You know your style

Regardless of the controversy surrounding learning styles, it is useful to reflect on your own learning style.

By doing so, you will have an opportunity to:

• explore your learning preferences
• become aware of the diversity of learning preferences among your trainees

• take learning styles into account in your teaching, and avoid limiting yourself to your own learning style
• use various supervisory activities, linked to the most relevant learning style, according to the situation

The trainee knows his style

Now, why is it useful for your trainee to know his learning style?

He will have the opportunity to:

• use the most effective strategies for his learning, because the trainee’s style is not always appropriate in a given context (for instance a theorist trainee may face some challenges in settings where he needs to act quickly, such as in intensive care or emergency units)

• better retain knowledge and be able to use it more efficiently
• change his behaviour so it is more adapted to the context of a learning experience (for example, taking time to refine a report intended for an insurance company)
• solve problematic situations more effectively, since he will be using the style that is most appropriate in a given situation

You know the style of your trainee

Then, he will "learn how to learn". This skill is essential in our contemporary society, where health professionals constantly need to adjust to new technologies and practices.

How is it useful that you know your trainee’s learning style?

It will provide you with an opportunity to  :

• initiate a discussion about learning preferences
• understand how he proceeds when learning
• stimulate his motivation by selecting or adapting activities so they better match his preferences

• make his learnings more effective (increase the quality of learnings)
• promote the development of other styles
• facilitate communication
• avoid constantly placing the trainee in a situation that does not correspond to his style
• understand his way of undertaking a task
• diversify teaching methods to develop different styles