People don’t all look identical. We don’t all have the same taste in music, fashion, food or books. If you’ve ever had a conversation about religion or politics or spoken to a member of the opposite sex, you know that we don’t all think alike.
So why assume that individual learning is all the same way? It isn’t.
In the past, the same learning methods were applied to everyone under the concept that one size fits all. The problem is that it doesn’t. We all have our own individual learning styles that make learning easier and more effective.
If you really want to become an expert, you need to know your learning style.
This short guide can help you discover your learning style and take advantage of it.
Discover Your Style
Take a quiz to find out what your learning style is. A variety of self-administered quizzes are available, and a short, 24-question quiz takes less than five minutes to complete. The results are instant, and they will likely include a mixture of most or all of the different learning styles.
The Different Kinds of Learning Styles
These are descriptions of the different style patterns and how you can make use of them.
- Visual-spatial: You like to see things drawn out, just like architects and artists do. Diagrams and pictures are your trustworthy guides for learning and remembering.
- Aural-auditory: Listen to everything, and you’ll probably remember it. Record lectures on MP3 and listen throughout the day.
- Verbal-linguistic: You are a talker and listener. Put everything in words and you’ll be fine. Read, write and tell stories.
- Physical-bodily-linguistic: You like to move, just like athletes, surgeons and orchestra conductors. Try studying while walking or doing another rhythmic motion, such as cycling on a stationary bike.
- Logical-mathematical: It must make sense. Work out your problems as though they are formulas and they adhere to scientific principles. Make a step-by-step outline.
- Social-interpersonal: You’re a people-person. Form a study group, be a tutor, lead group mini-sessions and talk about your assignments. Exchange feedback with people in person or online.
- Solitary-intrapersonal: You are a high-achiever and you hold yourself to high standards. Achieve your goals by studying in a comfortable, quiet place, monitoring your own progress toward your goals and learning by connecting new information to old knowledge.
- Naturalistic: You like nature and the outdoors. Choose animals, plant or geographical topics for your assignments whenever possible. To become engaged and remember facts better, try to imagine your subject matter as ecosystems or organisms in their environments.
Going Back to School
New doors may open once you know your learning style and how to apply it. Going back to school may be daunting if grade school was a struggle for you or you work full-time, but online programs may be viable options.
You can attend virtual classes and complete assignments from remote locations on your own schedule, and you can modify the course to complement your own learning style. (Websites such as Lynda and TeamTreehouse are two of the best.) You’ll learn information faster and retain it better than before so you won’t feel frustrated with slow progress.
The old approach to learning was to throw everyone in a classroom with the same books, a standard lesson plan and rigid approaches to answering questions. Now, people are recognizing the importance of differential instruction to maximize individual styles of education. With facilitated learning, work skills and online courses are easier to master so you can become a true expert.
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What is your learning style? How did you figure out how you learn best?
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I think learning styles are a little more complicated then “select your style”… The quiz gave me almost all categories at around 45%… So, what style does that make me?
When I learn things, I like to hear someone talk and diagram while I take notes. Next, I like to go off on my own to first think about and then try what I have learned. Then come back to the person who was teaching me and ask questions. It also MUST make logical sense!
I guess that makes me a:
Visual-spatial, Aural-auditory, Verbal-linguistic, Logical-mathematical, Solitary-intrapersonal learner.
I guess that makes you a Jack-of-all-trades in learning styles.
I believe that some people really do only learn from a few learning styles, while some benefit from many.
Thanks for stopping by.
I was a little surprised by my results.
I was highest at being Intrapersonal and then interpersonal was next in line. Both are a good fit for being a teacher & trainer.
If you would have given me this test 10 years ago, I would have probably scored highest at Physical Bodily Linguistic because I played sports all the time. I think this quiz is good but it depends on what your currently active in and that changes throughout your life and career.
Your learning style based off this quiz may change but your personality doesn’t.
Great point Sean.
You can definitely go through different types of learning phases as you change throughout life.
Cool!
We always receive the same advice to study: find yourself a confortable chair, good illumination, quiet place; get focus and study! And this article proves that aproach can by (most of the times) wrong.
Everybody should be aware of his learning style, and this kind of thing should be taught on the schools, like many other subjects, like speed reading and other efficiency techniques. Would make learning much easier.
It’s like in PNL when they say that, sometimes, even more important than what you say it’s HOW you say something. Many times study can be hard not because of the subject, but because your approach to study is wrong.
My learning style is a combination of “learning by example” and “learning by doing”. I like to work with things like prototypes which I build by using (pieces of) other peoples examples..
My outcome of the quiz was visual-spatial which I think is ok because I like to visualize things. But for me the real learning is coming from the prototyping stuff.
I think that there are just two learning styles: active & passive. And if you really want to be an expert in something you will have to use the active style because that is the only way to gain experience.
I did the test on Edutopia and got results that featured musical (aural) knowledge and interpersonal:
http://www.edutopia.org/node/6140/done?sid=106416
I then went and did the other test, on learning-styles-online.com, and I got:
Visual – 13
Social – 10
Physical – 15
Aural – 15
Verbal – 14
Solitary – 18
Logical – 17
Vastly different results. To me, this suggests that the specific phrasing of the questions has at least as much of an effect on the results as the nature of the person answering. I don’t really feel like I’m any closer to understanding how I should best study!
I think one of the flaws in the study is that it asks you how you behave, when the behaviour could be learned habits that are not actually an optimal way for you to learn. For example, years ago I would have answered that attending classes was something I did, but I’ve since realized I learn much better from a textbook. Many of my classmates though continue to go due to sunk cost bias, even though I’m sure a few of them would learn better with other techniques.
I’ve always LOVED the concept of multimodal learning. I find the version that’s split between Visual-Auditory-Kinesthetic a little easier than this one to apply, because it’s less specific and can be more easily adapted.
I’m one of the lucky ones, though. I’m a visual learner, which means that traditional school structure of “read a book, memorize, take a test” actually works really well for me.
I actually find that the VAK model gives me a good way to structure my learning. My learning preferences go in exactly that order, so that’s how I learn:
I start with a book/website/manual and absorb as much as I can (Visual)
Then I talk over what I’ve learned with a mentor, or listen/watch an example, like a podcast (Auditory)
Then I watch someone do it, and do it myself (Kinesthetic)
Thanks for the info Matt. Just took the questionnaire and my learning styles are Logical-Mathematical and Visual-Spacial. Both fit great for me. I think it is vital to understand the best ways you learn. Only then can you structure your search for knowledge in such a way that you not only learn as much as possible, but enjoy the process. Thanks again
Thanks guys, I am a college student and knowing my learning style now will be helfpul for sure!