Are Learning Styles getting in the way?

When you first look into the process of developing a course, online or otherwise, one must, of course, identify the course objectives, and then think about how to appeal to the learning styles of your potential students in order to help them meet these objectives. Sounds pretty straightforward, right?

Appealing to learning styles is code for providing enough variety in methods of instruction and interaction so that every student and his or her accompanying learning style has a chance to engage with the content. Many instructors I meet are daunted by the prospect of developing content that will purportedly reach each student equally. First of all, there are more than a few learning styles inventories out there—which one should we choose as gospel? One person’s aural learner is another’s Type 2, and yet another’s aggressive dependent…how to choose?

While I would never dispute the fact that providing variety in course content and activities is necessary for us to get to know the student and to keep the student engaged, I have to wonder if, in the absence of a technically skilled team of learning object designers and developers, one can ever comfortably claim that all content is presented with such variety as to allow all students to learn in the manner that is most comfortable for them? I would secondly wonder how deep the learning is if students are consistently given material that appeals to their learning style and therefore never get practice with the challenge of working in arenas that might not fit their immediate learning style, but that might be a better mirror of  how such subject matter is treated or acted upon in the real world. For instance, a debate is a debate, and providing a drag and drop for kinesthetic learners to use when debating would be kind of useless. But, kinesthetic learners will be faced with the necessity of verbal reasoning and presentation in the workplace, so a debate isn’t the worst thing that can happen to them. Isn’t our real mission as instructors, besides being subject matter experts, one of helping students find ways to operate and succeed in environments that might not be intuitive learning spaces for them?