Before I ventured into this topic in our course material I thought I had a pretty good idea of my learning style. I have been through high school, university and completed additional studies to become a certified practising accountant. I have confidence in my learning ability but only if I work hard enough. I don't seem to have too many magic moments of just getting it. I have to break it down and have an ordered plan. I need to understand the first concept before moving onto the next. I also seem to need to organise everything before I start (which unfortunately is where my time went in week 1! Now that it is week 2 my time is going on working out how to use this blog! ahhhh. This is a roller-coaster very exciting, very frustrating, very exciting..... ) Anyway, back on the topic my biggest need is to have a clear understanding of my path. (Working on that at the moment!!)
In processing information, what is most important to me is to make complex topics simple and in my terms or I just won't get it. I don't believe I am actually that good at recalling facts so I prefer to try and understand concepts and then organise my material or facts so that I know where to find them when I need them. My CPA exams were open book so organising my material meant for me that I had an index system for the facts and information. When I was studying I made sure I understood the concepts and ideas but didn't bother with remembering details such as specific formula or names of legal cases etc. But I did know where to find them.
Well, now I have had a look through the course material on learning styles and have found it very interesting.
I have taken the index of learning styles (ILS) questionnaire which was developed by Felder and Soloman and my results were a bit surprising to me. They were reasonably neutral except that I have a moderate preference to visual learning as opposed to verbal. I do acknowledge that Felder and Soloman make the point that the ILS is only an indication.
Maybe my learning style may be not as rigid as I first thought. Maybe I don't apply the same method to all of my learning. I think that is partly true but I still feel that unless I clearly organise my learning before I start I am way out of my comfort zone. I certainly appreciate a clear direction.
It does make me think however, that the idea that one's learning style can adapt to different learning situations is worth exploring. The type of learning that I have been considering so far in this discussion has only been my "academic" learning to date. I would describe that as being based around self-regulated text-book type learning. The learning style I have applied in the past has been successful in that situation but maybe I can look at tweeking it in this new environment. I also need to ask myself if I have been using the same style of learning outside of my academic environment? For example, I completed a white water rafting course in my early 20's and became a commercial rafting guide. I then moved on to becoming the operations manager for a large tourism company in Cairns that specialised in white water rafting among other products. I haven't really considered my learning experiences in those environments so maybe I will need to do that throughout this course as well.
I also haven't really answered the scaffolded questions in engagment activity 1 but in reflecting on my own learning style from the past, it does make me consider what would I do with a classroom full of 25 students with a variety of learning styles? I have to admit that until now I thought that if applied my academic learning style to a classroom that both the students and myself would have a successful learning experience. I may need to re-think that and I am certainly open to ideas throughout this course.
In relation to the remaining questions in this activity I think I may need to come back to them later in the course as well, as I navigate my own learning journey in this ICT environment. Otherwise I may finish this post in week 8.
It has taken me a little while tonight (a couple of hours actually) to learn how to transfer a document to my moodle drive, which I have never heard of and then to link it to my first blog! I also found out that I had to do some formatting to the document in the google drive, otherwise the document changed and did not make a lot of sense. I did not realise that any of that was part of my learning plan tonight and felt like I was driving way off course. I had planned on quickly completing all of the week 1 activities in 2 hours and then moving onto week 2 tommorrow. Aahhh, not a lot of comfort in my progress a couple of hours ago as my learning plan and schedule flew out the door. However, I must admit that if I think about what I have learnt tonight I would have to consider that I have had a successful learning experience and even feel a little empowered with my new learning tools.
Thanks for listening! Now what is Activity 1-2?????? Might stick to the compulsory ones for now.
Multiple Intelligences?
I have now also taken the Multiple Intelligences questionnaire and my results are outlined below. The results do appear to be consistent with my own personal ideas of what my results would look like.
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