Designing for Different Learning Styles

Can you recall conversations verbatim? Or is it easier for you to remember on what part of the page you saw a picture? Or perhaps your body can remember every step from the Electric Slide—despite the fact you haven’t danced it in 20 years (or at least not admitted to it!).

The Theory of Multiple Intelligences by Howard Gardner, a Harvard researcher, breaks down the way we learn into eight ways. Originally published in 1983, Gardner’s work has been revolutionary for some educational and training facilities who have taken his work to heart and modified the way teaching is done—based more on how people learn, and less on “well, that’s how we’ve always done it.”

These eight “intelligences” (linguistic, logical-mathematical, spatial, musical, intrapersonal, kinesthetic, interpersonal and naturalist) can be placed into three learning umbrellas: those who learn by listening, those who learn by seeing, and those who learn by doing.

Nearly 2500 years ago, Confucius said, “What I hear, I forget; what I see, I remember; but what I do, I understand.” Apparently, Confucius was a kinesthetic learner.

The traditional training room for years was lecture-based; take the materials, perhaps use an overhead, a slide or a chalkboard, and get through it. However, the purpose of training is to deliver results—not just cover the material. Taking into account how every participant learns is key when designing, developing and delivering training. This is where Creative Training Techniques, and Law 1 of Pike’s Laws of Adult Learning, come into play.

Law 1: Adults are Babies with Big Bodies

Recall the kinds of learning activities we did as small children—coloring, drawing, finger-painting…all hands-on activities. Children with very little experience learn through experience. As adults, we bring a lot of experience to our training programs. We want to acknowledge, honor and celebrate that experience. If, as children with very little experience, we could discover and learn, how much more as adults can we discover and learn.

Designing for all three learning types, and using lecture-based training minimally (if at all) is key if training transfer is to be successful. In our sessions at the Bob Pike Group, we utilize a lot of hands-on activities, various media presentations, flipcharts, group interactions and activities, skills practice, energizers and handouts/handbooks to help create an atmosphere of learning for every participant—participant being the key word.

For information on the Creative Training Techniques Handbook, click here.

To read all five of Pike’s Laws of Adult Learning, click here.

This article was re-uploaded from our internal archive.

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