Learning Styles and Approaches

So within some of the questions that are asked on our different education and training courses, there is a difference between what a learning style is and what a learning approach is. Now, a learning style, that's the way a learner learns. So we tend to use the VARK, which is visual, audio, reading, kinesthetic learning. So, is a learner a visual learner? Do they like to see something being demonstrated in front of them? We then look at the audio. Say someone likes to listen to a presentation or someone to speak. And then we look at reading. Reading is, does the person need the information in front of them, so they can digest by reading it themselves. And then the last one, the K, which is the kinesthetic learner, is a hands-on practical, likes to do, likes to get involved, taking things apart, putting them back together. They are learning styles. Okay? There are other types out there, Honey and Mumford do one, and it's generally done for us... A set of questions are asked, and you will accumulate a score, and it tells you what type of learner you may be. So that is a learning style.

Now, learning approaches also falls under learning approaches and learning methods. Okay? A learning approach is when we are talking about how we are delivering our session as the tutor or trainer. So we have gone from it being the learner, now to what the trainer does. A trainer in the learning approach ensures that they are using different methods. So that could be, "I am going to stand in front of a group and talk." So that is going to be a presentation. It could be a lecture. There are terminology words used out there in all sectors, that when you take it down to its fundamentals, a talk session is, if I'm standing up there talking then that is me... A delivery, I'm delivering something. So that is one learning approach. Other learning approaches are activities. When we get our learners involved in activity, we are getting them doing stuff. I have to set that up and tell them what I want them to do, but it's another learning approach. Okay?

We can talk about role-plays when we get our learners to participate and practice soft-skills stuff, or in a situation where they can actually have a go at doing something in character, or in doing a specific task, so we can role-play that. We may use case studies where a case study is an event that's occurred, and we are looking at how learners may be able to adapt that to, or look and understand how they might solve an issue or a problem in a case review or a case study. Some of these swap over into assessments as well, but we are looking at how we are going to teach. Okay? Videos, that's another learning approach where we might be showing group videos because we cannot simulate something in the classroom, because it may be a very dangerous situation, or it could be that we cannot get a vehicle in the room because we are not in a garage. So it could be that we are demonstrating something outside via use of a video. The demonstration, so then I'm practically demonstrating a skill to our learners, and I want them then to be able to do that back to me.

You also would look at discussions, so that we can have group discussions, which is slightly more informal because we cannot assess a group discussion very well because not everyone is made to participate. But we can also look at other discussions such as paired, where two people are given a topic each, and they are then asked to discuss each point. And then we are looking at one-to-one sessions, another term for that is, professional discussion, but where you would maybe talking one-to-one a person, they can give you full-depth answers to a question. So that would be questioning; is another form. But we can do formal questioning, where it's written, or we can do informal questioning of asking questions. So there are differences between learning styles, and there are differences between learning approaches. So when we come across the word, learning approach, it's the teaching methods, the way we are going to teach the subject. When we are asking what a learning style is, that is how a person will learn something. Okay? So we need to be clear when we are asking... Answering questions, the difference between those.