Improving My Personal Learning Style

¶ … Improving my Personal Learning Style is defined as "the way in which each person absorbs and retains information and skill" (Sims & Sims 1995, p. 194). If you know your personal learning style, you can adapt the way you learn to suit you best. In doing so, you can build on your strengths, reduce your weaknesses, and learn in the way that is most efficient and effective for you. The first stage of this is analysis, where you consider how you learn and define your own learning style. Once you know your own learning style, the next stage is to consider what this means and recognize your own strengths and weaknesses. The final stage of this is creating a plan of action or an improvement strategy. I will now complete these three stages, with the final goal being to determine a strategy for improving my own learning.

The first step is to understand my own learning style. One way to understand your learning style is to consider how you perceive information most easily. In the Learning Revolution, the following three possibilities are described (Dryden & Vos 2001, p. 349):

Visual learner - learn best by seeing

Auditory learner - learn best by hearing

Tactile learner - learn best by doing

In testing my own learning style, I found that I am 37% tactile, 32% auditory, and 32% visual.

Now that I know my personal learning style, the next step involves recognizing my strengths and my weaknesses. Looking at my learning style overall, one of my strengths is that I have a good variety of skills. I am slightly higher as a tactile learner, but on the whole, I am fairly even for all three learning styles. This means that I will learn well in a variety of situations, regardless of whether the learning methods are mainly visual, auditory, or tactile. This also means that I should be able to adapt my learning style to suit certain situations. For example, if a learning environment is mainly tactile, I will be able to focus on my skills as a tactile learner and make the most of the situation. This strength in that I am fairly even for the three types of learning styles is also my weakness, since it means that I am not especially strong in any of the three areas. This means that if I am only learning in a visual way, I will not be as effective as I would be if I was combining learning in a visual way with learning in an auditory way. The same applies if I am in a learning environment where the learning is mainly auditory, such as a lecture, or if I am in one where the learning is mainly tactile, such as a laboratory. In any kind of situation where the learning methods are mainly of one type, I will not be learning effectively overall because I am not particularly strong in any one area. Overall then, my strength is that I have a variety of learning abilities, while my weakness is that I am not particularly strong in any one ability. To make the most of my learning style and to improve, I will have to focus on finding a way to combine all of my learning skills so that I am making the most of my learning abilities overall.

Now that I understand my strengths and weaknesses, I can see that there is a significant opportunity for improvement. This will involve utilizing all of my learning styles at any given time. In many cases, I will not be able to change the learning environment I am in. For example, if I am in a laboratory, then the learning environment is mainly tactile. If I am watching an instructional video, the learning environment is mainly visual. If I am in a lecture, the learning environment is mainly auditory. The opportunity for improvement that I have involves finding a way to add other elements to the learning environment. For example, in a lecture I could take notes or draw diagrams so that the learning process is both auditory and visual. If I approach this in a creative way, I can also make the learning process tactile. In doing this, I will be utilizing all three of my styles and learning as effectively as possible. The same applies if I am watching an instructional video. For example, I could think of examples as I watch the video, with this making the process tactile. In my own time, I could convert my examples into a speech on the subject. Again, this would mean that I am utilizing all three of my styles and learning as effectively as possible. There is also an opportunity to improve the way I study by utilizing all three of my learning styles. The challenge is to find ways of learning and studying that use all three styles. For example, I could study with a partner and use discussion to make the process auditory. I could also complete practical projects related to the subject with a study partner, which would make the process tactile. Finally, if the project has a visual component, this will also make the process visual and will mean that I am using all three of my learning styles.