How do you learn?

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Have you ever noticed that you can remember the words to a song from 10 or 20 years ago but don’t remember something you read online yesterday? Believe it or not, it might just be because we each have different preferred learning styles.

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If you have read our other blog posts, you know many things can affect learning. Sleep, stress and anxiety can all affect your ability to learn. But maybe even more basic is thinking about how you like to learn new things. How information is presented to you can have a big impact on whether you remember it and your ability to apply it to your life.

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What are learning styles?

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There are different ideas on the number of learning styles, but most include four core types:

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1. Visual: You prefer to see pictures, videos, demos, maps or graphs
2. Aural (hearing): You prefer to listen to stories, join in discussions or hear talks
3. Read/Write: You prefer to take notes, make lists and write things down
4. Kinesthetic (physical/doing): You prefer using your body to learn, like role-playing or doing hands-on experiences like cooking a new recipe or using a new device.

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You may have more than one preference or it might depend on what you are learning— that is completely normal. Recognizing your preferences based on the topic or situation is what’s important if you want to improve your learning.

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Now what?

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When you know how you learn best, you can seek out information in that format. That’s why our resource hub offers a wide range of videos, podcasts, text, interactive demos and other materials.

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Most of the time when we are looking for information for ourselves or someone else, we are only focused on finding the best or fastest result. We should also be able to find the resource that fits our learning preferences. If you want to truly learn and use that information later, this fit matters.

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You can also ask your health care team to give you information that works best with your learning style. Don’t be afraid to try to learn something in a new format. You might just find it helps you remember it, like those song lyrics from 20 years ago.

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Dive Deeper with Suggested Reading:

• What is the Forgetting Curve? | Growth Engineering | Basics 🏖️
• The Forgetting Curve | Wikipedia | Deep Dive 🤿
• Replication & Analysis of The Forgetting Curve | PLOS One | Deeper Dive 🤿🤿
• Spaced Education Generates Transfer... A RCT | JACS | Deepest Dive 🤿🤿🤿

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