How you Learn?

I have been on the WorldatWork Association (www.worldatwork.org) faculty teaching the statistics course for almost 17 years (do you believe it, still cannot believe I am that old, but was the youngest instructor at the organization). One of the excellent takeaways I have is that people learn differently, and there are two choices, either the "student" adapts to the instructor's teaching techniques, or the instructor provides different ways of teaching complex subject matter in different ways to adapt to the various ways students learn. I have always tried the second approach, and must tell you it is not easy . . . it is one instructor to many students and each student might learn differently.

one of the reason that I post this subject is that recently we had one of our sons tested (he has been struggling in school, he started in a French school in Geneva and was through into one of the best school districts in the USA (Westlake HS was rated 52nd of all schools in the USA). The results of the "testing" was to find out that my son was a visual learner . . that is the way he is . . . I would say I am also a visual learner. So, one conclusion is that the instructor was not a visual teacher, thereby, one reason for the struggle.

I just wanted to share these stories for the leaders out there . . . when you are teaching, training, mentoring . . . people will learn best if you adapt to their way of learning versus teaching, etc. only the way you feel comfortable . . . the end result is that you want to pass on information to someone else . . . so it takes two to accomplish this . . . a sender and a receiver . . . both need to be on the same frequency for the signal to be sent and received . . . so remember when you are in a situation and someone might not be "getting it", try a different way, visually, through examples, etc.

Know your audience, and your point will get across . . .

Now, go teach what you know, someone out there was to learn from you! Pass it Along!