I believe that I am a visual learner. I always like to look at something to help me understand. Even if someone is reading something to me, I still like to see and read it myself, even if it is while the other person is reading it to me at the same time. I would have to say I am also a sequential learner in that I like to take learning in steps and be able to understand the logical chunks of information so that I can put it together and see the big picture in my head. I am also a sensing learner, where I have difficulty digesting abstract and theoretical material, but I do well with memorizing, details and hands on work. Like most people, there are multiple styles of learning that I utilize in my learning.
Less effective learning styles for me included verbal, active and intuitive. Verbal learning has always been difficult for me. I always like to see something to help me absorb the material. If someone is reading something, I would like to follow along with them. I would much rather to email someone than talk on the phone. I also work better on my own than in groups. I am somewhat an active learner in that I like to learn hands-on, however, active learners also enjoy group work which I would rather work alone. I would also say that I am not much of an intuitive learner in that I do not work quickly and I am also not always the fastest at grasping new concepts and relationships.
Everyone has their own learning styles that work best for them. There is no way that we can incorporate all of these learning styles in every lesson, as some of them are directly opposite of other learning styles. However, we can try to utilize as many as we can to help get our lessons across. Another way to look at these learning styles is to give our students a learning styles quiz at the beginning of the school year so we, as teachers, know what works best for each student. As we gain instructional material for each lesson, we can coordinate those lessons with the students learning styles. For example: Visual learners could maybe get digital flash cards to work with while maybe global learners could use a map of the relationships of the terms being used in the lesson. With all of the technological learning aids we have available to us, it would be a shame not to try to incorporate these into our curriculum to help our students learn.
