to ask whether you know how you learn?

[shudup]

One popular theory, the VARK model, identifies four primary types of learners: visual, auditory, reading/writing, and kinesthetic.

I've been strongly academic because of books, but I have had this testing done on me in a couple of workplaces and I come out really weak on auditory (which is what most lecturing consists of) and very strongly kinesthetic.

I learned over the years, but didn't realise I was doing it until it was pointed out to me, that I would have to write what was being said and that was enough to get something into my head (writing was enough of kinesthesia). But hearing something? You might as well be talking to a hole in the wall for all that I absorbed.

Anyone else had this done?

the danger of the learning styles neuromyth is that teachers will waste time and resources trying to (for example) translate a concept which is best explained with a diagram regardless of the audience, into an aural explanation for the 'auditory learners'.

Cross posted with you but see my example- say the task is to identify key structures and their function in the knee. A diagram is indeed probably the simplest and most useful tool, but it doesn't take much to also include different methods of learning by giving them an unlabeled copy and having the completed version on a screen with you talking them through the parts and the function.

It's less about "helping auditory learners" and more about providing the information across a variety of learning styles because everybody benefits (according ti the most recent stuff ive seen on it, which is admittedly 3 or so years old - feel free to hit me up with more recent papers!)

Presumably a diagram isn't just shoved up on a screen for people to digest. If so, none of us would never need to go to Uni, we'd all just read and look at diagrams.

Absolutely denying a difference in how people absorb information is pure ignorance to me.

But I'm a slow learner lol.

I'm fairly quick to recognise who's being what.

Buttersnipe - if you have to read things over and over, I suggest that you're the one with the problem, not me.

Ever wonder why air-stewards do a physical demonstration of the safety protocol on a flight? Surely, we'd all take it in if they just read it out over the tannoy? Why do they direct you to the leaflet with the images of how to evacuate? Couldn't they give us all a leaflet to read?

I am aware this theory has been discredited. I am sure i could learn in all sorts of ways but i know the most efficient way for me to take on information is with diagrams. I can read something or listen to something and get my head round it - but with a diagram or visuals its so quick and memorable - for me. Its amazing how even wuite complex stuff can be turned into visuals.
I would rather read something that listen to the same information but i dont think its anything to do with a learning theory - just lazy listening skills.

Why not instructions in 10 different languages? Why the physical demonstration and the card (in your front pocket). Why both? Why does someone do a voiceover while the steward is demonstrating what to do? Why don't they just give us a book to read on what to do?

A physical demonstration is the most effective way to communicate how to use the equipment. To anyone. It's backed up with pictures because people might forget, and because pictures can be understood by people regardless of language. Airlines are not catering for learning styles!

Surely they could give us a book to read? By your own declaration, you've great reading comprehension skills. Would you understand what you need to do by reading an instruction booklet?

I'm ok with a fair few thinking I'm uninformed.

V, A, R and K exist, but surely its not so much a preference, and more nuanced?

I cannot process audio descriptions of mechanics; partly because I have no interest or previous experience of the jargon, or of mechanisms, so any description is just gobbledygook. It may as well be in a foreign language.
I wasn't able to understand how petrol can make a car move forwards until someone gave me a description that was a combination of images and words, in a flow chart.

Also, I took some adult education classes a while back, and one thing I learned was that it takes at least 3 repetitions for new information to start to make sense.
And its a process with defined stages; I have to understand what was said, fit it int to what I already know, and memorize it well enough to be able to retrieve it.

So imo, giving someone an audio description of new information and expecting them to retain anything is unrealistic.

Why does someone do a voiceover while the steward is demonstrating what to do?

For visually impaired passengers?

Why the physical demonstration and the card (in your front pocket). Why both?

Because waving air hostesses can't convey all the information needed and neither can a disembodied voice or a leaflet alone.

Because delivering information in more than one way makes it easier to be processed.

Because in an emergency people are really stupid (panic literally turns off our ability to think) so they are trying to make sure that the information has gone in by any means before it's a panic situation.

Let’s see anyone learn to ride a bike by listening to a podcast

I’m shit at taking in stuff that’s only spoken but that’s because I’ve got a rubbish working memory and can only hold a very limited number of things in my head at once. When I’m doing maths, I have to write down intermediate workings out because I can’t retain them and think about new stuff at the same time. It took me a long time to figure out that other people don’t have this problem. It doesn’t make me a visual or kinaesthetic learner, it’s something different and saying I’m just not an auditory learner would be a crude and unhelpful explanation.

No no no, this is really discredited. Any recent educational research or teacher training etc will tell you not to pay any heed to this. We are all a combination of all of them. Best practise is to vary the tasks to be inclusive as possible.

Yep this was one of the gazillion educational theories enthusiastically embraced, then ditched, during my teaching career (wasting countless hours of teachers' time and making them increasingly cynical and exasperated).

I was a massively visual learner - always far preferred to learn through reading, hated lectures and would far rather just read the book, but you know what? I'm studying again now at nearly 50 and am learning tons from podcasts and videos. I was just set in my supposed ways. Nobody should narrow their methods of learning.

If you struggle with auditory input it may be indicative of an auditory processing disorder.

lazylinguist that's interesting i hate tutorials in podcasts and videos and always seek out written instructions. i think it's laziness for me. I like to scan the information and just pick out the bits i need. I don't like being forced to take extraneous information in which is fine for tutorials to fix stuff but if I was studying properly might mean i would be at risk of missing an important bit which I'd glossed over.

gamerwidow it has been a total revelation to me tbh. I am by inclination an 'academic linguist' rather than a 'conversational linguist' iyswim. I love the grammar and structure, and was always a firm believer that unless you went and lived in the country where the language was spoken, the only way to learn the grammar was by studying verbs etc. Turns out I have been wrong all this time. I am learning the grammar of my new language largely by osmosis, partly by reading (fiction, not grammar books), but mostly by massuve amounts of listening. And I'm learning it better this way. And it's much better for a lazy person! Listening to Harry Potter in Spanish definitely isn't what I'd call hard work. Plus I can do it while I'm driving, washing up or making the dinner!

But yes, for tutorials or instructions I'd always go for the written version too. Because I can skip bits and read faster than people talk. I guess my languages example is different.

I'm the same op. I have been ver successful academically but ways had to write notes in every lesson /lecture and for me revision has always been writing things down over and over again. In exams I would see my notes (colours, patterns etc - great fun!) in my head. I find it much harder to learn now I'm in my 50s and things going in one ear and out the other is more obvious.