Your learning style in the Online Environment

Knowing your learning style will help you gain a better understanding of yourself as an online learner.  Learning style can be most simply defined as the way you prefer to learn or process information.  Each style has strengths and weaknesses.  There is not one style that is right nor one that is wrong for the online learning environment.  One goal of this topic is to help you identify your style and develop strategies that will lead to effective online learning techniques.

• Some researchers divide learning styles into three broad categories: auditory, visual, and kinesthetic.
  • Auditory learners like to hear what is going on.  These learners quickly pick up concepts from lectures.  When auditory learners solve problems, they tend to talk them out.
  • Visual learners like to see or make pictures of concepts.  They might draw a diagram of a concept or make a table of important points during the learning process.
  • Kinesthetic learners need to do things physically to understand concepts.  They may build a model, physically simulate the problem or use their hands to do something with a problem. 
• People use different styles in different situation as well as different combinations of styles.

Here is some additional information:

Visit the online assessment site at OASIS and take the learning style assessment for online students.  Here are some learning style tips for online learners from that site

Annotated resource list for learning styles and multiple intelligences.