Learning about learning

Do you prefer to learn in a classroom interacting with other learners or do you prefer to take time to study text. Whatever your preference it is important to develop your INTRA-personal skills, that is the ability to know yourself, the way your mind works and in particular your own learning style. The better able you are to understand what makes you 'tick' in the field of learning the better able you will be to choose effective methods of learning for your own development. There are many ways to put learning styles into categories, three popular methods are included here.

VARK

This is a method of putting learning preferences into different categories based on senses and processing script, thanks to our writing based cultures, VARK corresponds to: visual, aural, reading/writing, and kinesthetic (by doing).
For instance if you were a strongly visual based person you would find it easier to assimilate graphs and visual representation, such a person would prefer being given a map to find a destination. Someone with an aural bias would like to be told verbally how to find the destination, a reading/writing would prefer written directions and the kinesthetic bias, alas would prefer to be shown.

The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI)
Classifies learners according to their preferences on scales derived from psychologist Carl Jung's theory of psychological types.
There are four classifications and each segment is polarized, that is you are either;

1. Extrovert or introvert
2. Sensor or intuitor
3. Thinker or feeler
4. Judger or peceiver


• extroverts (try things out, focus on the outer world of people), introverts (think things through, focus on the inner world of ideas);


• sensors (practical, detail-oriented, focus on facts and procedures) or intuitors (imaginative, concept-oriented, focus on meanings and possibilities);


• thinkers (skeptical, tend to make decisions based on logic and rules) or feelers (appreciative, tend to make decisions based on personal and humanistic considerations);


• judgers (set and follow agendas, seek closure even with incomplete data) or perceivers (adapt to changing circumstances, resist closure to obtain more data).

The MBTI type preferences can be combined to form 16 different learning style types. For example, someone maybe an ESTJ (extrovert, sensor, thinker, perceiver) and another may be an INFJ (introvert, intuitor, feeler, judger).

Honey and Mumford's Learning Inventory

Honey and Mumford based their four categories of learners based on Kolb's Learning Style Model, below. They labeled these styles Activist, Reflector, Pragmatist and Theorist as in the table, which correspond to the learning process.



Kolb's Learning Style Model. Kolb defined the whole learning process as a four stage process:

1. Having an experience
2. Observing the experience and thinking about it
3. Getting ideas about the process
4. Applying and testing those ideas

They labeled these styles Activist, Reflector, Pragmatist and Theorist as in the table, which correspond to the learning process. A real life example could be that of a child learning to ride a bike.

1. The child would have a concrete experience; watching others ride bikes or having a parent show them how to ride a bike.

2. They internalise that experience with reflection

3. They develop abstract concepts e.g.; If I sit on the saddle the bike will go.

4. They have the opportunity to test their hypothesis in a new situation when the parent allows the child to sit on the bike.

It can be assumed that the bike has stabilizers/out-riding wheels, which keep the bike upright. The child goes to stage four sits on the bike and realises that just sitting on the saddle won't propel the bike. That is their next concrete experience, which starts the whole cycle (no pun intended) again. From here there may be more observation and reflection, forming abstract concepts and testing before the notion of pedals and pedaling is grasped and forward motion achieved. The next processes will include concepts of braking, steering and no doubt speed and a few collisions before mastery of the device results.



Honey and Mumford developed the Learning Styles Inventory, which accurately defines learning styles by a succession of questions. If you would like to discover your own learning style, whether you are an activist, theorist, reflector, or pragmatist and be part of a Dubai based learning research paper please email philip@knet.ae

In reality we use a collection of the different styles, even if you are a strong activist you are employing reflector traits in order to understand this article, but those experienced in their own self-development have to discovered how to learn more efficiently by seeking out learning deliver that corresponds to their preferred style or by improve learning acquisition by improving their weaker styles.