Learning Styles

ANNOUNCEMENT! Posts for the next two weeks will be brief with genealogy tips only. When the blogger returns (Oct 28) we will go back to our standard format. As they say: “Don’t go away. We’ll be 'right' back!”

 



 

Genealogy tip for today: What is Your Learning Style?

 

And what has that got to do with genealogy? More than you think.

Are you creative? A neat nick? Are you a pack rat or a minimalist? Do you like to be on the move constantly, or sit at home and quietly read a book? Do you prefer to listen to an audio book or learn better with a hands-on activity? All of these play into who you are and will therefore play into how you go about doing genealogy.

Learning styles online give us this description what learning styles are:

The Seven Learning Styles

Visual (spatial): You prefer using pictures, images, and spatial understanding.

Aural (auditory-musical): You prefer using sound and music.

Verbal (linguistic): You prefer using words, both in speech and writing.

Physical (kinesthetic): You prefer using your body, hands and sense of touch.

Logical (mathematical): You prefer using logic, reasoning and systems.

Social (interpersonal): You prefer to learn in groups or with other people.

Solitary (intrapersonal): You prefer to work alone and use self-study.

Your learning styles have more influence than you may realize. Your preferred styles guide the way you learn. They also change the way you internally represent experiences, the way you recall information, and even the words you choose.

Knowing your learning style impacts how you approach genealogy. If you know your weaknesses ahead of time you can work to compensate. For example if you are the creative messy one, it is important that you organize right from the start and stay on top of it. There’s nothing more upsetting than to work through census records, only to discover you already did that two years ago and now you have spent time doing it again when you could have done the next thing on your list.

Maybe you’re a minimalist. Remember to be thorough and get everything you can, when you can. You don’t want to waste your time and opportunity to not write down all the information at hand, or even the citation, so you don’t use more time later repeating the effort.

Many people like to have someone working with them, especially in the beginning showing us what to do, and how to do it. If you are a groupie, get the girlfriends together and make a day trip to a repository or genealogy library. You’ll have a good time and advance your research at the same time.

How you present your work will be affected by your learning style: An aural person may want to create a video; a visual person may want to create a book with a lot of pictures; a verbal person may lean more toward just a family history – lots of text. A logical person may lean heavy on all the various kinds of charts that display genealogy. What goals you set, how you go about your research and the end result will be a result of who you are as a person.

Knowing and being aware of what your learning style is, going into this wonderful hobby, will prevent a lot of headaches later on. It makes for a much more wonderful adventure! Your work will tell us about your people that went before you and who you are today. Celebrate it! It’s rewarding.

 

 

 

If any of these posts are helpful drop us a line in the comments section below. We just want to know if the information we provide to you is helpful in anyway.

 

 

 

 

ENJOY!

 

Now You Know!