Process of learning

Students learn and study in different ways, hence, one approach to teaching does not work for every student. Five learning style instruments are defined as:

- The process whereby knowledge is created through the transformation of experience . Learning as a holistic set of processes that are continuous, with a lesser emphasis on outcomes. The processes of learning cycle starts with concrete experience, moving to reflective observation, then to Abstract Conceptualization and finally to Active Experimentation. While learning can start at any one of the above modes (Kolb 1984).

- Distinctive and observable behaviours that provide clues about the mediation abilities of individuals andhow their minds relate to th e world and how they learn. Individuals have natural predispositions for learnings while they learn from and act upon their environments (Gregorc 1979).

- An individual's characteristics and preferred ways of gathering, organising, and thinking about information. It is focused on the different ways that we take in and give out information (Felder & Silverman 1988).

- The chracterstics strengths and prefernces in the ways individuals take in and process information. Individual students have relative preferences along each type but can learn to function in the other direction. Active learners prefer doing things, particularly in groups, Reflective learners work better on their own, with time to thik about the task before doing it. Sensing learners like facts, data and experimentation and work well with detail. Intuiting learners prefer ideas and theories particularly when they can grasp new ideas and innovation. Verbal learners like to hear their information and engage in discussion, especially when they can speak and hear their own words. Visual learners like words, pictures, symbols, flow charts, diagrams step by step procedures, and material that comes to them in a steady stream. Global learners are strong integrators and synthesiyers, making intuitive discoveries and connections to see the overall system or pathern (fleming 2001).

- The way n which individuals begin to concentrate on process, internalize, and retain new and difficult information. The five learning style are environmental (sounds, light, temperature, and room design), emotional (motivation, persistance, responsibility, structure), sociological (hearing alone in a pair, with peers, with a teacher and mixed), physiological (perceptual, in take while learning, chronological, energy pattern, and mobility needs), and physiological processing (global or analytic, hemisphericity, and impulsive or reflective)(Dunn & Dunn, 1990).

- The composite of characteristic cognitive, afective, and psychological factors that serves as an indicator of how an individual interacts with and respond to the learning environment (Duff 2004).

Source: Decision Sciences, Journal of Innovation Education, Jan 2007, Vol 5 No 1, Blackwell Synergy publishing

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