Sherpa Software Exchange Blog

    What Kind of Learner Are You?

    Karen Bigrigg  April 1 2008 04:20:12 PM
    Being the product manager of Archive Attender at Sherpa Software presents the challenge of educating my customers and potential clients about our software package and archiving concepts.  One of my passions is teaching; I have a master’s degree in the science of instruction.  Therefore, I appreciate how important it is to understand how to communicate ideas to learners so they can best be absorbed, for that learner’s unique demands and thinking patterns.

    To do this, it is imperative to understand that there are different kinds of learners out there in the world!  Richard Felder and Barbara Solomon discuss four different facets of learning profiles a person may exhibit when digesting new material:

    *Active verses Reflective Learners:  Active learners like to use information in a hands-on way to understand it, whereas reflective learners best study beforehand and think about the new material.

    *Sensing verses Intuitive Learners:  Sensing learners like to work with facts and figures, whereas intuitive learners best digest new concepts in forms of relationships and abstractions.

    *Visual verses Verbal Learners:  Visual learners like to work with images, such as PowerPoints, photos, diagrams, and films, whereas verbal learners best learn from auditory explanations and written pieces.

    *Sequential verses Global Learners:  Sequential learners like to develop concept understandings in a linear fashion, learning material in a specific order, whereas global learners digest material after understanding the big picture.

    What kind of learner are you?  I have to assume that my customer base may be a mixture of all of the above!  Therefore, I am putting together training materials for Archive Attender version 3.2, just released this past March.  Included in that material are training videos.  These training videos walk the user through the product.  Sequential users can work through the video series in order, whereas global learners can jump around to get a grasp on the big picture.  The training videos cater to both visual and verbal learners, as they contain both PowerPoint and software discussions.  Active-intuitive learners get to see the product in action, and reflective-sensing learners can review the PowerPoint discussions for overviews of concepts.  

    If you’re interested in this topic further, perform a web search – they have learning profile tests out there to find out just what kind of learner you are!