Friday, May 27, 2011

Learning Styles

Angel is now over half way through her GCSE exams (yay!), with the worst - biology, chemistry and physics - behind her. I have been fascinated by her revision style. I had never realised how much of an auditory learner she is. Apparently when it comes to Angel and revision, podcasts and audio are the way to go. For English Literature and the sciences (the most memory intensive subjects) she downloaded a mix of literature guides and  podcasts, recorded herself reading Of Mice and Men aloud, and has been studying by iPod.

For me, this is like watching a Martian at large - a completely alien way of studying. I am the most un-auditory person going. I find focusing on something I have to listen to very difficult indeed, and choosing to listen to something in order to learn it would be torturous for me. I learn best from books, and always have. I remember once having a conversation about lectures with some students. Some of us were frantic note takers because it the only way we could process a lecture was by converting it into text. Others needed to listen and would only make notes after the lecture once they had processed it aurally. Both groups were amazed that anyone could study the other way.

What is your learning style?

3 comments:

Jennifer said...

I'm all about flash cards. :)

Karen Edmisten said...

Visual, visual, visual. Gotta see that text.

Melanie Bettinelli said...

Kinesthetic. Gotta write it with my own hand. I remember a lecturer telling us not to worry about taking notes, it was all on the handouts. But if I don't write it as I listen, the handouts won't mean anything to me when I go to review.

Incidentally, I was thrown off at first because of the word "revision". I would say "studying" or maybe "reviewing" but never "revision." I'd only ever use that form of the word to mean rewriting a piece of writing. Interesting difference between British and American usage.