Fundamentally, we learn through our senses mainly sight, hearing, touch and, to a lesser extent, smell and taste. Most of us have a 'lead sense' - one that is stronger than the others.

We are all visual, auditory or tactile learners but some of us are 'sight-led', we need to 'see' what the information looks like in order to learn effectively, whereas others are more 'hearing-led' and learn well from listening in lectures. Tactile-led learners prefer to use their hands and often need to move around.

Discover your lead sense in Using the senses

Different people 'see' things in different ways and as the saying goes, 'our senses deceive'. Strictly speaking, it is not our senses that deceive us, we misinterpret the information we receive from our senses. In other words, 'we see what we want to see' because we have an internal idea of things should 'look'.

During the mid 70s, Bandler and Grinder in their Theory of Neuro-linguistic Programming [NLP] proposed that our senses, beliefs and past experience give us a map of the world against which we measure and compare new experience. The 'map of reality' is unique to each one of us.

Example of differing 'maps of reality' in life are common as in the contradictory statements of people who have witnessed the same event, or how a car crash victim and car sales person will differ in their response to an image of a car

NLP? Find out more from www.lambent.com

People learn in different ways from the moment they are born. There is no 'good' or 'bad' way of learning. Each style has its benefits and detractions. Success comes from using different styles. There is no 'right' approach to learning, the important thing is to be aware of how you learn best.

There have been many learning models proposed over the years. The Learning Model below, based on Kolb's Learning Style Inventory and developed by Honey and Mumford, is that there are four basic learning styles. We may use all four in the ways that we learn but generally we follow one style more consistently.

Activist: learns best by action, being involved physically in experiments, games and exercises. Learn less well from sitting listening passively as in lectures.

Reflector: learns best by observation and review, being able to 'think' about a problem. Learn less well when rushed into things without being able to plan

Theorist: learns best by having a model or theory, being able to use concepts. Learn less well when thrown into unstructured situations.

Pragmatist: learns best from experience, trying something out. Learn less well from abstract situations far removed from their every day reality.

Discover your main Learning style

 

There is no generally agreed collection of skills that are used specifically for learning. However, there are some general skills that will enhance any learning situation.

Rate yourself on a scale of 0 [not very good] to 3 [fairly good] to 5 [very good]

If you have some low scores, can you think of ways to improve these skills?