Question: I have read research claiming the idea of multiple styles of learning does not hold up. If so, what does the research say is the best form of learning/teaching?

Answer: 
Recent eagle's-eye overview of best-practice study methods: Dunlosky, John, et al. "What works, what doesn't." *Scientific American Mind* 24.4 (2013): 46-53.

Gold star winners:

* **Self-testing.** That is: doing homework exercises and checking the answers.
* **Distributed practice.** Studying regularly in batches over time (not cramming).

Runners-up (mixed evidence):

* **Elaborative interrogation.**
* **Self-explanation.**
* **Interleaved practice.** ("Mixed practice")

What doesn't work:

* **Highlighting.**
* **Rereading.**
* **Summarization, keyword mnemonics, and imagery for text learning.**
**Multimodal Learning**
as per the article *Multimedia design: the effects of relating multimodal information*, M. Dubois and I. Vial

> 
> A statistically significant effect was observed on word memorisation
>  in the different information presentation modes, suggesting better
>  processing when there is co-referencing of the different sources,
>  especially when the encoding and tests modes are the same.
> 
> 
> 

In general, people learn better when the material is presented from multiple types of media: text, audio, video, etc.

The article is linked here:

<http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1046/j.1365-2729.2000.00127.x/abstract>