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Posted Feb. 28, 2013

Understand Your Learning Style and Use it to Your Advantage

The key to academic success is figuring out how your brain functions at its best, and utilising it to your advantage to get the most out of your study time .

Read the list of techniques below and see which ones you identify with, then you can harness the specific learning techniques associated to ace your postgraduate studies.

Visual You respond best to visual imagery, and associate pictures with words and feelings. Things sink in better when you see them rather than when you simply hear the same information.

Techniques: labeled diagrams, mind maps, and spider grams. When using flow charts and diagrams you should include images and symbols instead of just words, and ensure that you think through the relationships and connections in order to remember the information best.

Aural You remember aural instructions best and are able to follow them more clearly. You may benefit most from conducting mental rehearsal during revision time.

Techniques: role play, voice recordings, aural testing, and discussion-based revision. If you can get hold of any relevant podcasts or lecture recordings this could prove to be an essential learning aid.

Read / Write You respond best to text-based information delivery.

Techniques: list writing, diaries, internet article research, power point presentations, journals, documents, and any other written form of information learning. For optimum revision, reading over work and writing the key points down will be a good way of reinforcing knowledge.

Physical / Kinesthetic You’re the kind of person who responds well to ‘doing’ rather than seeing or listening. You enjoy manual, skilled work that uses your body. You like to be active when you talk, and prefer to relate things to real-life scenarios in order to fully understand and remember. You may fidget a lot!

Techniques: Anything that involves some form of action or movement rather than simply reading and writing. You can cut out words and phrases and order them, highlight things, use Post-it notes, etc.

Social (interpersonal) You prefer to discuss things through with other people and work towards solutions using verbal skills and face-to-face interaction. Be careful not to confuse this with a desire to hang out as this will not help your study situation!

Solitary (intrapersonal) You have an independent and private way of learning, and can concentrate better when in your own space. You do not cope well with group revision or learning sessions.

Any of the above ring a bell? What's your learning style?
 

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