Match Your Learning Style With The Proper Productivity Tools

I'm primarily auditory but I'm also visual, but I'm not kinesthetic at all.
Though I almost have eidetic memory so XD

Great articles.

I, for one, can't talk to someone if I don't see their face. It's plain annoying.

@metrophage: Doppleganger?

@cha0tic: Are you my twin?

metrophage

Wow, I always thought I was more of a visual learner but after reading that I must be a kinesthetic/tactile processor.

Also based on their suggestions for tactile processors, I have to agree that exercising early before work or school does help.
I'll have to get a stress ball though :D

When I study for school or do any amount of reading, I always have music playing. I also find that certain types of music are better for certain types of work. When I'm reading I usually listen to lyric-less, calmer music (Trance, Dance or Classical) and when I write a paper or similar, I listen to rock and metal.

@ssj4Gogeta: Wow, that's *exactly* how I think!!! I've always referred to it as like, I have "clouds" of information/patterns/etc that are synergies of many things. I also have occasionally found it difficult to put this into more standard thought patterns for others.

DionRasmussen

I'm around 80% visual and 20% auditory. I don't really know how to explain it, but I look at events/situations as a whole, like they were single objects. Like I can visualize a situation in a physics problem without playing the video in my head. Or like if there are 10 facts that I've learned, I can visualize all of them at once, as a single "object". It's not really any real world object that I see, but it's something abstract - a combination of abstract color patterns, feelings, etc. And sometimes I even have trouble translating what I think this way into something others can understand. I think this has something to do with my being a synesthete? idk.

ssj4Gogeta

They best way for me to learn is to engage in discussion and argument about the subject. If you are forced to see the flaws and or gains in the subject matter you can understand the idea more thoroughly. Maybe Lifehacker should do a Hive Five on how we learn?

@cha0tic: Trance is calming!!?!!

I learn best in the classroom. I think it is because I can buy a book, but without the proper motivation of a test or possibly being embarrassed by not knowing the answer when called upon, I don't really motivate myself to read it all and do the exercises. I'll just skim through parts I need right at the moment and be done with it.

Meh. I thought the articles were pretty shallow. I was expecting better advice than just "carry around a camera ok?"

Pharmacy

@Nabeel o_O: I need to see someone's face when I talk to them, but it's nothing to do with learning style and everything to do with hearing loss.

Fabrictramp

@[www.templegrandin.com]

I heard her on NPR's Science Friday last year, describing the way she thinks.

@cha0tic: I'm just the opposite - the only music I can tolerate when I'm reading, studying or writing is classical (and most of the time, I prefer silence). I wonder if there's a correlation to learning styles - I'm mostly visual, but I find lectures more helpful than textbooks (and I *hate* labs and group activities - hands-on learning).

erunyauve

@Dreadnought: I am the same, just out of curiousity... what line of work are you in?

redcrayon

Far more important than your "learning style" is the type of content that you are learning.
See Dan Willingham's (Professor of Psychology at University of Virginia, and author of "Why Don't Students Like School") video :
Learning Styles Don't Exist [www.youtube.com]
and
[www.danielwillingham.com]

These tests are often more pseudo-science than science.

I'm mainly auditory but with a good dose of kinesthetic. I can't imagine myself carrying around a tape recorder though. Usually I just rely on my memory, which is pretty good. But it isn't a photographic memory at all, I can only memorize raw data. Like if I saw a person, I would remember the color of their eyes and hair but wouldn't be able to draw what they looked like just because I wouldn't be able to remember. And, of course, the biggest tip off that I am auditory is that I often talk to myself o_O

FritzMaynooth

I tested in the 2-4 range on all 3 types. Although as I was counting things, I got the feeling that I am much more visual than I thought I was. I thought I was heavier Auditory. Turns out I am as heavy (or heavier) tactile than I am auditory. Visual 3-4/Auditory 2-3/Tactile 3-4

I would not have guessed it that even. And I can see those fluctuating quite a bit within those ranges....

Runnin-Ute

@cha0tic: if i don't listen to music while doing schoolwork/studying i feel really weird...and also trance can be very calming

SenorRyan

@wewillchange: Dream trance is. It depends on the song.

@Nabeel o_O:
Okay, now I feel stupid.
To elaborate on this, I'd say I rather vary between the visual and tactile categories. Mostly I'm just a bit towards the visual side, but when I'm high/sleepy/extreme/stressed, I need proper visions of stuff to understand it. It's like if I don't go step by step, the whole thing goes by and I don't get a thing (Oh God, this shit's so hard to explain).

So overall, all it proves is that learning styles can change with a person's mood/condition at that time.

I went through the quiz another time.
Result = I'm weird.

@DionRasmussen: Wow, that's the FIRST time I've met someone who thinks like that. :D

I read Stephen Hawking's "A Brief History of Time" when I was in high school (3 years back). In it he wrote "No one can visualize in 4D. I personally even find it hard to do 3D". Heck, I can do 3D and I can pretty much do 4D as well. It's like the whole event, including the progression along timeline is compressed into a single entity/cloud whatever. Recently I've been working to make it better.

ssj4Gogeta

@ssj4Gogeta:
Oops, the above post got split into paragraphs somehow when I copied it from notepad. reposting:
(I know I'm cluttering the comments. I wish I could delete the above one.)

I was shivering while reading that. Exactly my case it seems.

My visual thinking gives me the ability to 'test-run' in my head a piece of equipment I've designed, just like a virtual reality computer system. Mistakes can be found prior to construction when I do this.

EXACTLY! Probably that's why I would instantly get the answer to a physics or mechanics numerical problem in the class, without having to do the calculations. I would just say the answer while everyone else would be busy with pencil and paper. And the teacher would ask me "how did you get that?" and I would be like "I don't know."

When I was much younger, I assumed that everybody perceived the world the same way I did, that everybody thought in pictures.

Yes, that was the case with me too, until I started interacting with people.

These children often love art and building blocks, such as Legos. They get easily immersed in projects. Math concepts such as adding and subtracting need to be taught starting with concrete objects the child can touch.

When I was young (I think I was 4-5) my mum used to teach me at home although I used to attend Kindergarten. I asked her what exactly "division" meant when she was teaching me. She told me 12/6=2 means that if you have 12 objects, you can make 2 piles having 6 objects each. Then I developed visualization techniques. I was thinking why 6x4 and 4x6 are equal. So I visualized 6 piles having 4 objects each. So I figured that if you put those piles side by side and then if you count horizontally (like the first element in each pile, then second, and so on) it would be like 4x6. So I think this is where everything started. Or I may be wrong, I don't know.

Although, I hate art and drawing (though I think I can do that well...)

The next two types of thinking ways that she describes, "verbal" and "math", well, I do that too, but not the way she describes them. I do those visually too. I mean when I do the math mentally, I don't do that like you would with paper and pencil. Instead, it's like, well, it's hard to explain, but it's like every number is represented by an object and they sort of combine naturally to form the representation of a new number. Well leave it, it's too tough to explain.

Sorry for the long post.

ssj4Gogeta

@joelena: OMG! ZOMG ZOMG!!!

I was shivering while reading that. Exactly my case it seems.

My visual thinking gives me the ability to 'test-run' in my head a piece of equipment

I've designed, just like a virtual reality computer system. Mistakes can be found prior to

construction when I do this.

EXACTLY! Probably that's why I would instantly get the answer to a physics or mechanics

numerical problem in the class, without having to do the calculations. I would just say the

answer while everyone else would be busy with pencil and paper. And the teacher would ask

me "how did you get that?" and I would be like "I don't know."

When I was much younger, I assumed that everybody perceived the world the same way I

did, that everybody thought in pictures.

Yes, that was the case with me too, until I started interacting with people.

These children often love art and building blocks, such as Legos. They get easily

immersed in projects. Math concepts such as adding and subtracting need to be taught

starting with concrete objects the child can touch.

When I was young (I think I was 4-5) my mum used to teach me at home although I used to

attend Kindergarten. I asked her what exactly "division" meant when she was teaching me.

She told me 12/6=2 means that if you have 12 objects, you can make 2 piles having 6 objects

each. Then I developed visualization techniques. I was thinking why 6x4 and 4x6 are equal.

So I visualized 6 piles having 4 objects each. So I figured that if you put those piles

side by side and then if you count horizontally (like the first element in each pile, then

second, and so on) it would be like 4x6. So I think this is where everything started. Or I

may be wrong, I don't know.

Although, I hate art and drawing (though I think I can do that well...)

The next two types of thinking ways that she describes, "verbal" and "math", well, I do

that too, but not the way she describes them. I do those visually too. I mean when I do the

math mentally, I don't do that like you would with paper and pencil. Instead, it's like,

well, it's hard to explain, but it's like every number is represented by an object and they sort of combine naturally to form the representation of a new number. Well leave it, it's too tough to explain.

And I also found out a while back that I'm a synesthete. I haven't been to a psychiatrist or anything, I was just surfing when I came across that article in wikipedia. (Google "synesthesia")

Sorry for the long post.

ssj4Gogeta

@ssj4Gogeta: Oh I forgot, I can't do this stacking thing for very long videos. I mean I can't remember a whole movie like that.

ssj4Gogeta

@Jason Kenneth Dulay: Yes, I think you could call it frames vs video (I don't get your reference to OOP here), except that the frame has all the info of the video. It's like having "extra space" where you can "stack" all the 3D frames to form a complete video, then access them at once (like stacking many 2D surfaces would give you a 3D image).

Now I can use that extra space to either stack frames to have a video, or I can stack many ideas to access them at once (stacking many videos seems too difficult and I haven't been able to do it properly yet). And most of the time what I "see" when visualizing an idea/fact, I can't describe or even draw on paper. The closest would be a mash-up of abstract color patterns, feelings, even smell, sensations (cold, hot, etc.), etc. But I still mostly can't draw even those color patterns on paper. They're very vague.

ssj4Gogeta

@ssj4Gogeta: You think in Ruby? I haven't the slightest idea how you think, but I am trying to understand it. The only thing I can relate it to is Object Oriented Programming or a photographic memory (frames vs videos?)

Jason Kenneth Dulay

@cha0tic: Yeah :) Anyway, I think in music sometimes. I always have something playing - either in the background or in my head. It's weird.

But it sucks when I can't change the station in my head...

metrophage

I guess I fall under auditory learner, but the best way I learn about things is actually by writing them down, not by saying them out loud. I need to write out concepts and explain them in my own words to understand, and strangely enough, I notice a difference between typing on my computer and writing on paper. Not sure what that would be called - a book learner? A writing learner?

ZenoMandarano

Learning style = bunk. We learn by accumulating experiences in our brains. These form into "schema." We use the schema to react/respond to things we haven't experienced. If we care about an experience, we "learn" it. The auditory/visual/kinetic (that the bunkiest of them all) aspect is rather besides the point.

VictorWeasel

Ugh. If you talk with cognitive psychologists and educational psychologists about the "visual/auditory/kinesthetic" learning styles, they'll usually make a face and discuss the flaws with these kinds of instruments. They probably test our self-perception of learning PREFERENCES, not how we "learn best". Humans are semantic learners - we learn by understanding meaning best, not matter how the information is presented. See the Criticism seciton at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learning_styles

QuestaCougar

I would have liked some better tips from unclutterer.

@QuestaCougar: This really focuses more on processing than learning, though. In other words, regardless of how the information is presented, what are the conditions that will best allow us to process and use that information effectively?