Leadership Training Chapter 5 – Learning Styles

Chapter 5 – Learning Styles

Like It or Not, People are Different.

There are many different kinds of learners. We commonly hear about right brain/left brain learners. For our purposes we are going to focus on three styles of learning:

• Visual
• Auditory
• Kinesthetic

Although people use a blend of all three styles when learning, most people are more dominant with one or two styles. Trainers are also different and can be stronger in one or two learning styles. Knowledge transfer works best when the learning style of the instructor lines up with the learning style of the trainee.

Visual Learners

Visual learners respond best to seeing and reading. Online training and written course materials tend to work well for visual learners. Visual learners generally retain information as images. Most people are visual learners. When training visual learners, focus on graphs, charts, photographs, videos, etc.

Auditory Learners

If you love to lecture, these are your people. Auditory learners have keenly developed listening skills and can retain much of what they hear. Auditory learners can usually explain things better verbally than by writing or drawing, and are generally not good note takers.

As a trainer, it can be disconcerting to work with auditory learners because they literally can just sit and listen. You will be able to quickly discover who the good listeners are, as they will be able answer your questions and discuss your topics after only hearing the material.

Kinesthetic Learners

These are the doers. Kinesthetic learners retain the most through hands on training. You will discover who your kinesthetic learners are, as they will be fidgeting and moving around during lectures but will be completely engaged during a hands-on demonstration.

Using All Three Styles

If your class or event is small, maybe three to ten people, it will be easy to discover who is dominant in which learning style. Once you know that, you can tailor your class to the individuals. You will learn to manage the kinesthetic learners wandering around the room while the auditory learners are completely engaged in your every word and the visual learners are busy taking notes as fast as they can.

If you have a large group you will have to blend all three styles together in your presentations, sometimes repeating information visually (PowerPoint) while presenting audibly (lecture) while showing how something works (demonstration).

And even though you, as a communicator, will have your own style, it is imperative that you are able to present to all three styles so no one is left behind.

Visual –
Seeing and reading. Use charts, graphs, photos, video.

Auditory –
Hearing and speaking. Use open ended questions.

Kinesthetic –
Touching and doing. Use tactile demonstrations.