Learning Styles

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Have you ever tried to learn something fairly simple, yet failed to grasp the key ideas? Or tried to teach people and found that some were overwhelmed or confused by something quite basic?

If so, you may have experienced a clash of learning styles: your learning preferences and those of your instructor or audience may not have been aligned. When this occurs, not only is it frustrating for everyone, the communication process breaks down and learning fails.

Once you know your own natural learning preference, you can work on expanding the way you learn, so that you can learn in other ways, not just in your preferred style.

And, by understanding learning styles, you can learn to create an environment in which everyone can learn from you, not just those who use your preferred style.

The Index of Learning Styles™

One of the most widely used models of learning styles is The Index of Learning Styles™ developed by Dr Richard Felder and Barbara Soloman in the late 1980s, and based on a learning styles model developed by Dr Felder and Linda Silverman.

According to this model (which Felder revised in 2002) there are four dimensions of learning styles. Think of these dimensions as a continuum with one learning preference on the far left and the other on the far right.

https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/mnemlsty.htm