Introduction to the DVC Learning Style Survey for College written by: Catherine Jester, Learning Disability Specialist© Copyright 2000 For Educational Uses Only adapted for the Web by: Suzanne Miller, Instructor, Math and Multimedia © Copyright 2000
	The Online Learning Styles Site This DVC online guide is designed to help you become a more successful student. It includes a Learning Style Survey that will help you identify your learning style. It also includes learning strategies that will help you study in a productive manner, one that matches your unique learning style. You may read about learning styles below or proceed now to the Learning Styles Survey. After you have completed the survey, your scores will be calculated automatically and reported on a webpage. Your preferred learning style will be identified together with suggested learning strategies. There is also a page describing all four Learning Styles and Strategies.
	Introduction to Learning Styles Are you having trouble learning new information in a college class? You may want to learn more about your unique learning style. Your learning style is the way you prefer to learn. It doesn't have anything to do with how intelligent you are or what skills you have learned. It has to do with how your brain works most efficiently to learn new information. Your learning style has been with you since you were born. There's no such thing as a "good" learning style or a "bad" learning style. Success comes with many different learning styles. There is no "right" approach to learning. We all have our own particular way of learning new information. The important thing is to be aware of the nature of your learning style. If you are aware of how your brain best learns, you have a better chance of studying in a way that will pay off when it's time to take that dreaded exam.
	Visual, Auditory, or Tactile/ Kinesthetic Learner. To get you started thinking about your learning style, think about the way in which you remember a phone number. Do you see, in your mind's eye, how the numbers look on the phone? Or can you "see" the number on that piece of paper, picturing it exactly as you wrote it down? You might be a Visual Learner. Or, perhaps you can "hear" the number in the way that someone recited it to you. In this case, you might be an Auditory Learner. If you "let your fingers do the walking" on the phone, i.e. your fingers dial the number without looking at the phone, you may be a Tactile/ Kinesthetic Learner. This way of looking at learning style uses the different channels of perception (seeing, hearing, touching/moving) as its model. This is a somewhat simplistic view of a very complicated subject (the human brain). However, looking at learning style from a perceptual point of view is a useful place to begin.
	Match Your Learning Style and Strategies While there is no "good" or "bad" learning style, there can be a good or bad match between the way you best learn and the way a particular course is taught. Suppose you are a Visual Learner enrolled in a traditional lecture course. You feel that the instructor drones on for hours and you can't pay attention or stay interested in the class. There's a mismatch here between your learning style and the instructional environment of the class. As soon as you understand this mismatch, you can find ways to adapt your style to ensure your success in the class. You might start tape recording the lectures so that you don't have to worry about missing important information. You might decide to draw diagrams that illustrate the ideas being presented in lecture. You might go to the Media Center and check out a video to help provide some additional information on course material you're not sure about. What you're doing is developing learning strategies that work for you because they are based on your knowledge of your own learning style. To find your unique learning style take the Learning Styles Survey now. Or read a description of the the Four Learning Styles and associated learning strategies.

Web Version of the Learning Styles Survey © Copyright 2000 by Suzanne Miller, Instructor
Contact me via: smiller@dvc.edu or or phone: (510) 685-1230 ext 830 or fax: (510) 687-2557
Diablo Valley College 321 Golf Club Road, Pleasant Hill, CA 94523
latest update October 25, 2000.