BROWSE HOW TOs

How to Make the Most of a Learning Style

By eHow Education Editor

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The ability to make the most of a learning style is an important skill to master if you want to be successful. People are always learning, always mastering new skills, each and every day. Yet recognizing your learning strengths and weaknesses, and understanding how you learn best and more effectively using your main learning style are indispensable to the realistic pursuit of your learning goals. Try the following learning-related techniques.

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Instructions

Difficulty: Challenging

Step1

Understand the learning styles. These include visual (spatial), aural (auditory-musical), verbal (linguistic), physical (kinesthetic), logical (mathematical), social (interpersonal) and solitary (intrapersonal). The links provided in the Resources section below explain each of these styles, helping you compare them to your own experience and begin making a determination of where they fit in your own study style.

Step2

Figure out how you learn best. Many online tests are available which can help you determine your own predominant learning style, along with your secondary style or styles. One such test, offered by LearningStylesOnline.com (see Resources below for link), uses a group of 70 questions to provide a comprehensive overview of your percentage of use of each of the seven learning styles. This site displays your test results on a pictorial graph, as well as providing a list of your scores for each individual style.

Step3

Inventory your learning strengths, based on your most predominant learning style or styles. Do this by considering your personal tendencies when studying and interacting with people and your environment and then comparing them to the traits which characterize each learning style. This should help you better understand why you fit into the learning categories that you do and how these strengths might help you in the future.

Step4

Recognize where your strengths place you in terms of your likelihood of learning success. Certain learning styles are more conducive to success, either overall or in certain content areas. For example, most of the testing given in schools, colleges and workplaces favors the Verbal (linguistic) learning style. If this isn't your strongest area, you'll want to find ways of working on--or around--it. As far as content is concerned, if, for instance, you'd like to embark on a career as a musician or musical instructor, you might want to find out whether you have a natural affinity for this type of work by checking your Aural (auditory-musical) tendencies.

Step5

Determine which areas you need to work on to make the best use of your main learning style. This means using your predominant learning style with the support of your secondary learning style(s) to back it up and make it even more productive. Accelerated-learning-online.com (see Resource list) offers information on how to do this.

Step6

Realize that both your main learning style and your secondary style(s) can be developed. Since your specific mix of learning styles is based not only on your natural tendencies, but also on the degree to which you've exercised, practiced and strengthened them, you always have the option of improving your learning styles. You'll then be able to use them in the most beneficial way possible and thereby make the most of them.