Describe your preferred learning strategies. Compare your current preferred learning strategies to the identified strategies for your preferred learning style. Describe how individual learning styles affect the degree to which a learner can understand or perform educational activities. Discuss the importance of an educator identifying individual learning styles and preferences when working with learners.

“A learning preference is defined as the most ‘effective and efficient modality,’ in which a learner has a natural preference to ‘perceive, process, store, and recall new information” (Michael, Prithishkumar, 2014). This student’s preferred educational styles are as listed: the use of different colored pens, highlighting important information with bright highlighters, using a hands-on approach, being provided real life examples, bouncing information back and forth with others, and looking at something that is visually pleasing to the eye and non-cluttered (pictures and bullet points). The visual modality states that the learner prefers different formats, fonts, and colors to emphasize the more important information being presented (VARK, 2015). In order to take in new information, the visual learner enjoys lecturers that incorporate body language and colorful communication and expressions, pictures, videos, power point slides, contrasting colored highlighters, textbooks with charts and pictures, graphs and flowcharts, symbols, and white space. During the study phase, visual learners are recommended to utilize the techniques mentioned during the intake process, reconstruction of the images in a different way, redrawing the page from their memory, replacing words with symbols, and looking at the pages (VARK, 2015). Performance on a test, assignment or examination can be enhanced by utilizing diagrams, drawing, writing exam answers, and practicing reverting images back into words (VARK, 2015). Visual learners want the whole picture and are often swayed by the look of an object. These learners are interested in color, layout, and design and know exactly where they are (VARK, 2015).

Kinesthetic learners are partial to acquire knowledge through exposure and practice, and would rather acquire knowledge that has an association to reality. A kinesthetic learner takes in information best by using all their sense (sight, smell, hearing, toughing, and taste), working in laboratories, taking field trips/tours, listening to lectures that provide real-life instances, using applications, doing hands-on advances, looking at exhibits and photographs, and recipes that have solutions to problems (VARK, 2015). Learning and retaining the information is enhanced by reducing the notes, talking about the notes with another kinesthetic learner, remember the “real” things that happened, using illustrations and photographs that illuminate the concept, going back to the laboratory, and recalling experiments and field trips (VARK, 2015). Expressing learning performance on test and assignments can be accomplished through writing practice tests and paragraphs, and role playing the exam situation. Kinesthetic learners wish to be exposed and own experience in order to understand it. The concepts are only beneficial if they sound practical, real, and relevant to the learner. These learners need to experience through hands on to understand (VARK, 2015). This students preferred learning styles compared to the suggested learning styles of a visual and kinesthetic learner are extremely similar except for creating own practice questions and writing up paragraphs. Photographic memory and studying pages is accomplished better with short concise bullets point, bright colors, and a study partner for this learner.

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