What is your learning style?

[Voltekka_MK3]

zurb Similar with me. I need to understand why i am doing what i am doing and have to thoroughly understand it. I also don't like being spoonfed information or watching a video but pictures with text work for me.

 

[DogwoodTree]

I learned to speed-read when I was in 6th or 7th grade. Unless I'm trying to thoroughly absorb every word on a page, I kind of skim around over the page (print or web) and get an idea of what's being said and what the important points are. It's like I start building a skeleton structure, then attach details as needed. I do the same thing when I'm researching a new topic for my work, but on a larger scale.

I'm a very, very visual learner. Nearly everything I remember, I can only retain it if I convert the information to visual data. If someone is speaking to me, I see the words scrolling past my eyes like a ticker. And I see letters in color, so everything people say (if I'm paying attention) is converted to text and color-coded as it goes by my eyes.

If I'm not paying attention, even then it's scrolling past me, but I don't remember it for very long usually. So like if someone asks me a question when I'm not listening to them, I can go back and scroll through what they just said for the past few seconds. That kind of memory doesn't usually last for more than a few seconds, though.

That said, I can't just read something and remember it. I have to hear it, too. So as I read, the voice of the author is speaking to me in my head. If I don't know the author, a voice develops anyway that seems to fit that person's personality.

I pick up on that voice and personality very quickly when I read, and that's part of what makes it very difficult to read stuff written by people who don't use good grammar. If it's not at least as good as what someone would say out loud, I just can't convert it (like writing a different word than what is meant, or spelling poorly, because it's the letter/color pattern that I'm reading, not the actual sounds of the letters).

I also remember positional and momentum data. So if I'm trying to remember something I read, like someone else mentioned, it helps if I can picture it on the page, even if I can't "see" other details I didn't notice enough to remember when I actually read it.

In fact, regardless of what I'm trying to remember, I clue in to directional memory (what direction I was facing when I first perceived that information, like north or south or whatever), spatial memory (who or what was in the room relative to my position), energy memory (what were they doing, what was happening, how the space and situation felt), and visual memory (what did the lighting look like? what kinds of colors were around me? how cluttered or clear? how big or small was the item? and down to more detail...).

Not sure if that kind of remembering is unusual, or if I've just detailed what most people do without realizing it.

 

[DogwoodTree]

...remembering where something is on the page brings the information contained there back into my mind. That is why I don't like separate revision guides and notes - for me revising is getting a strong image of each page of the book and making a firm link between the image of the page and the information, not about going over facts. Reading the same thing in more than one place makes it more difficult for me to remember because I can't visualise it, I can only remember at as words.

Yes! I absolutely love reading on my Kindle...and often read on my phone's Kindle app as well...but it is WAY more difficult to remember exactly what I read, because the words move around so much on Kindle. Even if I read the same page on the same device, sometimes it lines up slightly differently each time I open that file, and then it just doesn't seem as familiar.

That said, it means sometimes I can re-read a book just a couple of months later, and it feels like a new book! I can't do that with a print book...it's too familiar if I've read it before.

When I'm writing long documents for work, where stuff gets moved around a lot, I'm very dependent on the Navigation pane in Word to help me know *where* I am in the document so I can "position" the content in my head.

 

[King_Oni]

I sort of reverse engineer, if that makes sense.
Break down what I know in to small bits and out it all back together, that way I can link new information to old information.
When I'm succesfull at it, I know just about everything I need to about any given subject.

Anyone else would find my approach chaotic, but to me its not at all.

Hah.. same here. I guess it still makes me a visual learner, but I just need to understand why something is the way it is. I want to understand the purpose. If I'm breaking down things at least I see why part X is in place Y.

Some stuff I can't really learn reverse engineer style I guess. And with those I can do with videos and visual material in general; video tutorials.

I am one of those people that needs to get his hands on things though. Just looking at things doesn't work for me. (nor does warning me that I have to be careful not to break it, lol).

 

[Etzelaire]

Teacher speaks I listen, then I do some research at home to add something new, go to the exam and get an 8 or 9 out of ten. Neither bad marks nor good enough. But I don't have time so I try to be happy with that.

 

[AsheSkyler]

I must see it and do it. Preferably a diagram, a paragraph, and an exercise. And several of them! In quiet. A teacher running their mouth is distracting, and if somebody reads something aloud when I'm trying to read it silently, then it ruins my chance of comprehending it for days or weeks because each time I read it my "inner voice" is just a repeat of what they said and what I was thinking simultaneously again. I've never known anybody else to have that problem, but it is highly annoying. Why can't I just block them out??

 

[DogwoodTree]

...if somebody reads something aloud when I'm trying to read it silently, then it ruins my chance of comprehending it for days or weeks because each time I read it my "inner voice" is just a repeat of what they said and what I was thinking simultaneously again.

Yes! Even my own outer voice can cause the same problem. If I have to read something out loud to people, or sing a song to others or whatever...it takes a while before I can hear it in my inner voice again.

 

[Aspieistj]

When I was in high school I took Latin and Spanish and both were taught with little snippets of conversation with a vocabulary to study and whatever grammer or tense or plural, etc. was presented. I then took German in college and the entire book was in German. It was a sort of total immersion method. I absolutely HATED it and didn't take the second semester. That was in the 60s. Last year, because I have always wished I were really fluent in Spanish, I took a no credit course at the community college and it was taught conversationally. I was so frustrated because we were really only making sounds that were then translated buy the instructor, with no rules applied. I got mad and found my old high school Spanish 1 text book online and ordered it. I immediately realized I needed the structure and understanding from the test book method and did poorly with the conversational method. I have a friend, about 5 years older than I am and she recalls nothing of her high school French; not even pronunciation. Yet, when she was dating a man from Hungary, she went to Berlitz and learned Hungarian pretty easily. I asked how she could stand just making strange sounds without all the rules of the language presented at the same time and she said she didn't care if they were only sounds, she learned. She is definitely NOT an Aspie.

 

[SameStars]

I need to write it down, or if possible make a drawing of it. If someone is just talking and I'm not taking notes, then it'll probably won't stick. My mind needs to form a picture. I will sometimes remember written words back as a video, or I remember a blurry outline of the page from which the information came.

 

[AsheSkyler]

Yes! Even my own outer voice can cause the same problem. If I have to read something out loud to people, or sing a song to others or whatever...it takes a while before I can hear it in my inner voice again.

Yay! You're the first person I've found who understands this! I know for certain phrases, it never sounds the same way again. If it's funny, I don't mind, but if it's something tied to a bad memory then it just annoys me every time I hear/think it.

 

[StephF]

It helps me to watch & do, that's the first stage of my learning. From that I am able to conceptualize the steps and understand the process.
The second stage of my learning once I have mastered the first stage is to try and extrapolate from what I know to say "so if I were to do that x then maybe y and z would be logical resultants"

Wash. Rinse. Repeat

 

[May Black]

I asked how she could stand just making strange sounds without all the rules of the language presented at the same time and she said she didn't care if they were only sounds, she learned. She is definitely NOT an Aspie.

If you pay close attention to the sounds, the rules will emerge by themselves. Languages have quite fascinating structure, the rules for how the different elements interact with each other are often similar. I could not really explain to you how it all makes sense in my head, but it's quite beautiful.

 

[Aspieistj]

If you pay close attention to the sounds, the rules will emerge by themselves. Languages have quite fascinating structure, the rules for how the different elements interact with each other are often similar. I could not really explain to you how it all makes sense in my head, but it's quite beautiful.

But if you hear in Spanish, "I went yesterday" you know nothing about the conjugation of the verb or its tense. It is possible the context of the discussion will reveal the tense of the word went, but not necessarily. If you are presented with the conjugation of the words to go, you will understand the tense. This kind of learning is quite different from a small child learning to speak. He will have to hear many tenses and eventually figure them out, or an adult may correct him.

 

[May Black]

But if you hear in Spanish, "I went yesterday" you know nothing about the conjugation of the verb or its tense. It is possible the context of the discussion will reveal the tense of the word went, but not necessarily. If you are presented with the conjugation of the words to go, you will understand the tense. This kind of learning is quite different from a small child learning to speak. He will have to hear many tenses and eventually figure them out, or an adult may correct him.

My brain works weird. There is great logic in how the elements of the sentence interact with each other. If you look at few sentences of a language you don't understand very well, you'll still be able to figure out which words are nouns, verbs etc just by knowing few of the components. You can then follow the endings and see if there is a pattern. My brain does that for me automatically. At the same time I have really good memory for words.
I'm not sure this makes sense at all, or how to explain it better. It's not a conscious process. It just happens. I see patterns when I look at sentences of a language I'm learning. I don't need them pointed out for me. If I come across something that deviates from the principle, I memorize it.

 

[Cerulean]

I don't even know. I guess the last totally new thing I learned was the software that I support, as there was no possible way I could have even known it existed before I started working for the company that makes it. We didn't really have any training for new people, so you just kind of have to jump in, look around, and test a lot of scenarios. Eventually all the little parts clicked and I can visualize how it works, almost like Gary on Alphas.

 

[Aspieistj]

Or not. I am absolutely unable to intuit anything on the computer. I can and do eventually learn, but I need very patient teaching and that person has to walk me through things and not just demonstrate while I watch.

 

[Ferdinand94]

I'm reminded of people saying they'd have a beer during studying, only to have one just before their college exam. Claiming it "worked". Never tried it myself!

My boyfriend does this. He takes exams while reeking of alcohol. It's the only way he can pass.

 

[Cali Cat]

Like many responders here, I've got to understand the "why" of the matter. After that, reading and writing notes. If it's something I really need to commit to memory, rewriting paragraphs in the reading material in my own words helps. Then, if I have the opportunity, tutoring another student who doesn't quite get it really solidifies the subject in my mind. I don't remember well by doing something only once, because I forget the steps I took to achieve the result unless I write each step down.

 

[Dusty285]

I always did better with written information that was clear and concise. Text books and many other non-fiction books tend to have a few concise and serious ideas buried in pages and pages of general information and drivel. 'Drivel' because the book could be reduced to a paragraph or two per chapter and half the chapters eliminated. But then it would not meet the NT idea of a "book." Verbal information has always slid in one ear and out the other for me. I did best with well-written information. Back when, in college, the TV presentations/lectures were a waste of my time and my grades showed it. After college when I needed to learn something I found books that discussed the topics/skills/information set concisely. Sometimes it was as an aside to the prime intent of the book or article; the little informational item skipped the wordiness of the main theme. Reading sample tests was great. It pins/pinned down the critical information and then when reading the books I could concentrate on information relating to the known answers of test questions that might be asked by the instructors.

Now, as an old adult, I detest all the videos and podcasts that seem to be the focus of much information presentation. Obviously many people who are NT and Aspie like the audio presentations but for me all I can do is quietly wonder if everyone is illiterate? Or, if technically literate, are they actually capable of 'reading comprehension?' Part of the answer is in what I like to call the "sync think" of NT's. NT's apparently all think in the same patterns and know what will be said next so they really do not listen or seldom pay much real attention. Picking up a little verbal flow is enough for most purposes. So I am not very spoken-verbal and detest all the sound-based media. I want my information and communication presented in written form.

Including the subtitles on my TV set on the rare occasions when I watch TV. Or for the movies I watch on the TV. Written rather than video presentations on the computer screen. And I try to get a subtitle device for people with poor hearing when I go to a movie theater; that is valid enough now because my hearing has deteriorated considerably. But it is partly an excuse to get the subtitle device. And hope the device actually works (which it often does not).