Reflections on Learning Theories and Styles

I found it surprising or striking as I furthered my knowledge about how people learned that there were so many learning theories or styles. I had not idea that learning styles and theories were so similar in their approach to learning. I am still not sure why so many theories are used as a bases for creating academic plans. I felt that many of the theories had little proven success. It was surprising that there is as much research to disprove the use of learning theories as there are theories. I am more of a skeptic than ever before of if learning styles and theories are necessary to consider when creating educational materials.



Over the last eight weeks I have learned a great deal about learning theories and learning styles. This course has expanded my knowledge on the various styles of learning and the many theories that can be applied to my current and future instructional platforms. My views on how I learn however, have not changed as a result of the new information. I have taken a great deal of learning inventories through out my career and opted to take several recently. The results of all the testing confirms that I learn in both a linguistic and visual manner. I am continually realizing that through out my current career learning styles and theories will be a factor. I still do not feel that the majority of inventories benefit the student or instructor. Many inventories can be manipulated by the learner to produce a desired result, therefore skewing the results.

I have found through the readings and research that many of the theories and styles overlap and several explain various areas of learning better than others. I agree that each of us has a style of learning specific to us yet, I also agree that the subject matter and our age effect the way we learn. Motivation, prior knowledge, and mode of transfer are key elements how well I will learn a topic. I have discovered that though I study online, I learn more in traditional environments where face to face contact is prevalent. I would try and seek a course in the future that offered more peer interaction and socialization. I feel that the current online environment I learn it suits my lifestyle, not my learning style.



I have learned there are connections between learning theories, learning styles, educational technology, and motivation. Based on the is knowledge I have also realized that technology plays a large role in my learning process. I use the Internet to search, gather, and learn new information. I use blogs, posting, emails, and text document to express my ideas. I honestly find that I prefer to read my data in online document verses traditional books and that videos enhance my understanding and help like face to face contact does. Based on my visual and linguistic style of learning each of these aspect enable me to see the data before me and manipulate it to benefit my understanding.

Through out this course I have discovered that learning styles can not fully determine how a topic will be presented. Consideration must be given to the best mode of presenting the data at hand to the majority of learners. As an instructor, I have benefited from this course by having a clearer understanding of how various learning methods can impact student success. I do not however feel that this course will have a major impact on my instructional style or my ability to better plan for learners in my current or future environment. I feel that being taught how to plan would have resulted in a larger growth process. The majority of the information in this course was repeat information for me from my undergraduate course work. I had anticipated learning a wider range of data at the masters level than I had previously. I am not a fan of learning theories, since they can be disproved. I am a fan of proven statistical research that when challenged stands up scrutiny. I would not have taken this course if it was not a required course for my degree program.