E-Learning – A Solution to Diverse Learning Styles

By Barbara Jackson

Training Effectiveness Starts with Learning Preferences

Let’s go back in time. Put yourself back in the classroom for a moment with your favorite teacher. What’s happening - a lecture, a lab, a lively discussion? Now imagine being in your least favorite class with your least favorite teacher. What style of teaching is going on in this scenario?

I’m going to guess that these two teachers had very different styles of teaching. And, if you can remember the reaction that your classmates had to these two classes, I’ll bet that not all of them shared your assessment of each teacher.

Do you know why each of us reacts differently to a particular style of teaching? It’s because each of us prefers to receive information about a particular topic in a certain way. So you probably learned math in a different way than you learned history, and you might have done both differently than the person sitting next to you. For example, when studying the War of 1812, you learned by remembering the stories and personalities then filling in facts around the stories, while a classmate learned by memorizing dates. Even though you had the same teacher, each of you picked up on different things to create a frame on which to hang other information. You heard the same lecture but remembered different parts. In a lab, you might have been the one who was always in trouble for stretching the limits and frequently doing experiments that ended disastrously. You are a high risk learner who enjoys a deductive process. Across the lab table might have been a classmate who read all instructions twice, took notes, measured precisely, and only then felt comfortable conducting the experiment. For this type of linear learner, the experiment is not where the learning occurs, that comes from the processing of information that lead up to the experiment.

Some of us like to memorize things, others like to read the textbook and do a lot of underlining, others of us like to do problem after problem then read the textbook, and still others of us like to create pictures or diagrams to help us remember things. All of these methods of learning are fine, but each of us has a preferred way to understand and remember material that works best for us. Chances are, the reason our favorite teacher taught us so much is because their style of teaching best matched our style of learning.

Now that we are out of school, our knowledge building, or training happens in workshops. This is almost always an uneven experience. Not only are the learning styles different among the participants, but the trainer has only a short time to connect with each participant – making customized information distribution impossible. In small workshops, a great trainer knows how to read the room – meaning they check to see if most of the learners are tracking with their presentation style. They might make some subtle changes in how they present, or at break, they may provide some extra coaching, but in workshops, trainers are paid to cover specific information in a defined time period. They aren’t paid to appeal to every participant’s pre-disposition for receiving information. Good trainers recognize discomfort in the room and try to deal with it. Great trainers understand this problem and are able to modify their presentation swiftly to cover material in several styles. More often than not, however, workshops are unsatisfying experiences, giving corporate training a bad name.

When you combine learning preference complications with the frequent reality of participants of vastly uneven experience and subject matter understanding, you have a lot to overcome in a very short period of time. It’s no wonder that training is frequently considered a budget item that’s discretionary.

What you need is training or workshops for your organization that hit the mark for everyone – each and every time. Is it impossible? Let’s look at what it would take.

How E-Learning Can Solve the Learning Style Dilemma

It’s virtual. That means a lot more than access at your convenience. When virtual courseware is built to meet multiple learning preference needs, most learners feel like their stylistic preferences are met and that they aren’t bogged down by information or presentations that they don’t want. Does that mean an e-learning provider sells different versions of the same course and the purchaser has to guess which is right? Of course not. Quality e-learning developers embed multiple styles in each course, allowing the learner to choose what they want to do next. The learner will take the road that best suits them at any particular moment and be able to change their pathway whenever they want. No need to start over, just change on the fly. No need to switch instructors, just materials accessed.

When material is presented in an at-will navigation format with diverse types of multimedia content and robust assessment activities, amazing things happen. The learning cycle is shorter. Retention time is longer; it’s engaging so learners stick with it. And the return on investment can be measured through benchmarks built into each course.

Effective e-learning can marry high-value content with the appropriate type of media (to make it engaging) using learning strategies uniquely suited to distance based learning (to increase retention) with appropriate interaction tools (to reduce the learning cycle).

Understanding and matching learning styles dictates the specific content the developer selects and how it is arranged in an on-demand format on the learner’s page. The end result should be that each learner has the choice to approach and use the courseware the way that best suites their learning preference. Each learner can create a situation that reinvents their favorite teacher.

Courseware that speaks to each learner is Makau’s competitive advantage. We know that learning preferences can be described as apprentice, incidental, inductive, deductive, and discovery. And we know that providing a student with information formatted to their learning style preference, rather than the instructor’s preference, allows the information to be converted into learning and through application into knowledge.

How This E-Learning Methodology Reaches Five Main Learning Styles

Let’s take an in-depth look at learning style preference, at stereotypical types of learners and what effective e-learning courseware can provide them.

Apprentice learners prefer to learn in a linear fashion, step by step, and be mentored. In fact, it’s the only way they can convert information into usable output. Their comfort zone with the learning process has them read the material first, then go step by step through the audio or video media, do all of the assignments, then go back and look at all of the coaching and break out sessions, then re-read and underline the workbook when they miss the point, review that media, then review the coaching.

Apprentice learners will probably digest the material in small, bite-sized chunks and won’t move on to a new section until they feel that they have achieved mastery over a concept. They will use all of the features of the courseware, but they will use them in a sequence that is unique to an apprentice’s style and comfort zone.

Who’s an apprentice learner? Think of someone who needs to know all the facts and theories before they move forward. They may be detail oriented but on top of their game. Sometimes they are not familiar with the concepts, others might feel as if they are in over their head. Apprentice style learners don’t like to take risks. They can’t learn if the material is presented in a way that they perceive requires risky interaction or a scattered flow.

Contrast the apprentice with a discovery learning preference. Discovery learners are typified by those who enjoy high risk, are masters of the universe, have low attention spans, or are impatient students. Many discoverers think that they already have a good understanding of the courseware, and they might be annoyed at being asked to take the workshop in the first place. These learners might go right to the test and, if they pass, consider not taking the course. That’s ok – if they know the material, they don’t need to take the course. More likely, however, the mastery genes will kick in and discoverers will review the sections where they scored weakest.

When they access the workshop, discovery learners will skip around. They probably will never read the workbook. They probably will turn off the audio and look at the summary slides. In most cases, the first thing they’ll do is review the coaching and breakout sessions. They may never do anything more. The discovery learner learns best by doing. For these learners our material is ideal. They might only use one tenth of the content, but they will grasp the whole picture and retain it longer than material from any workshop they’ve ever been to.

Let’s turn our attention to a learner who is probably offers the highest return on investment. A very common learning style among high performers is the deductive style. A learner with this preference is high risk, has a solid foundation, may actually be able to pass the test, and wants to learn more so that they can push the edge of the envelope as they apply what they know. They are always pushing for just a bit more and applying what they know in new and unusual ways. They are less flamboyant than discovery learners and are usually the problem solvers organizations turn to time and time again. To convert information into knowledge, deductive learners need to skip around through the topics in a sequence that makes sense to them alone, but they don’t want to have to review or participate in the whole module.

The deductive learner will look at the introductory video for about 10 seconds, move quickly to the coaching sessions and study these over and over. That’s all they need. Deductives have a high need to control a small amount of the content provided and be able to easily ignore the rest. This makes teaching deductive learners very difficult in live sessions, but it’s the hallmark of quality e-learning. And of course satisfying this group is essential because they have high potential and are the long-term, key employees.

A different type of employee prefers the inductive style. These learners require numerous examples of a theory or principal and will replay a key snippet or review and exercise over and over until they understand it perfectly. They don’t deduce, so they don’t fill in blanks. They need to internalize information before they can move forward. Inductive learners tend to make up the bulk of the workforce in most organizations. Yet they can be the most frustrating to train, frequently holding others back as they wrestle with the internalization of a concept. They can’t learn in the same workshop environment with deductive and discovery learners, yet they are most in need of training because they are less likely to learn on their own or absorb information from a manual or pamphlet. An effective e-learning course has all the elements formatted for these learners and allows inductive learners access in a different sequence than the apprentice learner.

Finally we come to the incidental learner. These learners retain information and convert it into understanding by appreciating a theory or principal through a visual or story. They may have long attention spans for some things and short attention spans for others. Think of someone who hates history class but loves Ken Burns’ Civil War series. They love the stories and can easily pass a test on the history of the Civil War after watching the stories because this is the frame they hang the facts and principals on. Without a story the data will fly out the window, retention time is 5 seconds, the learning cycle is endless, and return on investment is zero.

Teaching an incidental learner is a specialty and being this type of learner surrounded by inductive, deductive, and discovery learners is so uncomfortable that their attendance is sparse and participation is minimal. With a well-developed e-learning course, the problem is solved. There are stories. There are people practicing with more stories. There are virtual participants to bond with. Incidental learners will use all of the material, but usually will start with the coaching sessions. In most organizations, employees with this preference are targeted for remedial training, but that’s not usually necessary, they just need the right presentation. Quality e-learning solves this problem.

How Important Are Learning Preferences?

Who cares if all five learning styles are met? Any person making an investment in training cares! Every organization has employees in each category. So, they are either going to invest in five different courses on the same topic, or a lot of employees won’t learn quickly, if at all, won’t retain what they have learned, and won’t enjoy the experience. Furthermore, they will disparage the training to others. With well-developed e-learning, all of their employees will be satisfied with the same course. They will just be using it in different ways. That’s why e-learning is not a movie that keeps on going. That’s why segments should be short and there should be a lot of interaction directed by the learner. That’s why developers should include exercises and coaching sessions and why these are optional and randomly accessible. Without the coaching and breakout sessions, many high-potential learners would be lost.

A Final Twist

Just to make this more complicated, any individual’s learning style is not the same across all subjects, or even consistent within a subject. It’s not a constant value like your personality type. Since your learning preference style is more fluid, courses that have a long shelf life for an individual have robust learning materials and they need to be preference flexible. When these conditions are met, the course will be a resource every learner will return to again and again. It will be valuable.

Barbara Jackson

Barbara is a founding partner of Makau. For more than 20 years, she has been a pioneer in the field of distance learning, working with several of MIT’s distance learning center’s many off-shoots and other web-based learning startups. Barbara has helped large organizations, states, and international governments achieve sustainable growth and high performance. A few of her clients have included Time Magazine, United Nations Development Program, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, Harvard Graduate School of Design, and various organizations within GE Capital’s European Division.