Self-assessment and reflection practices

Individual Learning Style

This report is a self-assessment and reflection of my personal learning style. The report assesses my strengths and opportunities for growth as well as creating an improvement strategy which is solely based on the results of my learning style assessment. Through a free internet learning style web site, I discovered that my learning style is called Interpersonal Intelligence. The report will also provide some background on the various learning styles and provide a rough definition.

Learning Styles

Learning styles are the basic ways humans are programmed to best learn. There are various ways or styles of learning and each man, woman and child, has either one specific style or a combination of styles that help them acquire knowledge and experiences. This information is great for teachers and parents because if a child is actively engaged in the learning process they tend to feel more confident and therefore more empowered. If the teacher of person passing on an experience can teach or presents in a way that is best suited for the audience, they are more likely to be understood and therefore they seem as though they are better teachers. "The education literature suggests that students who are actively engaged in the learning process will be more likely to achieve success." (Blackmore, 1996)

It is very important to getting a student involved in his or her own learning. Therefore, the teacher must understand learning styles so he or she can be best prepared to get the message across. In addition, if a teacher can utilize various teaching methodologies depending on the material being taught, students are more likely to learn. "Schroeder points out that the "typical" student learning style profile is changing on campuses today and there is a much greater variation in the range of learning style preferences to be considered. Therefore it would be wise to understand what learning style preferences are, and how to address them when preparing instructional materials for adults." (Blackmore, 1996)

Types of Styles

Humans tend to develop behaviors towards the process of learning. To understand the learning process it is best to consider learning style preferences which can be described as:

Cognition

Conceptualization

Affective

Cognitive means that each person uses some consciously or unconsciously learning style and it is driven by the cognitive process in the brain. Conceptualization is how we humans compute information. Affective refers to a person's inner drive or motivation in regard to the decision making process. Learners can also be classified in to specific categories which include:

Visual Learners

Auditory Learners

Tactile Learners

Visual people tend to use sight over touch and hearing. In other words, a visual learner is someone who may use body language to interpret a meaning that may not have been discussed verbally. Auditory learners on the other hand would use the act of listening to learn. Tactile learners would utilize the act of touching to best learn. Consider that we all went though a phase in our infancy where touch was the best learning style.

There were many individuals who have contribute to the learning style philosophy but the most influence in my opinion came out of Gardener's Multiple Intelligences. His styles were broken down into seven unique ways in which we could demonstrate a person's intellectual ability. "Again, each of us uses some of these styles when learning, but we tend to prefer a small number of methods over the rest." (Blackmore, 1996) Gardner listed the seven as:

Visual/Spatial Intelligence - pictures

Verbal/Linguistic Intelligence - words

Logical/Mathematical Intelligence - questions

Bodily/Kinesthetic Intelligence - moving

Musical/Rhythmic Intelligence - music

Intrapersonal Intelligence - alone

Interpersonal Intelligence - socializing

My Style

My results from my self-evaluation came back as Interpersonal Intelligence. I agree that I am a social butterfly and that I use a socialization approach to get my meaning and messages across. I have also always learned best in social settings and groups. People like me with a preferred learning style of Interpersonal Intelligence have the ability to relate to others.

But, they also want people to bond with them so as to get more of an insight into their soul and feelings. There are some drawbacks because Interpersonal Intelligence people may not work well when they are alone and they also may not excel in the other learning styles depending on the cognitive approach and the category that comes with the Interpersonal Intelligence. I feel that I have always been a very good judge of character but I try to get other s to first understand men from the inside out as opposed to me understanding them.

The key for me though is to try to work in groups especially in groups where my skills are not duplicated but instead they are complemented. For example, if I write well and another person presents well, we would get along just fine if we needed to create a writing assignment that would be presented orally.