Learning Styles

I love music, but I also appreciate and learn a lot from a good powerpoint. Lectures can sometimes be nice, but often group work brings its own value. Writing ideas out, or having a kinesthetic experience can often help solidify ideas as well.

There are many ways to learn and that doesn’t mean you just fit in one box or another, it means that listening to a song could help you understand one, thing, but a video clip could make another aspect more clear, maybe you need to read the original source though, just to make sure you didn’t mishear/misinterpret something. Oh, and don’t forget you might want to write it down so you don’t forget.

This might sound complicated but using different senses/tools to learn is something teachers learn about themselves, I should know, my teacher friends have told me so.*

So how do you go about figuring out your preferred learning style?

Start with figuring what you remember best, and how you got the information. Did you read about it in a book, listen to someone talk about it, see a powerpoint with a diagram, or maybe touch a physical model of the memory? Also think about what made an idea click or where you tend to draw inspiration, was it a TED talk, a demonstration, a podcast, or a book? Think about you did to remember something, even a name, was it verbally repeating it to yourself afterward, writing it down a number of times, or connecting it to a mnemonic device.

Take learning styles with a grain of salt though, I enjoy listening to music, and usually get a lot out of the audio portion of films, and videos, though I also love design and infographics. Learn in whatever ways you wan and try to avoid discounting methods that may be unfamiliar, you could change your own preferences over time for that matter.

*Disclaimer: I am not a licensed teacher, nor am I a professional on this subject, I am simply sharing tools that have been beneficial to me.