BetterLearningBetterEarning™ | Get Better Work & Income - Teach Yourself Higher Paying Skills

Learning theories mention visual (sight), auditory (hearing), and kinesthetic (hands-on) learners. However, these simple classifications often limit the approaches people take in trying to qualify themselves and learn more effectively.

There are as many learning styles in the world as there are people in the world. Even limiting consideration of learning styles to the three traditionally defined in learning theory (visual, auditory, kinesthetic), you can still come up with infinite combinations of how people learn.

For example, a young manager trying to improve her negotiation skills shadows a more senior employee who negotiates well. After observing (visual & auditory) the effective negotiation techniques for a few hours, she immediately begins to use the same techniques successfully in her own negotiations. A man who’s also trying to improve his negotiation skills observes a successful negotiator, but it’s not enough to help him acquire and apply those skills. He needs to work through several roll play scenarios to truly understand the principles and practices of successful negotiation. After taking this different route to master those skills, he too can negotiate effectively. Neither one of these people can be properly qualified as one single type of learner. In fact, they both employed a combination of multiple learning styles in varying degrees to master new skills.

Trust Yourself

Don’t let learning assessments given in the workplace, school, or online wholly influence your plan and goals for mastering new skills. Trust your past successes and instincts when coming up with a plan to get more knowledge or learn a new skill. What things have you learned effectively so far? How did you learn those things? Was it by seeing it done and hearing it explained? Did you have to practice and apply the knowledge or skill several times before you mastered it? You may have different ways of learning different things. A verbal explanation of a concept might be enough, while a visible demonstration of a process is the only things that will help you understand. Be versatile and try new approaches to mastering new knowledge and skills.

©2009 BetterLearningBetterearning.com™