Learning Myths
Set Learning Styles
There’s no research to support learning styles. How to really learn : Instead match your content to the proces...
Five Popular Myths About Learning That Are Completely Wrong
Rereading Material
How to really learn: Instead of rereading, highlighting, or underlining important information, ask yourself: ‘What i...
Five Popular Myths About Learning That Are Completely Wrong
Focusing On One Subject At A Time
When it comes to learning a difficult subject, people often believe you should practice one thing at a time. How to...
Five Popular Myths About Learning That Are Completely Wrong
Sticking With The First Answer
In school, many of us were taught that if you put an answer on a test you shouldn’t change it, but you’re actually be...
Five Popular Myths About Learning That Are Completely Wrong
More Time Learning For Better Understanding
Putting in a lot of hours doesn’t always mean you’ll become good at something. ‘People tend to be blissfully un...
Five Popular Myths About Learning That Are Completely Wrong
Styles of learning
The concept of learning styles--such as visual versus verbal or active versus reflective--is commonplace, but it turn...
3 Common Learning Myths Debunked
Right brained or left brained
Research doesn’t strongly support this concept of the lateral brain--or that people have a dominant side of the brain...
3 Common Learning Myths Debunked
"Exercises" that will make you smarter
"One minute playing Mozart will make your baby a genius, the next crosswords will fend off your mental decline"...The...
3 Common Learning Myths Debunked
Re-reading and highlighting
Both of these study strategies are relatively ineffective. Passively reading the same text over and over again won’t...
10 Common Learning Myths That Might Be Holding You Back | InformED
Different learning styles
Systematic studies of learning styles have consistently found no evidence or very weak evidence to support the idea ...
10 Common Learning Myths That Might Be Holding You Back | InformED
Right or left brained
There is no conclusive evidence that people preferentially use the left or right hemisphere. Certain functions are p...
10 Common Learning Myths That Might Be Holding You Back | InformED
The 10,000 hour rule
There’s no magic number of hours that will turn you into an expert . A Princeton study found that delibe...
10 Common Learning Myths That Might Be Holding You Back | InformED
Sticking with your first answer
One study found that 75 % of college students and 55 % of instructors believe that changing their initial answer woul...
10 Common Learning Myths That Might Be Holding You Back | InformED
Intelligence as fixed at birth
A growing body of research shows that our IQ can increase over time , and in fact, research on growth mindset by Stan...
10 Common Learning Myths That Might Be Holding You Back | InformED
Praising intelligence
Research on the growth mindset by Carol Dweck found that praise can actually be counterproductive and discourage peop...
10 Common Learning Myths That Might Be Holding You Back | InformED
We only use 10 % of our brain
This theory is an urban legend. It seems to have originated from the 1930s self-help book “How to Win Friends and In...
10 Common Learning Myths That Might Be Holding You Back | InformED
The learning pyramid
The theory says that people remember 10 % of what they read, 20 % of what they hear, 30 % of what they see, 50 % of w...
10 Common Learning Myths That Might Be Holding You Back | InformED
Shortcuts to better learning
Despite all the learning fads that have come and gone, from mindfulness to brain training games and exercises, learni...
10 Common Learning Myths That Might Be Holding You Back | InformED
The critical window of childhood
The assumption that in the first years of life the vast majority of the brain’s development occurs, and after this p...
How to separate learning myths from reality
The idle-brain theory
Irrespective of what a person is doing, the entire brain is generally active and that, depending on the task, some ar...
How to separate learning myths from reality
The left/right brain hypothesis
The theory that most people are either dominantly analytical (and left brained) or more creative (and right brained) ...
How to separate learning myths from reality