How To Know Your Learning Style And Make The Most Out Of It
Learning is known as the art of getting to know and understand new things either by studying, teaching or through overtime experience.
However, learning isn’t a one size fit all because we all learn differently and uniquely. In other words, the way you comprehend information could be different from the way I do even if we are both taught by same lecturer for the same amount of time.
Yes, it is a kind of situation that often play out because of a number of reasons. But most of the time, It’s due to the suitability of a lecturer’s style of teaching and one’s style of learning.
Meanwhile, the way you study also count. If you study in a manner that is not in accordance with the way your brain is configured to comprehend things, you may likely not learn anything or better still, not as much as you would have learnt if you had studied in a way your brain is familiar with.
And just as it is important to know the route to your destination while traveling, it is also crucial for you to know your learning style so as to be able to channel your learning to the right path of easy comprehension.
So what’s the deal here? Well, in this post, I will be explaining to you what the different learning styles are, how to know where you belong and how to develop or master your learning style(s).
Although it is the duty of your teachers/lecturers to teach you. But as it is, not all teachers consider the fact that students way of learning varies. So what they just do is to teach based on their own style.
However, even for a few teachers who accept that students style of learning varies, they still find it difficult to organize their teaching in a way that will aid easy learning of all their students (i.e. for various categories of learners).
Therefore the need for you as a student to know your learning style. To know what works for you, you need to put some variables into consideration:
1. The time you learn
2. Where you learn
3. Your method of learning
THE TIME YOU LEARN
A lot of research work has been conducted to determine what the best time of learning is. And has we have it, the postulate of these researchers differs.
Some believe midday is best for learning, some believe night is best and a few others believe morning is the best time to study. But the truth is, there is no hard and fast rule that outlines the best time to study.
As a student, you need to experiment to know your best learning time. Make a reading plan that will help you know when you get optimum return after reading. For me, I prefer studying at night or during the day after a short nap.
So, to know yours, You can try this one week plan:
- Study in the morning for a couple of days, say Monday to Wednesday (8am-12pm).
- Study midday for a couple of days, say Thursday to Saturday (11am-3pm).
- Study at night for a couple of days, say Sunday to Tuesday (9pm-2am).
After this one week plan, ask yourself some questions. Which of these days did I understood most of what I read? Which day was I able to study and understand without feeling stressed? Which day was I having difficulty concentrating on my study? Which day did I get tired of studying after just 1 hour into reading? These and many other questions when answered honestly, will give you direction as to what time is best for you to study.
WHERE (OR THE PLACE) YOU LEARN
Classrooms are meant for learning but not every student grab what they’re being taught in class. They come to class daily, pay attention to what is being taught, take notes, but at the end of the day they don’t understand what they were taught.
This does not mean that classroom learning is ineffective. It’s just that it isn’t always enough. So as a student, you need to have a personal studying space after each class. It can be any location on or off campus that is convenient for you to study.
Yes, it can be the library. But if you’re not comfortable with studying in the library, please find an alternative that is equally safe, effective and conducive to learning.
The reason why I said this is because I have a friend that can’t study in a library because of its traditional quietness. He prefers studying in places where there is some level of noise. He comprehends easily while reading and listening to music. As such, he always stay in his hostel and read with music playing instead of going to the library.
What I’m saying in essence is that, you have to know yourself just like my friend who found out that library isn’t comfortable for him. So try reading in different places till you locate where you get optimum return.
YOUR METHOD OF LEARNING
Some years ago, a group of researchers carried out an investigation as regards the way people comprehend information. These researchers has put forth several theories both dependently and independently explaining how students grasp information.
Anyways, am not going to bore you with the whole detail. But according to the study done by Neil D. Fleming and Coleen E. Mills, they found out that there are four different ways student learn new things. They call it the VARK learning models.
V for visual learners
A for auditory learners
R for reading/writing learners and
K for kinesthetic learners
Though, there have been some modifications over time like the Sean Whiteley's Mimetic model that classifies learning style into seven: Visual, Aural, Verbal, Physical, Logical, Social and Solitary. But for the sake of simplicity, we are going to look into the VARK model.
VARK is the abbreviation for Visual, Auditory, Reading/Writing and Kinesthetic as analyzed above. And according to this model, each student has at least one of these four as their dominant learning style. Meaning that, you can be having a combination of these styles.
Or alternatively, you can train yourself to use a combination of these styles. Hence, you are not limited to just one style. In fact, your preferred way of learning can change over time. So please note that this is not a kind of rigid rule you have stick with. It’s just an explanation of how we comprehend information so that you can understand yourself better and study in a smart way.
So with that, let’s dive in.
Visual
The visual learners are those who learn easily through the use of pictures, videos, illustrations, graphic organizers like charts, and diagrams. In short, they learn generally by seeing.
How do you know if you belong to this category?
Well, you belong to this group if:
1• You often find it difficult to describe a text but can describe it or something similar to it. Or alternatively, you know the position of the text in your note.
2• You often shape words into pictures, objects or play
3• You love designing your notes with lines, doodles or two pens of different colors
4• You sometimes catch yourself looking into space and creating imaginary scenes and images
So if you happen to fall into this category, there lot of things you can do to develop yourself, some of which are:
• Spending more time doing what you love to do – creating visuals
• Mastering how to represent ideas and data with images, charts, graphs and models (or something close) quickly
• Watching more videos especially academic tutorials on YouTube
• And lastly, paying quality attentions to lecturers’ gestures and demonstrations.
Therefore, as a virtual learner, you can integrate your learning style into studying, by organizing each topic into patterns, illustrations or something you can picture.
You can even color code your note while studying. And trust me, doing all these will certainly help you to always recall whatever it is you study easily, and even in future.
Auditory
This is a category of students who grasp information better by listening and speaking. They are good storytellers and great listeners.
They always have a greater advantage in classrooms, especially during presentations and discussions because they do pay close attention to every detail being said. They listen carefully and make contributions when necessary.
So, how do you know if you are an auditor learner?
You’re an auditory learner if:
1• You comprehend most of what you know via listening. In other words, you understand things better when explained verbally.
2• You love listening to your friends and getting involved in discussions.
3• You remember the things you hear more easily than when you read
4• You love asking questions
So, does it sounds like you? If yes, then there are a couple of things you can do to improve yourself and integrate your style into your learning process, such as:
• Spending more time listening to audio books, educative podcast and radio programs
• Discussing your course topics with brilliant friends and even forming an active discussion group
• Recoding your lectures and listening to them later. However, you might need to ask for your lecturer’s permission first, and please, don’t because of this neglect note-taking. It’s also essential.
• Recoding yourself while pretending to be explaining a topic to your friend and then listening to it.
To sum it up, If you are an auditory or aural learner, learn to use audiobooks in your personal study, organize discussion between you and your course mate, record the voice of your lecturer or even your own and play them when studying.
Reading/Writing
This category of students are those who learn best by writing notes and reading books, transcripts or other materials. They are copious note takers and passionate readers Who love seeing information in text format. You’ll always see them writing down their thoughts and ideas, adding captions to images and highlighting key points for later reference.
To know if you fall into this category, check if any of these features apply to you.
1• You love taking notes and rewriting them in your own words
2• You love it when lecturers give out handouts or recommend books for further reading
3• You enjoy reading your course materials than hearing lectures
4• You always feel compel to write down things and find it difficult to skip text because you want to get the whole information.
As a reading or writing learner, you can train yourself to take in and retain a lot of information quickly by:
• Reading more academic books that are very relevant to your field
• Getting a copy of every course handouts for study
• Practicing free writing and keeping diaries
• Rewriting your notes in a simpler and easy to understand form or even as a blog.
However, if you would like to blog on your course topics like I always do on a friend's blog and now at EconsNote, be sure you’re not reproducing (I mean plagiarizing) your lecturer’s work or whatever course material given to you.
The reason for this is quite simple and not far fetch. You are not reproducing your lecturer’s handout but explaining to other students what you understood about those topics using your personal approach and in clear terms.
So the best way to go about this is to make sure you understand the topics first. It could be by reading from different sources as far as they’ll help you better understand the concepts your professor is trying to explain. Afterwards, you can then proceed to write about it in an easy to digest way, without consulting your sources in the process.
Meanwhile, you may still have to give credit to your lecturers or other sources you might have consulted when creating your content if you quote or using their ideas directly or if certain points you’ve made were from the SPECIAL help you got from them.
This is a learning technique that has been helping big time especially when preparing for texts and exams because all I got to do is to just go over to the blog and read. However, it’s not a must you create a blog. You can get a separate notebook for this – it works even more effective.
Kinesthetic
Typically, kinesthetic learners are not the classroom type of people, they are rather an action type because they learn best while carrying out the act being taught. That is, they love being part of the act rather than just listening to or watching how the act is being done.
They are the set of students who excel in demonstrations, acting and experimenting. They learn by seeing things first hand, touching them and feeling them too. You can see, they’re unique!
Here’s how to know if you belong to this class of learners. You’re most likely to be a Kinesthetic learner if:
1• You love trying things out. I mean you love experimenting ideas to know if they are realistic enough (kind of knowing if they are true or if they really work or apply to the real world)
2• You always long for practical, group work, field trips, action moments and demonstrations
3• You often explain things with gestures, body movement and physical models
4• You don’t feel satisfied until concepts are experimented
It’s pretty good if you belong to this category of learners because there are lot of ways to you can integrate your inherent learning system into your academics, some of which are:
• Experimenting the ideas you learned in class and during personal study. But in a case whereby it’s impossible to carry out an experiment, you can also make enquiries or conduct a survey. They will also help you the same way (i.e. learning by action).
• Taking breaks from study or breaking your study session with a walk or simple exercise
• Reading with gestures, using real life examples and actively rewriting your notes
• Playing academic games that are related to your field.
Therefore, as a Kinesthetic learner, you don’t need to force yourself to sit down all day. Try as much as possible to make some movement when studying and even during lecture as long as you are not distracting the attention of other students.
To this end, I hope you’ve been able to discover what type of learner you are but If you still can’t figure out where your learning strength lies among these four classes, you can take this online quiz to help you know your learning style.
Is It Possible To Have Multiple Learning Styles?
Yes, it’s possible to have more than just one style of learning. In fact, most students who comprehend and retain more information quickly have a combination of these styles.
However, professor Howard Gardner explained in his Theory Of Multiple Intelligence, that we all have these styles already inherent in us but that we tend to find one or two learning styles more attractive and suitable.
For example, I’m typically a reading and writing learner but I also love it when visual learning is combined with auditory because it makes it more easier for me to imagine and picture what a concept really looks like.
Meanwhile, yours could be different. It can be a combination of visual, auditory and kinesthetic or writing/reading and auditory or some other kind of combination.
It is also worth nothing that your preferred style of learning can change over time and that you can still learn some basic information in your non-preferred style.
Hence, your preferred style of learning should not be a kind of rigid rule you have to stick with forever. Be flexible enough to change your style and mode of learning anytime you want, provided it's going to be the best for you at the moment.
How To Effectively Manage Your Inherent Multiple Learning Styles
As I mentioned earlier at the beginning of this post, I said every student have his/her own unique way of learning which fall into at least one category in the VARK model.
But if it happen that you’re a mixture of two or more learning styles, here are a few things you can do to ensure that you utilize and incorporate them into your study life.
1. Be flexible
2. Switch from one learning style to another whenever you feel like
3. Choose any method you think will help you get the best result at the moment
4. Stop feeling overwhelmed by your multiple style of learning – stop overthinking it and let them come naturally.
5. Feel good about yourself and be confident in your learning style
6. Study consistently to make your learning style an habit.
7. Outsource substituting and supplementary materials that matches your learning style and of course your course syllabus. Otherwise, you can convert your study materials and make them suit your learning style.
8. Identify your strengths and work on your weaknesses.
Conclusion
We all have different learning potentials and different ways of consuming information in different situations. Knowing yours do not only give you the chance to learn things automatically but also help you save some time and energy you would have spent on learning things over and over again.
Having gone through the VARK model, I hope you’ve been able to figure out where your learning strength lies.
For example, if you are reading this article and you’re the type who prefers to reads the transcripts of video lessons rather than watching the video itself then it means you’re a reading/writing learner.
But if you’ve been able to understand this article by just looking at the pictures or maybe you would have prefer it if it were in video format, then it shows that you’re a visual learner.
Again, you’re an auditory learner if you’ve been able to digest this article by reading it out to yourself or maybe you would have find it even more interesting if there was an audio file attached.
And finally, you’re a Kinesthetic learner if you’ve been playing with your hair or doing some other kind of physical act while reading this article.
To this end, just observe yourself and know where you belong. No style of learning is better than the other so just love yourself and be proud of your dominant learning style(s). And as student, don’t forget to incorporate your learning style in your study life. Study when and where you like and be the best you can.
Let me know in the comment section below if you really love this article and have some other things you’ll like to add to it.
And if in this article you’ve learnt one or two things you think could also benefit someone you know, please don’t hesitate to share it.
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