Learning Styles

I believe I am mostly a verbal learner. However, there are certain aspects of the visual learner profile that certainly resonate with me. Specifically, the use of charts, graphs, and other visual presentations to present information. Developing opinions and exploring concepts through group discussions allows me to absorb and process information much better than your box-standard lecture scenario (assuming verbal learning is a sub-set of auditory learning).

Something about the kinesthetic learning profile also resonated with me deeply. I can recall my Social Studies course in 8th grade (nearly 20 years ago, oy vey...), which was primary structured around a year-long participatory simulation "game," as such, where the class group founded and ran a country analogous to the early United States. The class set up a government, economy (printing currency and setting up a stock exchange), and social institutions. Several times a week, the entire class period was dedicated to the "game," and we would perform legislative duties, economic transactions, and other activities that mirrored a particular time period in the early American Republic.

I am very keen on History as a subject, but American history is my least favorite sub-genre. However, I can say without a doubt that the topics covered in that class were concretely etched into my memory, even now, because of this year-long kinesthetic style project.

This leads me to believe that learning styles are not nearly as clear cut as the rudimentary three-tier Visual/Auditory/Kinesthetic model, nor even the 16 profiles contained in the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator model (where I typed as ESTJ). Our learning styles are a heterogeneous blend of traits that could primarily be labeled in such a way, but in reality they are much more nuanced than these models allow.