Monday, April 7, 2014

Learn with me

There are many different learning styles and not everyone learns information the same way. It would always bother me when my assignment in school was to write my spelling words twenty times each. This was a special type of torture for me because I can't physically write for a long period of time. Taking notes during classes never worked for me either because I'd be too distracted to concentrate on what the instructor was saying.

I'm a visual and kinestic learner, so I learn from seeing and doing. When I'm leaning how to do something for the first time, it is easier for me to watch someone else do it first. This is part of why I'm really interested in acting or flow (object manipulation) because comprehension comes from actively doing the activity. If someone tells me information, I'll either try to make it into a picture in my head or the information won't stick.

Some of my friends can listen to entire lectures and ace a test without ever reading a textbook. They learn well listening to audiobooks, can react quicker to conversations, and work well listening to a lecture in a class. However, if they were to get only picture instructions of how to assemble a bookshelf they might get really confused as to how things work together.

A visual learner would be able to understand the diagram and know where the pieces go together. Reading how-to books, looking at class notes, or through pictures. In classrooms, they learn from powerpoint presentations, not just the person reading the presentation aloud.

Kinestetic learners are doers. They learn by physically experiencing an activity. We had amazing projects in biology where we'd build chemical compounds using little plastic pieces in different colors to represent the different parts of the structure. My friend taught her children fractions using lego pieces. If I had ever had the opportunity to learn fraction that way as a child, it may have made sense.

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