What is your Learning Style?
Have you studied for hours and felt as if you could not process or retain the information? Have you used every color in the spectrum to highlight information in your text book? Despite your efforts, you continue to find yourself struggling to comprehend and retain information? If so, this may be an indicator that you are unfamiliar with your style of learning. Identifying your learning style or styles can impact the strategies you employ to process, retain, and recall information.
Learning Styles
Visual Learners
Visual learners process and retain information best from modes of instruction that incorporate symbols that represent verbal instructions. Summarizing notes, color coding lecture notes, symbols, incorporating diagrams, charts, videos, and PowerPoint slides into a study plan will complement the way a visual learner learns best.
Aural (Auditory) Learners
Auditory learners learn best from actively listening to content. Auditory learners store information by the way it sounds and tend to retain and process information best when the information is delivered orally. Reciting notes, engaging in group discussions, listening to recorded information, and reading explanations or instructions out loud are effective study tips for the auditory learner.
Read/Write Learners
Read/Write learners process and retain information more effectively when it is in printed form. Writing lecture notes and integrating important content from the textbook is a study technique that would benefit the read/write learner. Incorporating handouts and journal articles into a study plan will support the read/write learner's learning style.
Kinesthetic Learners
Kinesthetic learners are individuals who process information best when the learning experience allows for hands on activities and information is connected to concrete experiences. Participating in laboratory exercises, note taking, creating charts, graphs, diagrams, pictures, concept maps, and flash cards are study tools that can aid the kinesthetic learner in processing and retaining information.
My Learning Style or Styles
Below are links to learning style inventories that will allow you to assess your learning style and provide strategies to develop a structured and effective study plan.
Vark's Learning Style Questionnaire