Tuesday, September 1, 2009

Response to "Learning Styles Inventory"

After taking the VARK Questionnaire Learning Styles Inventory, I discovered that I am a multimodal learner. A multimodal learner is someone who uses reading, writing, visual, aural, and kinesthetic ways of learning new material. My quiz results also showed that I lean a little towards reading and writing learning; I scored a nine in that category and sevens in the other three.
I think that it does make sense that my reading and writing score is slightly higher than my other learning style scores because writing things down for me helps me remember them. I love to organize all of my notes, making categories and subcategories. When trying to study for French class in high school, it would help if I made flashcards and read them to myself. Also, if I was having trouble with the spelling of a certain word, I would write it down over and over again until I was able to memorize the correct spelling. Knowing that I do better with reading and writing forms of learning, this can help me study for classes such as chemistry. It will probably be most beneficial if I make flashcards and if I write my notes in an organized outline list kind of way.
I also think that my visual learning may be one of my strong points even though it scored equally with two other learning styles, aural and kinesthetic. I love reading graphs and charts. It always helps me understand a concept if I can see how it works in a graphic or other visual representation.
I know that I also scored high in the aural learning style because I enjoy listening to stories in class that relate back to the subject I am learning. It helps me connect the concept in the classroom to real life and it’s nice to hear it instead of reading examples in a textbook. But I do not think that I can absorb all of the information a teacher says just by listening to them. I think that I have to read it or write down the information for myself. So, for harder classes especially, I should always take notes on the lecture.
I feel that actually doing the work, like in kinesthetic learning also helps. Experiments in school and actually trying to do the task really help me in understanding the concept. I know that paying attention in chemistry lab or other lab classes will help with comprehension.