Learning Update

 Learning Update


What I Have Learned

    Since my last blog post, we have had the opportunity to create both a description and an outline of our course. What I have learned through developing a course description and outline, is the support they provide when developing other parts of the course such as the facilitator guide. When my group was developing the course description and outline, we determined how the training was going to be conducted, the objectives and goals, we determined the activities we wanted participants to engage in and more. The benefit of this was that when we began to design the facilitator guide, we just had to provide the details on things such as the expectations of the facilitator and participants, what should be accomplished each day of training, and where materials that would be needed could be found. If one's course description and outline are thoroughly thought out, then it can support other parts of the course development.
   

Learning Styles 

      Visual, auditory, read/write, or kinesthetic are the four main types of styles of learning one can have. For myself, I have always thought I was a combination of two learning styles, and the "What is your Learning Style" quiz, proved that. After taking the quiz, it was concluded that I am a multimodal (AK) learner. Multimodal means that I have multiple learning style, and in my case, my styles of learning are auditory and kinesthetic. Looking at the results didn't surprise me because I have also found myself learning best when I can actively apply what I have learned hands-on, and when I can talk things out with someone or a group of people. The benefit of this quiz is that it provides you with strategies to best support your learning. The following were auditory suggestions from the website (VARK Learn Limited, 2022)...

  1. Read notes aloud. 

  2. Find opportunities to verbally discuss what is being taught in class with peers or teachers. 

  3. Attending class, discussion, and tutorials are important and should be attended. 

The following were kinesthetic suggestions from the website (VARK Learn Limited, 2022)...

  1. In notes, including lots of examples. 
  2. Practice, practice, practice.
  3. When being taught abstract ideas, use images to better support your learning.


Learning Style or Learning Preference? 

    If you do anything that involves designing lessons, pieces of training, and/or activities then you are familiar with learning styles and are familiar with the four major ones, visual, auditory, read/writing, and kinesthetic. While we have been told these are learning styles, I have always viewed them more as learning preferences. Using myself as an example, I prefer the kinesthetic approach to obtaining information, however, does that mean I am incapable of learning when I am asked to read or write? No. Does it mean I can not obtain information while listening to a lecture? No. I believe that depending on what is being taught, some might prefer one way of learning versus another. Furthermore, I do not believe that an online quiz should be the ultimate determiner of one's learning preference. The article discusses how available quizzes are inconsistent, and that inconsistency is why I believe they should not be the ultimate determiner of how one obtains information. From my personal experience, I have taken learning style quizzes before and have received a variety of results of what kind of learner I am. Some tests conclude that I am only a kinesthetic learner, others state that I am a visual learner, while others determine that I am a mix of kinesthetic, visual, and auditory. In the article, Kirschner (2017) states "people cannot simply be clustered into specific and distant groups", and that is something that I agree with and feel about myself as a learner. I don't believe I consistently belong in one group, depending what I am being taught will determine what "group" I go into. In conclusion, I do not believe there is anything wrong with taking a learning style quiz, because one of the benefits of taking these types of quizzes is that you are provided strategies to implement with your learning. I would advise learners to use the learning style quizzes as a resource to try different strategies in school or in their workplace, however, I would not use it as the ultimate determiner of how they learn best.  



References

Kirschner, P. A. (2017). Stop propagating the learning styles myth. Computers & Education, 106, 166–171. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2016.12.006

VARK Learn Limited. (2022, October 17). Aural Strategies - VARK. VARK - a Guide to Learning Styles. https://vark-learn.com/strategies/aural-strategies/



  

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