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Visual Learners don't see the world in black or white and in one dimension. They problem solve in layers and colors. Drawing pictures, highlighting in multiple colors, and looking at actual scale models of things helps them get better perspective and improves their recall.

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I knew many people that use bullet journals. There was an individual lets call her Lauren (since she loves notebooks). She would have 12 packs of different color pens to associate what each color would represent in her journal. Red: Month, Blue: Chores, Green: Bills Etc. Instead of writing Chores, Bills, etc. In each square on the calendar, she would just draw a mop in blue, a dollar bill in green, and bag a chips in orange for groceries. By using photos and a key of what each color represented, it helped her stay organize and remember her task at day to day.

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Use color, layout, and spatial organization in your associations.

Mind maps: Use color and pictures in place of text, wherever possible.

The visual journey or story technique helps you memorize content that isn't easy to 'see.' The visual story approach for memorizing procedures is a good example of this.

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Another example would be during my time as a rabbit. The more I stayed at a building the more you know employees that works there. The only way one of my anchors remembered people were by their faces but never their name first. If I were to tell her, "Hey Jane Doe said Good Morning", she would look at me blank face until she could pull Jane Doe up on phone tool and associate her picture with the name.

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I sometimes hear this when training some of my trainees when they approach certain things. To explain, when I am sitting there describing the process of issuing a badge, the trainee would say, "I can't really see that, can you show?" Then when they saw all the different badge colors and associated it with different labels like Contract, Vendor, or Employee they retain it better and faster.

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Let's look at it differently.

See how this works for you.

I can't quite picture it.

Let's draw a diagram or map.

I'd like to get a different perspective.

I never forget a face.

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5, VISUAL learner.

7, AUDITORY learner.

6, KINAESTHETIC learner.

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Phones:

Try to isolate what they're struggling with.

Have them answer/transfer while you talk

Have them talk and you answer/transfer

Ask the caller questions and place the caller on hold. Ask Trainee for resource/answer.

Deskside:

all the desk responsibility

setting them up for success

learning from mistakes

painting a broader picture

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tendency to get off topic and over explain

trainees who don't want to take ownership of or are passive in their learning process

trainees who want to apply a learning method that doesn't match the skill I'm trying to teach

kinesthetic methods to phones

read/write to deskside

trainees who struggle with selfawareness

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bring on the questions

kinesthetic and aural learners

multimodal learners

trainees that struggle with anxiety or who are overwhelmed

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Assessing trainees: can they ask for help? what did they retain/need to work on? do they know how to use our resources? can they improvise or be flexible? if they make a mistake can they fix it?

sink/swim

question and answer method, Socrates Style and critical thinking

storytelling, hypothetical, and personal experiences

co-creating shortcuts/notes that work for them

humor

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work/non-work learning preferences

changes in learning style over time

taking the test multiple times

uncertainty leading me to question my answers and research

take on more than I can handle and get lost in the details

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UMass Tips On Accommodating Different Learning Styles

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UMass Tips On Accommodating Different Learning Styles

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How to Accommodate Different Learning Styles - UMass Dartmouth

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We all have a way in which we best learn. Odds are, every student in your class has a different preferred learning style, which can make it difficult for you to be the most effective teacher. However, by trying to incorporate various methods into your teaching, you may be able to reach the majority of your students.

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Vanderbilt University Science of Learning Styles

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Vanderbilt University Science of Learning Styles

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What learning styles are

Why learning style science is widely accepted despite it not being a science incl. academic sources

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Cite this guide: Chick, N. (2010). Learning Styles. Vanderbilt University Center for Teaching. Retrieved [todaysdate] from https://cft.vanderbilt.edu/guides-sub-pages/learning-styles-preferences/.

What are Learning Styles?

The term learning styles is widely used to describe how learners gather, sift through, interpret, organize, come to conclusions about, and "store" information for further use. As spelled out in VARK (one of the most popular learning styles inventories), these styles are often categorized by sensory approaches: isual, ural, verbal [eading/writing], and inesthetic. Many of the models that don't resemble the VARK's sensory focus are reminiscent of Felder and Silverman's Index of Learning Styles, with a continuum of descriptors for how learners process and organize information: active-reflective, sensing-intuitive, verbal-visual, and sequential-global.

There are well over 70 different learning styles schemes (Coffield, 2004), most of which are supported by "a thriving industry devoted to publishing learning-styles tests and guidebooks" and "professional development workshops for teachers and educators" (Pashler, et al., 2009, p. 105).

Despite the variation in categories, the fundamental idea behind learning styles is the same: that each of us has a specific learning style (sometimes called a "preference"), and we learn best when information is presented to us in this style. For example, visual learners would learn any subject matter best if given graphically or through other kinds of visual images, kinesthetic learners would learn more effectively if they could involve bodily movements in the learning process, and so on. The message thus given to instructors is that "optimal instruction requires diagnosing individuals' learning style[s] and tailoring instruction accordingly" (Pashler, et al., 2009, p. 105).

Despite the popularity of learning styles and inventories such as the VARK, it's important to know that there is no evidence to support the idea that matching activities to one's learning style improves learning. It's not simply a matter of "the absence of evidence doesn't mean the evidence of absence." On the contrary, for years researchers have tried to make this connection through hundreds of studies.

In 2009, Psychological Science in the Public Interest commissioned cognitive psychologists Harold Pashler, Mark McDaniel, Doug Rohrer, and Robert Bjork to evaluate the research on learning styles to determine whether there is credible evidence to support using learning styles in instruction. They came to a startling but clear conclusion: "Although the literature on learning styles is enormous," they "found virtually no evidence" supporting the idea that "instruction is best provided in a format that matches the preference of the learner." Many of those studies suffered from weak research design, rendering them far from convincing. Others with an effective experimental design "found results that flatly contradict the popular" assumptions about learning styles (p. 105). In sum,

"The contrast between the enormous popularity of the learning-styles approach within education and the lack of credible evidence for its utility is, in our opinion, striking and disturbing" (p. 117).

Why Are They So Popular?

Pashler and his colleagues point to some reasons to explain why learning styles have gained-and kept-such traction, aside from the enormous industry that supports the concept. First, people like to identify themselves and others by "type." Such categories help order the social environment and offer quick ways of understanding each other. Also, this approach appeals to the idea that learners should be recognized as "unique individuals"-or, more precisely, that differences among students should be acknowledged-rather than treated as a number in a crowd or a faceless class of students (p. 107). Carried further, teaching to different learning styles suggests that " all people have the potential to learn effectively and easily if only instruction is tailored to their individual learning styles " (p. 107).

There may be another reason why this approach to learning styles is so widely accepted. They very loosely resemble the concept of metacognition, or the process of thinking about one's thinking. For instance, having your students describe which study strategies and conditions for their last exam worked for them and which didn't is likely to improve their studying on the next exam (Tanner, 2012). Integrating such metacognitive activities into the classroom-unlike learning styles-is supported by a wealth of research (e.g., Askell Williams, Lawson, & Murray-Harvey, 2007; Bransford, Brown, & Cocking, 2000; Butler & Winne, 1995; Isaacson & Fujita, 2006; Nelson & Dunlosky, 1991; Tobias & Everson, 2002).

Importantly, metacognition is focused on planning, monitoring, and evaluating any kind of thinking about thinking and does nothing to connect one's identity or abilities to any singular approach to knowledge. (For more information about metacognition, see CFT Assistant Director Cynthia Brame's " Thinking about Metacognition " blog post, and stay tuned for a Teaching Guide on metacognition this spring.)

Now What?

There is, however, something you can take away from these different approaches to learning-not based on the learner, but instead on the content being learned. To explore the persistence of the belief in learning styles, CFT Assistant Director Nancy Chick interviewed Dr. Bill Cerbin, Professor of Psychology and Director of the Center for Advancing Teaching and Learning at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse and former Carnegie Scholar with the Carnegie Academy for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning. He points out that the differences identified by the labels "visual, auditory, kinesthetic, and reading/writing" are more appropriately connected to the nature of the discipline:

"There may be evidence that indicates that there are some ways to teach some subjects that are just better than others, despite the learning styles of individuals.... If you're thinking about teaching sculpture, I'm not sure that long tracts of verbal descriptions of statues or of sculptures would be a particularly effective way for individuals to learn about works of art. Naturally, these are physical objects and you need to take a look at them, you might even need to handle them." (Cerbin, 2011, 7:45-8:30)

Pashler and his colleagues agree: "An obvious point is that the optimal instructional method is likely to vary across disciplines" (p. 116). In other words, it makes disciplinary sense to include kinesthetic activities in sculpture and anatomy courses, reading/writing activities in literature and history courses, visual activities in geography and engineering courses, and auditory activities in music, foreign language, and speech courses. Obvious or not, it aligns teaching and learning with the contours of the subject matter, without limiting the potential abilities of the learners.

References

Askell-Williams, H., Lawson, M. & Murray, Harvey, R. (2007). 'What happens in my university classes that helps me to learn?': Teacher education students' instructional metacognitive knowledge. International Journal of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, 1. 1-21.

Bransford, J. D., Brown, A. L. & Cocking, R. R., (Eds.). (2000). How people learn: Brain, mind, experience, and school (Expanded Edition). Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press.

Butler, D. L., & Winne, P. H. (1995) Feedback and self-regulated learning: A theoretical synthesis. Review of Educational Research, 65, 245-281.

Cerbin, William. (2011). Understanding learning styles: A conversation with Dr. Bill Cerbin. Interview with Nancy Chick. UW Colleges Virtual Teaching and Learning Center.

Cofﬁeld, F., Moseley, D., Hall, E., & Ecclestone, K. (2004). Learning styles and pedagogy in post-16 learning. A systematic and critical review. London: Learning and Skills Research Centre.

Isaacson, R. M. & Fujita, F. (2006). Metacognitive knowledge monitoring and self-regulated learning: Academic success and reflections on learning. Journal of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, 6, 39-55.

Nelson, T.O. & Dunlosky, J. (1991). The delayed-JOL effect: When delaying your judgments of learning can improve the accuracy of your metacognitive monitoring. Psychological Science, 2, 267-270.

Pashler, Harold, McDaniel, M., Rohrer, D., & Bjork, R. (2008). Learning styles: Concepts and evidence. Psychological Science in the Public Interest. 9.3 103-119.

Tobias, S., & Everson, H. (2002). Knowing what you know and what you don't: Further research on metacognitive knowledge monitoring. College Board Report No. 2002-3. College Board, NY.

This teaching guide is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

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by Nancy Chick Print Version Cite this guide: Chick, N. (2010). Learning Styles. Vanderbilt University Center for Teaching. Retrieved [todaysdate] from https://cft.vanderbilt.edu/guides-sub-pages/learning-styles-preferences/. What are Learning Styles? Caution! Why Are They So Popular? Now What? What are Learning Styles? The term learning styles is widely used to describe how learners gather, sift through, interpret, organize, come to...

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VARK:
Visual            |  9
Aural              |  5
Read/Write   |  8
Kinesthetic   |  6

Personal Assessment:

influenced by my building and my own preferences for learning

deskside I use mostly kinesthetic or visual methods

phone training I use aural and read/write

create framework and general rules of thumb, explain policies by talking about intention

I evaluate what skill I am trying to teach and create a method that matches it.

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Research: The Science of assessing Learning Styles

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Research: The Science of assessing Learning Styles

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VARK

Teaching Style Test

Learning Style Test

Vanderbilt University science of learning Styles

Tips and methods

UMass tips

Additional tips

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Learning Styles Online:                               VARK:
Visual       | 9                                                   Visual          | 6
Aural        | 15                                                 Aural            | 11
Physical  | 7                                                    Kinesthetic | 6
Social      | 13                                                  Read/Write | 8
Verbal      | 13
Solitary    | 11
Logical    | 10

Personal Assessment:

depends on the skill I am learning and context or environment within I'm learning it

heavy preference for at least two styles of learning

I like to understand the broader picture so I ask questions that might not seem related

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https://www.edutopia.org/multiple-intelligences-assessment

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POST or LINK your Trainer Profile below!

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POST or LINK your Trainer Profile below!

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Develop a definition of learner-centered instruction that works for our team and program. 

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Develop a definition of learner-centered instruction that works for our team and program. 

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Working in stressful positions in the past has taught me to keep my cool. Even though I may be trembling on the inside, I've learned to keep my voice calm and my attitude professional in the moment.

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Overall, I always let my trainee know that I don't know everything and I make mistakes too. I give them permission to ask questions, show me a different path or an alternative answer that I could have used or given. Showing that I am human can give a trainee the courage and confidence to fail and try again.

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In general, I teach by showing and allow the trainee to get as much "hands on experience" as they can. Watching me do things too long will soon turn into me doing the work for them. This will only get them so far in their learning. The trainee has to meet me part of the way and be responsible for being able to absorb and put the information into practice.

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Whenever I get a new device or equipment, I enjoy reading the owners manuals or instructions for getting things up and running smoothly and effeciently. I use the training materials the same way by following each day's "suggested" goals closely as my trainee's learning allow.

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Do you understand? Yeah, I got it (white noise).

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Because I learn better when I can visualize, I find that I prefer showing someone how to do something rather than just explaining. When I talk, I over explain things and notice a glazed look in my trainee's eyes.

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According to VARK, I have a multimodal learning preference. My scores were Visual (12), Aural (11), Read/Write (11) and Kinesthetic (15).

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Sometimes I have to re-read information a few times to make sure I didn't miss any details or steps. This can be both helpful and a hindrance. I may not miss anything but it may take me longer to complete a task.

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I find that watching a visual demonstration helps me to visualize and remember tasks better.

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I always ask my trainee what they feel comfortable with and get to know them a little more personally and what they are willing to share to see their learning style from past jobs or involvement they have. Even though I am strong in certain styles, I want to train the way that works best for my trainee because I want them to understand what I am teaching. Luckily, so far everyone has been either visual or kinesthetic learners.

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This is crucial for me when I am training someone. I think it is important for anyone to find their own techniques and approaches when doing anything. There is multiple ways of doing something. Some might work better for others, vice versa. I push self discovery so that every individual can find what works for them.

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Something I really enjoy doing is giving them the motivation to want to do something. Whether that is positive reinforcement when they are able to do a task without my help or when they handle a situation well under pressure.

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- I show them how to do certain things such as writing a receipt for parking item by having them observe me do it first.
- Visually walk them through all the programs we use, such as the poster tracker and how to track everything.
- Have them pull up all important links in front of them and have trainees see all the resources they have.
- Have map out of Varzea, print outs of tips and tricks, draw diagrams if necessary.

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- Whatever the trainee feels comfortable with I let them get hands on experience.
- I encourage them to actually issue the loaner badge for example instead of watching me.
- I walk them through everything in the peds and location of things online, then ask them to find things physically.
- LOTS & LOTS OF ROLEPLAYING

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I'm actually not surprised that I am a Kinesthetic and Visual learning. It has affected the way I approach things whether it's sports, academics, or work, etc.

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I am a Mild Kinesthetic

Visual 9

Aural 2

Read/Write 1

Kinesthetic 13

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go on...

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What are 3-4 of the most common learning styles among our Trainees?

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What are 3-4 of the most common learning styles among our Trainees?

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I expected to identify more visual methods, but I was surprised to realize my training style leans towards auditory methods.

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Lately I have been trying to give my trainees more of the physical resources that others have developed, which I have found to be helpful to them.

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I think that I learn a lot through just clicking on things and finding out what they do, so I try to encourage my trainees to be endlessly curious themselves. If I have never seen something myself, or done it myself, how do I really know how?

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After I have shown my trainees a resource once or twice, I usually try to challenge them to find the answers they are asking on their own, not just blatantly doing it myself. This may be by telling them to see what’s listed under a certain section of our TCG, or asking them what the training PowerPoint says about their question. I want to be there to support them, but I also want them to get into the resources themselves, depending on themselves more than me.

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Initially I walk/talk through most of the items I want my trainees to learn. Like when I am teaching my trainees about Lenel, I have them pull up the program and I walk them through each step of assigning a loaner badge. Or with looking at resources on our TCG, I have them go to the physical website, etc. telling them to look at what it looks like themselves.

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Training strategies, activities, resources you commonly use:

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Training strategies, activities, resources you commonly use:

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I think that with my mixed learning styles, my auditory leanings come out when I have already shown a resource a time or two. For myself, once I have seen something a couple times, I just need a hint or two to get back on track when confused, but I have to remember that others need more than just being told about it again, they may need to be shown it again, or given a written out resource to assist them.

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Sending most general inquiries/requests to the trainee, and only stepping in when they need help.

MULTIMODAL method?
KINESTHETIC/AUDITORY

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After wrting this all out, I think my auditory learning comes out the most in how much I over talk/write about things...haha

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According to these quizzes, I’m kind of in the middle, with one preferring Visual/Kinesthetic, and the other preferring Auditory. I would say that when I think about my learning style, I fall more in the Kinesthetic learning style, always liking to try new skills myself, especially before I have to do them in “real life”.

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Verbal ways to remember things; clues, phrases, acronyms, etc.

AUDITORY method

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VARK Questionnaire:
-I have a multimodal learning preference.
-Visual 6
-Aural 2
-Read/Write 3
-Kinesthetic 5

Brainbox Results:
-I lean more towards Auditory.
-Auditory: 8
-Kinesthetic: 5
-Visual: 6

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Show them how to do the skill by sitting behind them and guiding them as they complete the steps.
Have them reiterate the steps, or try it on their own (depending on the activity)
Explain the rationale. Why do we do this, like that?

MULTIMODAL method?
KINESTHETIC/AUDITORY

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This is not my favorite strategy, but I definitely see its merits and I am working on using it more in  my training. If I can, I try to make calls from the backroom to make it more realistic. I tend to turn face to face role plays into a discussion.

KINESTHETIC method

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When going over TCG questions and the ones my trainee struggled with, rather than providing the answer, I respond with a clue or guiding question to help them more successfully find the right resource.

READ/WRITE method?

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Despite the test results, I feel that some kinesthetic methods help me more than visual methods. Trying a new skill out myself is often the best way to retain the skill for myself.

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-Soothing Music
-Make key points into rhyme, rap, or song (States song)

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-Use all your senses
-You'll remember the "real" things that happened - use examples!
-Role play
-Practice

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-Attend discussions/tutorials
-Explain to others
-Leave spaces in notes for later recall
-Read summarized notes aloud
-Speak answers aloud or inside head
-Make

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Visual 5
Aural 8
Read/Write 6
Kinesthetic 7

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To critique trainees' performances, I ask them to first reflect on something. An interaction, a call, etc. This helps them articulate their strengths and weaknesses, and helps me get a better idea of where they're at in the learning process.

AUDITORY method

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I have tried making as many resources available in a printed/laminated sheet so trainees can write all over them when they are learning or feel lost.
Checklists, the team emails, infographics, the call cheat sheet, etc.

VISUAL method

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Gestures and picturesque language
Visuals such as:
pictures, posters, videos, flowcharts, diagrams, symbols, color coded text

I retain information best by
Rearranging/reconstructing images and text
Turning words into pictures and vice versa

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I always thought I was more of a combo  (MULTIMODAL) learner between visual and kinesthetic, but I tested the same for strong visual learner multiple times using various quizzes.

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VARK Score: 12
Aural/Auditory: 4
Read/Write: 4
Kinesthetic: 4

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a la carte: catering to individuals
tailoring/customizing training
rethinking our training to meet learners needs
flexibility
giving some control to the learner
engaging
motivating
feedback and communication driven

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A form of teaching that optimizes results by first learning the person's style of learning and then tailoring course of training and resources 

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A form of teaching that optimizes results by first learning the person's style of learning and then tailoring course of training and resources 

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rethinking how we do things to meet their needs

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positive reinforcement and encouragement

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encourage and reflect: how have they learned so far, what have they learned?

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students advance when they can demonstrate what they've learned

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students advance when they can demonstrate what they've learned

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doesn't have to be in a classroom setting

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flexibility to learn anytime or anywhere

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flexibility to learn anytime or anywhere