WEEK 1 - LEARNING STYLES - OR ANNE ELK'S BRONTOSAURUS THEORY REDUX
How do I learn? The articles I read recently were good if not confusing: who knew "learning" as a concept could be theorized about so. I'm sure it helps some educators, even some individuals and makes for great debates in some academic circles.
I saw myself in so many of the various proposed structures, chuckled a bit at one when a mental picture of all French speaking and Italian speaking people got clumped together as a bunch of right side thinkers (the Rose and Nicholl model) because, let's face it, if you want to silence one of them, the old joke is to tie their hands behind their back - and I know as I'm one of them. By the end of Rhonda Wynne's article, I was so hyphenated style-wise that the song "I'm My Own Grandpa" started to run through my head.
I admit that my leaning style is chameleonesque at best. I'm the classic sponge: info comes by and -schloop- it's sucked in there. Ok, sometimes it's hard to squeeze it out, especially if I'm tired but it's in there. I take notes, I learn by observing, I learn by myself, I learn with others, I do flashcards and rote, I learn by trial and error. And I hate surveys that ask me what is "best" for me because, so help me, it what happens to be handy at that time or for that "bit" of information. And, yes, somethings work better than others but I can't afford to stop and ask them to put it in a form that's more palatable to my "according to the latest" cognitive reasoning style.
I'm learning Norwegian (or trying to!) with rote, flashcards, the occasional "snakker med norseman" and the mind glazing read through of grammar rules. Mastering a Chopin nocturne, on my own, observations (aural through recordings and visual with the teacher) and lots and lots of repetition. Lectures, webinars, seminars are with pad and pen.
Certainly I'll play around, flipping one learning style over to another to try to make something sink in more. And in some cases, I just can't seem to get the knack no matter what or how hard I try. Thank God for loafers and no, I will not buy velcro tied shoes while I still have all my teeth, hair, sight and hearing: I'll curse and re-tie my shoes yet again if need be first.
So, my learning style? Depends.
I think you name an important reality ... few of us really learn everything in one style. We can't afford to - because the world isn't that accommodating. We have had to develop different strategies for learning depending on what was available in any given context. At the same time, it can be helpful to be aware that what works well for one may prove too challenging for another. Especially as a manager, we need to be willing to say and do things in more than one way so as to embrace the diversity of learning styles in our staff. I think it speaks to why adopting a stance of 'learning together' can be so powerful. If we approach life at the library as one big classroom we're all enrolled in, it implies that we each need to contribute our learning strengths to the collective ... and learn to count on each other to compensate for our learning weaknesses (so as not to wear velcro)!
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