than the Keyboard for Note-Taking? Morehead, Dunlosky and Rawson · Educational Psychology Review · 2019Ran it again with more groups. Performance did not consistently differ by method.
- StudyDon’t Ditch the Laptop Just Yet Urry and colleagues · Psychological Science · 2021A direct replication plus eight similar studies pooled: longer, more word-for-word laptop notes, but no difference in quiz scores.
- ExplainerNew Findings Inform the Laptop versus Longhand Note-Taking Debate Carolina Kuepper-Tetzel · The Learning Scientists · 2019A plain walk through the replication. The quality of the notes matters more than the tool.
- ExplainerShould students use laptops in the classroom? Brendan Schuetze · cogbites · 2020Why the replication matters, and what it changed.
- VideoThe Surprising Truth About Note-taking During Lectures Benjamin Keep · YouTube · 2022On the pen-versus-keyboard debate. Title and channel confirmed; the content could only be checked from search results.
Highlight the important bits
Mark the page and it will stick.
What holds. Highlighting feels like learning because the page looks worked on. When Dunlosky and colleagues graded ten study techniques on their evidence, highlighting came out in the bottom group. A 2021 meta-analysis of 242 studies agreed with the ranking but softened the label: the weak techniques still do something, they are just weaker than the strong ones. Testing yourself and coming back later came out on top in both.
Read it yourself
- StudyImproving Students’ Learning With Effective Learning Techniques Dunlosky, Rawson, Marsh, Nathan and Willingham · 2013High utility: practice testing, spaced practice. Low utility: highlighting, rereading, summarising, keyword mnemonics, imagery for text.
- StudyA Meta-Analysis of Ten Learning Techniques Hattie and Donoghue · Frontiers in Education · 2021242 studies, 169,179 people. Spacing and testing strongest; underlining and summarising weakest, but none useless. Most of the studies measured facts, not deep understanding.
- ExplainerStrengthening the Student Toolbox John Dunlosky · American Educator · 2013The review’s lead author writing it plainly for teachers and students.
- ExplainerLearn how to Study Using… Retrieval Practice Megan Sumeracki · The Learning Scientists · 2016What to do instead of highlighting: pull it out of your head, then check.
- VideoStudy Strategies: Retrieval Practice The Learning Scientists · YouTubeA short one on the technique that beats highlighting and rereading.
Read it again
If it didn’t go in, read it again.
What holds. Rereading makes the page feel familiar, and familiar is not the same as remembered. Trying to say it without looking, then checking, works better and lasts longer. Researchers call the harder-feeling version a desirable difficulty: it feels slower now and holds later. That is the whole of the lesson’s bus and fountain.
Read it yourself
- StudyImproving Students’ Learning With Effective Learning Techniques Dunlosky and colleagues · 2013Rereading graded low utility; practice testing and spacing graded high.
- ExplainerDesirable difficulties Bjork Learning and Forgetting Lab · UCLAThe lab’s own summary of why conditions that feel harder while learning produce learning that lasts.
- StudyTest-Enhanced Learning: Taking Memory Tests Improves Long-Term Retention Roediger and Karpicke · Psychological Science · 2006Testing beat restudying after a week, even though restudying felt more confident at the time.
- StudyA Meta-Analysis of Ten Learning Techniques Hattie and Donoghue · Frontiers in Education · 2021Rereading weaker than testing and spacing across 242 studies, though not nothing.
- ExplainerRetrieval practice The Learning ScientistsThe hub page: posters, guides, and the studies behind them.
- VideoRetrieval Practice: A video for Students The Learning Scientists · YouTubeHow to do it, for students.
- VideoThree reasons why retrieval practice boosts learning Pooja K. Agarwal · YouTubeA cognitive scientist on why pulling it out works better than putting it in again.
Sit still and pay attention
Moving means you’ve stopped listening.
What holds. For some people moving is how attention is kept, not lost. In a 2024 study that measured adults with ADHD as they worked, fidgeting was greater on the trials they got right and went with better sustained attention. In autism, being allowed to control light, sound, movement and predictability leaves more capacity for the learning, and forcing someone to stop stimming can cost more attention than the stimming did.
The better question. What is the movement doing? That is more useful than judging it from the outside.
Read it yourself
- StudyFidgeting and sustained attention in adults with ADHD Son, Calub, Fan and colleagues · Frontiers in Psychiatry · 2024Movement measured with wearable sensors: more fidgeting on correct trials, rising as the task went on, correlated with better attention.
- StudySensory sensitivity and school performance PubMed recordSensory hypersensitivity predicts school performance directly; agency and predictability, not raw sensory removal, are the levers.
- ExplainerMonotropism in practice monotropism.orgDeep, pooled attention as a pattern, and what it means for interruptions and task switching.
- StudyHyperactivity in ADHD: Impairing Deficit or Compensatory Behavior? Sarver, Rapport, Kofler, Raiker and Friedman · Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology · 2015Children with ADHD did better on working-memory tasks when they moved more.
- StudyMore intense physical activity is associated with better cognitive control performance in ADHD Hartanto, Krafft, Iosif and Schweitzer · Child Neuropsychology · 2016Trial by trial: more movement went with more accurate answers.
- Study“People should be allowed to do what they like”: autistic adults’ views and experiences of stimming Kapp and colleagues · Autism · 2019Autistic adults describe stimming as self-regulation, and object to being made to stop.
- StudyHyperactivity in ADHD: Friend or Foe? Hoy and colleagues · Brain Sciences · 2024Pedalling under the desk during a hard task improved performance and prefrontal activity.
- ExplainerDoes fidgeting help people with ADHD focus? UC Davis Health · 2024The researcher explains: the effect grows as the task drags on.
- ExplainerADHD kids can be still, if they’re not straining their brains University of Central Florida · 2017Fidgeting appeared during a maths video and not during a film clip. It is the effort, not the child.
- ExplainerStimming and Fidgeting to Calm and Focus Jami Demuth · CHADD · 2022What the movement is doing, from the ADHD organisation.
- VideoADHD Study University of Central Florida · YouTube · 2017The maths-video versus film-clip finding, from the lab.
- VideoKids and ADHD: why fidgeting is a good thing CBC News: The National · YouTube · 2017Fidgeting as a sign the brain is working hard.
You only remember 10% of what you read
10% of what you read, 20% of what you hear, 30% of what you see, 90% of what you do.
What holds. The numbers come from a famous chart, the “learning pyramid” or “cone of experience”, that nobody has been able to trace to a real study. The original cone, drawn by Edgar Dale in 1946, had no numbers on it at all. The percentages were added later and passed from handout to handout. Made up. Worth knowing by name, so it never fools you again.
Read it yourself
- StudyExcavating the origins of the learning pyramid myths Letrud and Hernes · Cogent Education · 2018Traces the percentages back more than 160 years to no experiment at all, and shows they contradict what memory research found.
- StudyThe Mythical Retention Chart and the Corruption of Dale’s Cone of Experience Subramony, Molenda, Betrus and Thalheimer · Educational Technology · 2014The numbers are not research findings, and pinning them onto Dale’s cone was never justified.
- StudyThe Learning Pyramid: Does It Point Teachers in the Right Direction? Lalley and Miller · Education · 2007Found no credible research behind the pyramid. Every method on it works in the right context.
- ExplainerPeople remember 10%, 20%… Oh Really? Will Thalheimer · Work-Learning Research · 2006, updated 2017Traces the numbers to an uncited magazine piece from 1967, and shows Dale’s cone never had percentages on it.
- ExplainerMythical Retention Data and The Corrupted Cone Will Thalheimer · 2015The four 2014 journal articles, summed up for anyone who teaches.
- ExplainerDon’t Be Fooled by the Learning Pyramid Myth Andrew Watson · Learning and the Brain · 2018A short debunk for teachers.
- VideoScientific myths and the learning pyramid The Oxford Review, with Kåre Letrud · YouTubeThe paper’s lead author on how the myth grew. Confirmed to exist; the content could not be viewed.
- VideoThe truth about the learning pyramid: it’s a myth Presenting Psychology · YouTubeA short debunk. Confirmed to exist; the channel was not assessed.
Also on the course’s list
Bloom’s taxonomy. The course files it under learning styles. It is not a learning-styles idea at all. It is a map of levels of understanding: remember, understand, apply, analyse, evaluate, create. The strict ordering is argued over; the vocabulary is sound and useful.
Critical thinking. The honest part of the lesson: question assumptions, weigh evidence, reach a reasoned judgement. One caveat from Willingham: it does not transfer well as a general skill. You think critically about things you know a lot about. The lesson’s Section 7 does it the way the course asks, and then turns it on the course.
The course’s own
- The course’s ownBloom’s Taxonomy michelleholmes111 · about 4 minutesThe levels, explained.
- The course’s ownIntroduction to critical thinking Wireless Philosophy · about 10 minutesArguments, premises, conclusions, and Monty’s party. The lesson’s Section 7 comes from here.
- The course’s ownDefining critical thinking Foundation for Critical ThinkingThe definition the course uses.