How do you prefer to learn?
There are different theories and explanations of how people learn. Some talk about being a visual, auditory or kinaesthetic learner, but the theory I use most was Learning Styles by Honey and Mumford.  Their research lead to 4 different preferences for learning:
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Activist
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Reflector
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Theorist
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Pragmatist
Activists are open minded and enthusiastic. They tend to act first and think later. They enjoy activities such as brainstorming and like new challenges. They may get bored with the implementation phase.
Reflectors like to think, to ponder and observe. They seek to collect data, to analyse and are quite cautious. In a meeting they are more likely to take a back set, preferring to listen and so have a lower profile.
Theorists think things through logically and are perfectionist in style. They like to analyse, to think things through logically and be detached in approach. As they seek to maximise certainty they can be uncomfortable when there is insufficient data to make a decision.
Pragmatists like to try out new ideas, They will act quickly, can be seen as impatient and like open ended discussions. There preference is to be practical.
A questionnaire to assess your style used to be available in the back of their book, now to assess your learning styles you need to pay £10 to take the questionnaire on line.
You can find out more here:
http://www.peterhoney.com/content/LearningStylesQuestionnaire.html
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July 30th, 2007 at 9:54 am
I know that i tend to learn better by doing. Delve right in and then work out the mistakes after so you get better and better each time. Or i dont mind a quick overview.
However I cannot learn by reading books or having someone talk to me all day about something, my eyes glaze and i switch off after about 30 minutes. So without taking the test, and even though I think that I am Logical, i would say it is a mixture on mainly activist, followed by a bit of Pragmatism then a little tiny bit of theorist thrown in
Steve
July 30th, 2007 at 10:11 am
I think it is really useful to think about how best we learn, so we can adapt and play to what comes easy to us.
If you now you learn best through getting stuck in then look for practical learning rather than to get out a book. For example if you need to learn how to change a washer, have someone show you what to do rather than get a book out.