This topic will give a brief overview of the different kinds of learning styles, and help you find out what kind of learner you are.

How do you learn best? Do you know? The Dalai Lama is known to like to take things apart to see inside, to find out how they work. Perhaps you would read the manual. Or twiddle the knobs to find out what happens. Maybe you’d ask someone to tell you. We all have different ways of learning.

Simply, there are four distinct learning styles:

• Visual - Learning through seeing. You would prefer pictures, diagrams, videos or a demonstration;
• Audio - Learning through hearing. You will listen to a lecturer, a tape, a sound file. You’ll prefer to join in a discussion and will follow verbal instructions;
• Read/Write - Learning through reading and/or writing. You prefer to read instructions. You prefer to make lists and take notes when learning; and
• Kinesthetic - Learning through physical activity. You will be “hands on,” you will touch, tinker; you would prefer to do, to experience.

You will probably have a bias towards one of these styles, but not to the exclusion of the others.

As a learner, it will help you to work out which is your bias. That way, you will be able to develop your learning plan according to your learning approach. 

Learning Techniques

Introduction

This topic will provide with tips and ideas to help you learn effectively and, in particular, prepare you for learning online.

There are two issues: Learning Strategies and Getting Organised.

1.  Learning Strategies

There is no time or space here to go into detail, but let’s cover some basic ideas, based on your learning style.

Visual Strategies – make a learning map

In simple terms this means creating a map of what you are reading or researching by linking ideas with lines, pictures, colours, symbols, key-words. This also means, by the by, that you will need a big pad and a box of pens (borrow your child’s coloured pencils: why should they have all the fun?). Yup, paper and pencil: the greatest aid to online learning ever invented – whoever came up with the pencil must have known that in the future we would all be learning online and would need a simple tool to work with.

Auditory Strategies

1. Read it dramatically – be a one person Theatre Group and read it out loud - emphasise the important sections. Choose your favourite accent;
2. Summarize out loud. Close your eyes and describe what you’ve just learned out loud. Explain it to your cat.

Kinesthetic and Read/Write Strategies

You could:

• Walk about while reading or listening
• Make notes on post-its
• Write it down
• Learn in groups – that’s what the forums are for
• Print it out and scribble on the printout (it’s okay, you don’t have to read everything off the screen)
• Take a photo – a digital camera can be an invaluable learning aid

Do whatever it takes to take it from one place to another: the process will reinforce the learning.

2.  Getting Organised

Your biggest problem will be procrastination – putting it off. You will be in danger of finding displacement activities to take you away. Precisely because you can do it at any time, you will put it off for another time. On the Internet however, time flows differently. It flashes by rather more quickly than in the real world. It might be Tuesday to you, but online it is suddenly Thursday. I can offer no explanation.

But you can employ some common sense tactics to ensure that you make learning time for yourself.

Book yourself - Put it on the wall calendar: Monday evening – online class. You make a commitment when you enrol on an online course that is just as strong as for a real evening class. Your ‘classroom’ may be in the cupboard under the stairs, but you still have to make that journey.

Ignore the phone - And that means making a call, not just answering the blessed thing. When did it become an unbreakable law that, when the phone rings, we stop whatever we are doing and pick it up? Ignore it. The answering machine can sort it out for you.

Make yourself comfortable - Make a mug of coffee, check the light, give yourself space around your desk (for the notepad, remember), set your chair at the right height, kick off your shoes. You have my permission to play a little light music to mask the sounds outside if you like.

Explain to your family - That you are busy, you are not to be disturbed for a couple of hours. They’ll enjoy this: if they see you wandering around tidying up or plaiting the dog’s hair they can shoo you back to your learning place.

Involve yourself - Join in the discussions online. If you have a good set of classmates you will soon feel part of the group, and you don’t want to let them down do you?

Don’t get too involved - Conversely, don’t get lost in cyberspace. Take a break away from the computer screen for at least 10 minutes in every hour. Activities at the New Curiosity Shop will take you away from the screen, but there are times when you will have to look at the computer: just don't succumb to the zombie stare.

Your own strategies - You will, no doubt, have your own ideas and strategies. Why not add your own suggestions in the 'student corner' and share them with your fellow students?