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Learning Styles. Learning Styles and Strategies. Notes from “Learning Styles and Strategies,” Richard M. Felder and Barbara A. Soloman Types of Learners Active and Reflective Sensing and Intuitive Visual and Verbal Sequential and Global. Types of Learners: Active and Reflective .
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Learning Styles and Strategies • Notes from “Learning Styles and Strategies,” Richard M. Felder and Barbara A. Soloman • Types of Learners • Active and Reflective • Sensing and Intuitive • Visual and Verbal • Sequential and Global
Types of Learners: Active and Reflective • Active Learners • Understand information best by doing something active with it • “Lets try it out and see how it works” • Tend to like group work • Hard to sit through lectures and take notes • Reflective Learners • Prefer to think about it quietly first • “Lets think it through first” • Prefer to work alone • Not as hard to sit through lectures and take notes, but still not easy
Active and Reflective (cont.) • Everybody is active sometimes and reflective sometimes • A balance is desirable • If always active may jump into things prematurely • If spend to much time reflecting may never get anything done
Active and Reflective (cont.) • How can active learners help themselves? • Use study groups with each member taking turns explaining different topics • Work with others to try to anticipate questions on an exam Will retain information better if you find ways to do something with it
Active and Reflective (cont.) • How can reflective learners help themselves? • Use study time to think about what was covered in class • Come up with possible questions or applications • Write short summaries of readings and class notes in your own words Will retain information better if you spend time outside class thinking about it
Types of Learners: Sensing and Intuitive • Sensing Learners • Tend to like learning facts • Like solving problems by well established methods • Dislike complications and surprises • Resent being tested on material that has not been explicitly covered in class • Patient with details and good at memorizing facts and doing hands-on work • More practical and careful • Don’t like courses that have no apparent connection to real world • Intuitive Learners • Prefer discovering possibilities and relationships • Like innovation and dislike repetition • Don’t mind being tested on material not explicitly covered in class • Better at grasping new concepts and are more comfortable with abstractions and mathematical formulations • Work faster and be more innovative • Don’t like memorization and routine calculations
Sensing and Intuitive (cont.) • Everybody is sensing sometimes and intuitive sometime • To be effective as a learner and problem solver you need to be able to function both ways • If you overemphasize intuition you may miss important details or make careless mistakes • If you overemphasize sensing you may rely too much on memorization and not spend enough time on understanding and innovative thinking
Sensing and Intuitive (cont.) • How can sensing learners help themselves? • See how things connect to the real world • Ask for specific examples of concepts and procedures • Find out how the procedures apply in practice • Use other books or classmates to brainstorm to find real world connections
Sensing and Intuitive (cont.) • How can intuitive learners help themselves? • Ask instructor for interpretations or theories that link the facts or try to find connections yourself • Take time to read the entire questing before starting your answer • Always check your results
Types of Learners: Visual and Verbal • Visual Learners • Remember best when they see • Pictures, diagrams, flow charts, time lines, films, and demonstrations • Most people are visual learners • Verbal Learners • Get more out of words • Written and spoken explanations • Most college classes are “lectures” with very little visual Most college students do not get as much as they would if more visual presentations were used in class
Visual and Verbal (cont.) • How can visual learners help themselves? • Try to find diagrams, sketches, schematics, photographs, flow chart, or any other visual representations • Ask your instructor, consult reference books • See if any videotapes or CD-ROM displays of the course material are available • Prepare a concept map by listing key points and enclose in boxes and draw lines and arrows between them • Color code your notes
Visual and Verbal (cont.) • How can verbal learners help themselves? • Write summaries or outline course material • Work in groups • You gain understanding when you hear someone else explain it • You learn even more when you do the explaining
Types of Learners: Sequential and Global • Sequential Learners • Tend to gain understanding in linear steps • Each step follows logical from the previous • Tend to follow logical stepwise paths in finding solutions • Global Learners • Tend to learn in large jumps • Absorb information almost randomly and the suddenly getting it • Once grasped big picture tend to put things together in novel ways or solve problem quickly • May have trouble explaining how they did it
Sequential and Global (cont.) • Just because you have solved problems in one brilliant flash in the past does not make you a global learner • What makes you global is what happens before the light goes on. • Sequential learners may not fully understand the material but they can do something with it since the pieces they have absorbed are logically connected • Global learners may have serious difficulties until they see the big picture
Sequential and Global (cont.) • How can sequential learners help themselves? • Most college courses are taught in sequential manner • Ask the instructor to fill in skipped steps or fill them in yourself by consulting references • Take time to outline lecture material in logical order • Relate each new topic to things you already know
Sequential and Global (cont.) • How can global learners help themselves? • Realize that you need the big picture of a subject before you can master the details • Skim through a chapter to get an overview before you read the chapter • Don’t spend a short time on many subjects every night • Immense yourself in individual subjects for large blocks of time • Try to relate the subject to things you already know • Ask the professor to help you see the connection • Consult references
Learning Style ResultsChuck Lillie ACT X REF 11 9 7 5 3 1 1 3 5 7 9 11 <-- --> SEN X INT 11 9 7 5 3 1 1 3 5 7 9 11 <-- --> VIS X VRB 11 9 7 5 3 1 1 3 5 7 9 11 <-- --> SEQ X GLO 11 9 7 5 3 1 1 3 5 7 9 11 <-- -->