Thursday, November 14, 2013

Learning Styles


Back in 2006, when I was in college, in the LVN to RN transition class to be exact, we had a guest speaker one day.  Surprisingly, it had absolutely nothing to do with nursing or medical anything.  But it amazed me & will always be one of the most informative lectures I've ever sat through.  

The speaker was just a guy whose expertise was in people's learning styles.  Since nursing school is tough (crazy tough--20 super long chapters of reading every single night & tests on those 20 chapters every single day) our teacher felt it would be beneficial for us to be able to study more effectively & that's why she had this guest speaker join our class.  

I can't remember all the details & the guy had brought quizzes, etc, to help us determine how we best learn, but I do remember being amazed that some people learn best with absolute silence & others learn best with lots of 'distractions'.  Everyone is different & if you can determine how you best learn you can maximize how/what you learn.  

Pretty cool stuff if you ask me.  And I can clearly see in my son that he needs lots of sensory stuff/distractions going on while he is learning.  But knowing what I do, I can help maximize his learning rather than yelling at him & forcing him to learn the same way I best learn, which would not be to his advantage at all.  That sort of makes me think of public schools & that's probably a big part of why it's such a failing system.

I encourage everyone to look into this more, I am sure there's plenty of info out there somewhere if you look for it.

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