Learning Styles – Some Thoughts

This post is primarily here to support a team event I’m running on 7^th December. The participants at that event are completing a simple questionnaire to help identify their learning style as described by Honey and Mumford. There are lots of these tests out there on the web and this one is as simple as they come. If you haven’t done so as yet and would like to try it – it’s here.

Once you’ve done the test, take a look at the description of your style and the others so that you can familiarise yourself with the approach underlying learning styles.

Health Warning!! We tend to have much more well developed self-critical than appreciative muscles. Be careful that you are not lingering overly on what the site calls “weaknesses”. They are things to think about and I’m sure that there are many times in your life when you utilise all the style described and more

 Why Bother?

 Of course it’s a good question. Does knowing what someone else thinks is your learning style automatically help? Probably not. My preferred way of approaching such tools is to think of them as merely as information. It may confirm a kernel of something we already know or something new. The chances are that we’ll always want to evaluate it against our experience, testing out if it had some truth to it.

Surely Something as Simple as This Can’t Be Any Good?

Interestingly the themes which are identified in your answers across the questions tend not to change in a longer questionnaire of the same type. Looking again at the questions you’ll see that the answers are evident and you’ll tend to answer similar questions in a comparable way.

I Have Two Styles with Similar Scores – Why?

It’s not unusual. The test gives a simple analysis of a small part of how you operate as a human being – of course we are always more than the test. Chance are that you have both approaches, maybe applying one to certain situations and the second in others contexts.

What Shall I do Now?

I would suggest that on finding out what the test has indicated is “your style” you take a moment to reflect on whether this makes any sense in terms of your life. You could ask a friend or colleague if that analysis seems like you. You may find that on reflection that another style seems more like you and that’s fine. It’s what we find out along the way than being necessarily “labelled” particularly if it’s with a style you’re not sure about.

I’m Confused!

Worry not, we can talk more when we meet. If you have a specific question or want to check something out, please do not hesitate to contact me.

Phil

Contagious Influencing for Trainers (Cottage Course – only £75!)

What if you could create the optimum learning environment, using a range of hypnotic techniques where the learner reached this state without even realising consciously why they felt so good?

What if you were able to integrate simple techniques using language and yourself to achieve deep rapport with individuals and groups?

Could you just begin to imagine how contagious that learning environment would be and how much more confident you could be in any training situation…?

Well you can and here’s how…

This one day workshop is for anyone involved in the learning of others. Whether you facilitate group or one to one learning, you will learn an exciting range of techniques that will maximise your ability to influence learning and change.

By the end of the day you will be able to:

• Understand the relationship between the conscious and unconscious mind and how this impacts learning
• Use  simple techniques to manage yourself so you can pace and lead learners contagiously
• Maximise rapport with individuals and groups using language and metaphor to pace and reinforce learning

The content of the day will include:

Building  conscious and unconscious rapport by working with language and sensory preferences

Hypnotic language techniques to optimise learner’s confidence and competence in their ability to learn.

Simple techniques to manage you; let’s face it if you aren’t enthusiastic about the learning and calm and confident in your delivery, how can you expect learners to be?

How to use story and metaphor to influence change at an unconscious level.

This workshop will be interactive, good fun and will focus on you learning and trying out techniques. Jill Tonks is an experienced cognitive hypnotherapist, trainer coach and consultant.

This is one of our Cottage Courses and will be delivered by Jill at Phil’s home in Shoreham Beach, West Sussex. Lunch and refreshments will be included.