In my continuing series of basic college study tips, I’ve decide to write about the different types of learning styles that college students have. I have gotten quite a few students who have been utterly frustrated with school simply because they weren’t taught in the right way and haven’t realized their own learning style. Many college students are unaware of the different types of learning styles and they use a study methodology that does not take advantage of that particular style. Although there is some debate over the different types of learning styles, in my opinion there are 4 major types of learning styles, visual, auditory, sequential and kinesthetic and one minor type, sociological.
Visual Learning Style
Visual learning style is the most commonly used in western education, the professor writes something on the board and you look at it. This is the most popular way of learning due to its ease of implementation. You can have one teacher stand up and give a lecture that can be recorded and beamed to an innumerable number of students which is why it’s such a contemporary favorite in universities today. However, many students find this method difficult to master as they feel more at ease with other learning styles. Other students don’t even realize that there are other possible ways to learn, I’d suggest you test each of the following different types of learning styles to see which one is the best fit for you.
Auditory Learning Style
Many students like to learn through hearing rather than seeing a lecture. If you are one of these people I suggest you record lectures and get audio books of your required readings as this will improve your recall and comprehension. An excellent way to test would be to simply take two books, read one and listen to the other. If they are of equal interest to you the book where you retained more will be your preferred style.
Sequential Learning Style
Sequential learning style is usually reserved for incredibly logical thinkers. Mostly males are sequential learners and this style and can mostly be found in the hard sciences. Sequential learners have to have an order to things, regardless of whether the concepts they are ordering have an order at all. If you need neat notes and have a desire to group things in order to make sense of them, you are probably a sequential learner.
Kinesthetic Leaning Style
Kinesthetic Learners need to actually do what is being taught in order to grasp the concepts behind it. So as an example, addition on a board may be difficult but when given beads and asked to do the same equation it becomes easy. If this is you, you’re probably a kinesthetic learner. I find connecting concepts to hand movements are useful techniques for kinesthetic learners to learn ideas and concepts. There are many other resources for kinesthetic learning techniques on the net so I suggest googling kinesthetic learning and reviewing the content there.
Sociological Learning Style
This is my personal learning style but is somewhat connected to kinesthetic learning. Sociological learners have to ask questions and teach content back in order to fully understand it. They like to discuss what’s being learned and ask questions. Although these students may appear to grasp ideas slower than for instance visual learners, once they learn something it is usually recalled easier than any other learning style.
If you’d like to learn more about learning styles you can check out a free chapter of my book on how to study where I have different learning strategies for each different type of learning style.
