Simon Percival

Preferred Thinking and Learning Styles

Read through the questions and note down your answers then see below.

1. You’ve taken an important assignment home for a friend who is ill. What would you be most likely to say?
• I’ll show you what you have to do
• I’ll tell you what you have to do
• I’ll go over what you have to do
   
2. To check how to spell a word, do you…
• look at it in your mind?
• say the letters quietly to yourself?
• have to write it down?
   
3. To practise something that you’ve previously learned would you rather…
• draw a diagram / picture?
• explain it to someone else?
• role play it?
   
4. A friend has explained some work to you, but you haven’t fully understood. What would you be most likely to ask them to do?
• Show me a clear example
• Tell me a sound example
• Give me a concrete example
   
5. Which group of activities appeals to you most?
• Reading, visiting the cinema, going to an art exhibition
• Singing, listening to the radio, going to a lecture
• Exercising, cooking, going to a drama workshop
   
6. How do you choose techniques that help you learn?
• If they look right to you
• If they sound right to you
• If they feel right to you
   
7. In which environment would you prefer to learn? One with…
• Soft lighting, with inspirational quotes and pictures around you
• Background music and the sound of the sea
• Big soft cushions and an oil burner
   
8. Imagine it’s summer…which of the following fits closest to what the word ‘summer’ just made you think of?
• Bright days and blue skies
• The sound of birds singing and of people enjoying the outdoors
• The warmth of the sun on your skin and the smell of cut grass
   
9. When you have a lot in common with someone, do you say that you…
• See eye to eye?
• Are on the same wavelength?
• Feel at ease in his / her company?
   
10. When saying goodbye to someone, which are you more likely to say?
• See you soon
• Speak to you soon
• I’ll be in touch

What and how we say and do things can help us understand more about ourselves as thinkers and learners; they can reveal our preferred way(s) of learning. Your likely preferred learning style is revealed through whether your answers were:

Mostly a	->	Visual
Mostly b	->	Auditory
Mostly c	->	Kinaesthetic (doing)

This information can help you make informed choices about how you learn, such as which revision techniques are likely to be most effective for you. Remember, though, it is only a preference and not a label – you are able to learn in all three ways, just more effectively in one or two.

A Visual Technique: Labelling

• Either: draw what it is you want to learn (e.g. the digestive system) and label it using coloured arrows that also contain snippets of information.
• Or: draw something that represents what it is you want to learn and label it with the relevant information (e.g. a poem about someone falling in love might mean drawing a person and labelling the different areas the poet refers to – like the heart, the face, the eyes and so on – with quotes).
• Put these diagrams on the wall.

For more revision techniques click here!

An Auditory Technique: Rhyme Time

• Put your notes into silly rhymes – the sillier the better.
• You know the rules to limericks. Use this information to reorganise, then memorise, the more difficult revision through rhyme, and feel your brain start to fill with useful facts and figures for the exams.

There was a young student from school
Who knew that revision was cool
With quality time
He wrote subjects in rhyme
And now he’s nobody’s fool

For more revision techniques click here!

Kinaesthetic Technique: Going Loci

• Write a topic’s keywords and important snippets of information on sticky labels.
• Stick them on objects around your bedroom or the house (e.g. on pictures, the stereo, TV, ornaments, etc.).
• Walk your revision, reading what is written on each note (even as you go to the kitchen to make a drink).
• After reading it, look at the object and make a mental picture of the two together. Move on to the next object that you have attached a note to, and so on.

For more revision techniques click here!

Email:
www.simonpercival.com