Learning Styles

and Studying
How YOU will relate to this
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Tammy Ko
 Learning and the Brain

The art and science of asking questions

is the source of all knowledge.
Thomas Berger, American novelist

Exercise 3.1: Your View

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 Exercise 3.1 Assessing Your Views on Learning

© 2018 Cengage. All rights reserved.

 Learning and the Brain
• Your professors have been studying their disciplines for
years, perhaps decades. They are experts.
• By contrast, you are a novice to whatever discipline
you’re studying.
• Sometimes professors are so familiar with what they
already know that without even realizing it, they can
expect what is familiar to them to be
obvious to you.
“The best learners . . . often make the worst teachers. They
are, in a very real sense, perceptually challenged. They cannot
imagine what it must be like to struggle to learn something
that comes so naturally to them.”
 Learning and the Brain
• Since you’re a novice, you may not understand everything your
professors say.
• Ask questions, check, clarify, probe, and
persist until you do understand.
• Sometimes your confusion is not due to a lack of
knowledge, but a lack of the correct
knowledge.
Curiosity: Can you build a better brain?
 Create the Best Conditions for
Learning
1. You’re intrinsically motivated (from within yourself) to
learn material that is appropriately
challenging.
Are you internally motivated because you’re curious about
the subject and want to learn about it or externally
motivated to get an A or avoid an F?
2. You’re appropriately stressed, but generally
relaxed.
You learn best in a state of relaxed alertness, a state of
high challenge and low threat.
3. You’re curious about what you’re learning and look
forward to learning it.
When we come to know something,Get ready
we have to learn by looking back
performed and by looking ahead.
an act that is as biological as whenFocus on something
we digest . not style.
substance,
Henry Plotkin, Darwin Machines and the Nature of Knowledge (1994)
 Create the Best Conditions for
Learning
4.You search for personal meaning and
patterns.
Ask yourself: What’s in it for me?
Think about how courses relate to one another

5.Your emotions are involved, not just your

mind.
Evaluate your attitudes and feelings
Make a deliberate decision to change negative feelings.

6. You realize that as a learner you use what you

already know in constructing new
knowledge.
Remind yourself that constructing knowledge takes work
Remember that passive learning is an oxymoron.
Learning is not so much an additive process, with new learning simply piling up on top of existing knowledge, as
it is an active, dynamic process in which the connections are constantly changing and the structure reformatted.

K. Patricia Cross, Professor Emerita of Higher Education, University of California, Berkeley

Create the Best Conditions for
Learning
7. You are given a degree of
choice in what you learn,
how you do it, and feedback on
how you’re doing.
Make the most of the choices
you’re given.
Use feedback to improve, and if
feedback is not given, ask for it.
Assignment: You Got
Grit? Control: Got Grit?
How are You Smart?
 How are You Smart?

Linguistic Logical-Mathematical Spatial Bodily-

Kinesthetic

Musical Interperson Intraperson Naturalist

al al ic
Exercise 3.2:
Self Assessment
 Exercise 3.2 Multiple Intelligences Self-Assessment

© 2018 Cengage. All rights reserved.

 How Are You Smart?
• Most schools focus on particular types of intelligence;
linguistic and logical-mathematical
intelligence, reflecting the three R’s: reading,
writing, and ’rithmetic.
• Intelligence is actually multifaceted.
• Intelligence can be defined as “the ability to find
and solve problems and create products of
value in one or more cultural setting.”
• So instead of asking the traditional question “How
smart are you?” a better question is “How
are you smart?”
 Intelligence-Oriented Study Techniques

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 How Do You Perceive and Process Information?
• Style—we all have it, right? What’s yours? Baggy jeans and a T-shirt?
Sandals, even in the middle of winter? A signature hairdo that defies
gravity?
• What’s a learning style? A learning style is defined as your
“characteristic and preferred way of gathering,
interpreting, organizing, and thinking about
information.”
• The way you perceive information and the way you process it—your
perceiving/ processing preferences—are based in part on your
senses.
• Which sensory modalities do you prefer to use to take in information—
• your eyes (visual-graphic or visual-words),
• your ears (aural), or
• all your senses using your whole body (kinesthetic)?
 How Do You Perceive and Process
Information?
• Do you prefer teachers who
lecture?
• Teachers who use visuals such
as charts, web pages, and
diagrams to explain things?
• Or teachers who plan field
trips, use role-plays, and create
simulations?
 How Do You Perceive and Process
Example:
Information?
Assume a rich relative you didn’t even
know you had leaves you some money,
and you decide to use it to buy a new car.
You must first answer many questions:
1. What kind of car do you want to buy—an
SUV, a sedan, a sports car, a van, or a
truck?
2. What are the differences between various
makes and models?
3. How do prices, comfort, and safety
compare?
4. Who provides the best warranty?
5. Which car do consumers rate highest?
How would you go about learning the
answers to all these questions?
 Using Your VARK Preferences
VARK (Visual, Auditory,
Reading/writing, and
Kinesthetic)
1. You can use your
preferences to get the best
results.

2. You can pay attention to

how you study, not just what
you study.
https://leverageedu.com/blog/vark-learning-styles/

3. You can make conscious

choices that positively affect
your overall college success.
Exercise 3.3:
© 2018 Cengage. All rights reserved. Your VARK Style
 Using Your VARK Preferences

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 STARTING A NEW HABIT
Career Outlook: Start a New Habit

https://medium.com/shapescale/the-power-of-habit-2c27a4543153

© 2018 Cengage. All rights reserved.

What Role Does Personality Play?
 Using Your Personality
• Translate for Maximum Comfort. Each person is an
• Your instructor may have a different learning style exception to the rule.
Carl Jung, psychiatrist (1875-1961)
• Adapt course material to what works best for you

• Make Strategic Choices.

• Don’t use your style as an excuse
• Become more versatile

• Take Full Advantage.

• Make the most of your time in college
• Pursue new learning opportunities
https://www.teachhub.com/teaching-strategies/2020/01/what-are-the-different-types-of-learners/

© 2018 Cengage. All rights reserved.

earning Disability? Five Ways to Help Yourse
Learning Disability? Five ways to help yourself

https://crepance-idolatrised-spelean.xyz/bd476u1y?key=0f22c1fd609f13cb7947c8cabfe1a90d&submetric=14920667

https://www.istockphoto.com/illustrations/learning-disability
 Meta-what?
Metacognition, Reading and
Studying
Meta = About

Cognition = Thinking and

Learning
Metacognition = Thinking about Thinking and Learning
about Learning
Metacognition:
• Knowing about yourself as a learner.
• Identifying learning goals and progress.
• Using your self-awareness to learn at your
best. Exercise 3.4:
© 2018 Cengage. All rights reserved. Study Assessment
 Exercise 3.4 Study Habit Self-Assessment

© 2018 Cengage. All rights reserved.

 Apply Your Learning Style to Your
Study Style
Visual:
Convert your lecture notes to a visual style
Turn visuals back into words to prepare for
tests
Put complex concepts into flowcharts and
graphs
Aural:
Read your notes aloud
Listen to your own voice as you answer test
questions
Ask others to “hear” you understanding the
material
Read/Write:
Write out your lecture notes again and again
Translate diagrams into text
Write out potential exam answers https://knilt.arcc.albany.edu/Unit_1:_What_are_learning_styles%3F_How_are_they_identified%3F

Kinesthetic:
Recall
© 2018 Cengage. experiments,
All rights reserved. field trips, etc
 Make a Master Study Plan
1. Make sure you understand your assignments.

2. Schedule yourself to be in three places at once. (Past,

Present, Future)

3. Talk through your learning challenges.

4. Be a stickler.

5. Take study breaks.

6. Mix it up.
https://www.examples.com/business/plans/study-plan-templates-for-students.html

7. Estimate how long

© 2018 Cengage. All rights reserved.
it will take.
 Make a Master Study
Plan
8. Vary your study techniques by course

content.

9. Study earlier, rather than later.

10. Create artificial deadlines for yourself.

11. Treat school as a job.

Show up.
https://emssiium.com/academic-accounting/
12.

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 When the Heat Is
On…
1. Triage.

2. Use every spare moment to

study.

3. Give it the old one-two-three-

four punch.
4. Get a grip on your gaps.
5. Cram, but only as the very last
resort. Exercise 3.5:
Disciplined Studying
© 2018 Cengage. All rights reserved.
 Exercise 3.5 “Disciplined” Studying

© 2018 Cengage. All rights reserved.

 Chapter 3: Exercises
Chapter Exercise Assessing Your Views on
Learning
Chapter Exercise
Multiple Intelligences Self Assessment

Chapter Exercise Interpreting your VARK

Preferences
Study Habit Self-Assessment

Chapter Exercise “Disciplined” Studying

Chapter Exercise
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 Chapter 3 Audio
Summary

Download Chapter 3 Audio Summary Transcript (Download Chapter 3 Audio Summary Transcript.txt)

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