Learning Styles

While reading the course reader on Reflective Practices I was fascinated by the different learning styles we all have. When considering how I approached my blog, with regard to Kolb's 'Learning Cycle', I realised that I entered the cycle at the stage of Reflective Observation because I viewed other people's blogs and decided what I liked about theirs and what ideas I'd use when doing my own and what I wouldn't choose to use.

Then, after reading Howard Gardner's (1983) ideas on different intelligences I wanted to learn what kind of learner I am. http://www.ldpride.net/learningstyles.MI.htm points out that people who choose to be dancers, such as myself, are likely to be Bodily/Kinaesthetic learners. However, when I took a learning styles test on http://www.acceleratedlearning.com/method/test_flash.html. I found that I learn using a number of Gardner's said intelligences. My top learning style being Linguistic followed by Musical, Inter personal and Intra personal. After Linguistic I scored the same for the following three methods.

What I found interesting was that the Bodily/Kinaesthetic method of learning for me was very low so I asked my boyfriend who is an actor (another profession which lends itself to the Bodily/Physical learning style) to take the test and see what styles of learning he uses the most. His outcome was Musical first, followed equally by Linguistic and Visual/Spatial and then by Bodily/Physical. So he uses the Bodily/Physical method more than a lot of other learning styles but it still isn't the main one he uses.

I wonder what learning styles other entertainers use? I understand that it is only a guide line that dancers and actors are Bodily/Physical learners but I think it is interesting that a group of people in the same profession can learn so differently. It is interesting, when in a rehearsal process, how different dancers need to learn things. Some dancers have to write what they have learnt in the session down right away, others have to film the routine just learned to practice at home.