Me and My Learning Style

I am trying to figure out how to put a picture of my learning style inventory results in this post... I may be a digital native, but I really don't know much about this blog stuff.

Anyhow, when looking at my learning style results, you can see (well, I can see) that I am a slightly reflective learner (3) in the active vs. reflective learning category, I have a moderate preference for sensing learning (5) in the sensing vs. intuitive learning group, I lean slightly toward verbal learning (1) in the visual vs. verbal class, and I have a highly moderate preference for sequential learning (7) in the sequential vs. global sorting. When considering how I have preferred to spend my educational career, I realize that my learning style inventory is quite correct in deciphering how I like to study and learn. The ideas that I prefer to work out problems in my head, usually without discussion, that I work methodically and practically (and neatly) in a sequential form, and that I slightly prefer verbal lessons are all true. Even while I was in high school I remember knowing that I was an auditory learner above visual. I have always benefited greatly from hearing an explanation and taking notes, though seeing the example in addition to hearing it only helps me.

Because of my learning style preferences, I believe that any multimedia lesson that is filled with charts and graphs and provides little verbal, or at least written, explanation of these graphs would be very challenging for me. In addition, a lesson including before and after results projects, experiments, or even just the problem and solution in a mathematics class would also be difficult for me. Since I am a sensing and a sequential learner, I only really understand information when I am given step by step examples – meaning I need all the information that goes between the start and the finish to grasp the concept. Furthermore, without any verbal or written explanation, I also find it difficult to understand certain ideas. While I am practically balanced between visual and verbal learning on the inventory, I have always found myself to be more successful in courses that provide more than just a visual example. Because of all these points, I always disliked courses in college that were powerpoint-based. First of all, I cannot write as fast as a professor can talk through and click toward the next slide, so I was always falling behind in notes. But more importantly, perhaps, powerpoint presentations often contain little more than a lot of charts and graphs and simple initial & final info outlines on the slides. If a professor did not go into much detail verbally or through additional writing on the blackboard, I often was unable to understand the concept because I wasn’t given the middle information. While my learning style has certainly expanded through the different teaching styles I experienced in college, I still find it difficult to learn without some sort of supplemental explanation of the steps within a concept.


I think that I would like to gain more information about multimedia in terms of student webpage production. I really like the idea of elementary school students being able to create world wide multimedia as a project – I believe that if students are able to take the information that they are gaining, and turn it into a coherent, readable, and accessible form for others to learn from, then they are gaining a true understanding of the concept. I firmly believe that you really only know and understand a topic when you are capable of teaching said topic to someone else. Therefore, I think that through webpage production, students are not just gaining information to put together on a poster, but that they are also forced to turn that information into a comprehensible format for others, thereby demonstrating their own understanding.