Learning Styles

We all learn differently or at least have a preferred way of learning. You will have learnt most of your learning skills at school and will have used those skills for most of your life. The brain 'learns' by creating new connections between neurons which define the thing we have learnt. These connections are stored in different parts of the brain depending on what has been learnt. For example things to do with movement, such as learning to play a sport or instrument would be stored in the motor area of the brain because that is where the motor neurons (where movement processing takes place) are located. Auditory learning such as listening to speech or music is stored in the auditory part of the brain, and visual learning such as reading or watching TV takes place in the visual part of the brain. All pretty simple. 

We are able to use all three of these quite well and every brain is able to perform as well as any other. Learning experts tell us that we have a preferred learning style of which we are Visual, Auditory, or Kinaesthetic learners. To find out which one you are, you can do a mini test where you are asked what you would prefer to do when learning a certain topic. For example if you were learning a new science topic would you a) watch a TV program about it b) do a practical experiment or c) listen to your teacher explaining it. You can try test here.

The idea of this is that if you know your preferred way of learning then you can use it to perform better when learning something new. If you find reading a text book really boring then try some kinaesthetic learning. Make it enjoyable! Learning shouldn't be a chore or just 'something to get through'. We learn all through our lives even if it’s just learning how to play a computer game! If you want to learn and want to do well then you are much more likely to achieve what you want. If you’re bored when revising then you will 'switch off' and not take in any information at all. Don’t force yourself to learn because you will just get annoyed and stressed about your progress. Instead motivate yourself either by setting yourself a personal target or by splitting the workload into chunks and deciding do get a number of chunks done in a certain time. 

Whatever your learning style trying out different methods of learning will benefit as you will find more motivation to learn. It’s more likely that the content your learning isn't boring, it’s the way that you’re learning it that is!