Why learning styles matter for collaborative sessions
In a recent post we looked at thinking styles. Today let’s consider learning styles and how they’re relevant to your next collaboration session.
Collaboration sessions actually require that each individual in the group learn and develop on the fly. We may not think about ‘learning’ so much when we’re working on innovation, strategy, or designing new programs. We might be worried about prioritising, or coming up with new ideas or objectives.
But doing any of these together well, requires that we learn about new perspectives and understand things in new ways. Often insight happens when two or more different understandings come together to create a new picture. For example, I learn your framework and suddenly see my own area in a new light.
So the question becomes, how do we learn? Here we’ll look at two ‘frameworks’ for learning that we can apply to workshops and other collaboration sessions.
Honey and Mumford learning styles
The first learning framework comes from Honey and Mumford and involves four learning styles:
Activist- likes to learn by doing and tends to take action first, then reflect on implications later. Strong at trying new things. Weak points: requires the group’s attention, takes unnecessary risks.
Exercises that would play to activist learners:
activities that ask participants to express ideas in new ways (drawing ideas, building models to represent ideas)
activities that ask participants to examine a position through a lens that is foreign to them (e.g. a different thinking style)
Reflector –likes to learn by observing, viewing a situation from different angles, collecting information and reviewing other perspectives before deciding on their own. Strong on gathering information and actively listening to others. Weak points: holds back, can be slow to make a decision.
Exercise that would play to reflector learners: a ‘lightening demonstration’ where participants spend 10-20 minutes using internet searching to find out how others are solving a similar or analogous problem, perhaps in a different industry, and then share highlights with the group.
Theorist – likes to learn by understanding the theory behind a thing, then fitting observations into the theory in logical, step-by-step framework, which can include stories or models. Strong on asking probing questions and integrating into a coherent whole. Weak points: poor lateral thinking, perfectionism.
Exercise that would play to theorist learners: for me, this is the harder learner to satisfy, but I think an adapted fish diagram could work. Here, the head represents the challenge you’re solving. The center spine represents the theory behind the challenge and the other bones are for slotting in the observations and ideas that tell the story of how this theory is playing out, or create the model of the theory in action. (If you try this, let me know how it goes)
Pragmatist –likes to learn by seeing how ideas apply to practical situations, for example through case studies or other examples. Strong on problem solving and quick decision making. Weak points: jumps to solutions to quickly, bored by long discussion.
Exercise that would play to pragmatist learners:
sailboat anchors and winds—draw a sailboat with an anchor under water and wind above. Collect in sticky notes for what is working (wind in the sails) and not working, or anchors. Here’s an example from ‘anatomy of a workshop’ used for a retrospective, but this can also be used to look ahead at what challenges to tackle during the workshop.
prototyping-use simple materials to mock up some of the solutions proposed during idea generation.
VAK learning styles
Another common way of thinking about learning styles is based on your preferred way of accessing and retaining information. For example, some learners retain information better if it’s presented visually, in pictures or graphs—visual learners. A second type of visual learner prefers reading and writing to retain information. Another type of learner prefers audible information. The final group accesses and retains information best when it is presented kinesthetically, through movement and physical interaction.
Here are some exercise ideas for these learning types:
visual: organising information visually, such as with an impact/effort matrix (see an example at the end of this post.)
audible: interviews, or short talks, with experts, as a way to collect in ideas for what’s working and what’s not working.
kinesthetic: ‘stations’ that you move to, for example to adopt a mindset, express a view (read about the ‘floor thermometer’ here). Use props to engage with a persona, or prototype ideas with simple materials.
How to use learning styles for collaborative sessions
Although these are two different frameworks for thinking about how people learn, they can both help you diversify and enhance the design of your workshops and collaborative sessions.
Include variety
Check that your exercises/activities are varied enough to appeal to a range of learning styles. (See this article on sources for exercises.) If you have a relatively short workshop, it can be challenging to incorporate a lot of different exercise styles. It requires strategic thinking and planning with materials.
For example, you can use a quick ‘floor thermometer’ in response to many different types of questions, and it provides both a visual and physical organisation of information. Dot voting or otherwise creating physical places for the sorting of ideas can accomplish something similar.
Identify your own bias
You might be overly reliant on activities that appeal to your learning style. By understanding your own learning style you can correct that bias by consciously choosing a wider variety of activities.
Have participants identify their own learning styles
If you have a longer workshop or away day, or are involved in team building processes, run an activity to have people identify their own learning styles. This can make them more open to different types of exercises, once they understand how it will speed up the process of aligning the group’s understanding. You can also adjust your activities based on what you learn about your participants.
What about you?
I tend to have visual and reflector learning styles, but there’s a dash of activism and pragmatism in my portfolio as well. What’s your preferred learning style, and do you think it colours the way you run collaborative sessions? Let me know in the comments.
