Just about everyone has heard of the term learning style. Learning styles are generally thought to be preferences for different methods of learning, but this is not always the case. Learning styles are also considered to be preferences for how you receive information. You may have several different types of learning styles or just one or two. Most people have a combination of three major learning styles, which are visual, auditory, and kinesthetic.

Learning styles are important to consider because your best way of learning may not be the same as someone else's best method of learning. Learning style research is typically aimed at helping teachers understand how their students learn. However, adults can benefit from understanding their own personal learning style preferences.

There are 12 different learning styles based on different ways in which students process information. Knowing them can help you use them to your advantage:

1. Visual Learning Style: Visual learners understand and retain things better if they see them. Visualizing classroom content in the form of images, diagrams, flowcharts, videos, or movies can help such students encode and process information easily.
2. Auditory Learning Style: Auditory learning is the process of understanding things through the sense of sound. Auditory learners tend to use sounds, words, and music to understand others better. Thus, they also learn best when they hear lectures or speeches in class. Debates and listening to stories, podcasts, and audiobooks are great strategies for such students to learn more in less time.
3. Tactile Learning Style: Tactile learners prefer to learn by physically touching objects. They are good at understanding concepts only when they can feel, touch, or manipulate things. Tactile learning is effective in science classes where students need to understand the working of complex machines and equipment and conduct hands-on experiments. Touching and manipulating artifacts, making 3D models or dioramas, and copying diagrams and tables help students to learn and remember things better.
4. Kinesthetic Learning Style: Kinesthetic learners are most effective when they move around, touch things with their hands, and physically use objects. They need to keep moving to learn well. Such students do best in subjects that require them to explore the subject through experiments or projects. Going outdoors for a walk or a hike can help kinesthetic learners remember things better as it helps them think critically about abstract concepts. Role-playing and doing skits are also good learning strategies for such students.
5. Sequential Learning Style: Sequential learners prefer to learn one step at a time. They understand and remember things better when they are introduced in a specific sequence. These students put things away in their proper places and find it difficult to follow multiple instructions at once. Breaking down information into a series of steps, remembering events chronologically, and making flow charts are good learning strategies for such students.
6. Simultaneous Learning Style: Simultaneous learners are good at understanding the 'big picture' of concepts. They are good at seeing how different pieces of information are interrelated and what is the overall message or importance of the topic they are studying. Summaries of a chapter, concept maps, and webs can help simultaneous learners remember different aspects of the chapter better. Understanding the overall purpose or meaning of the topic and studying timelines closely to see how different elements of the topic are related to each other help students remember everything about it better.
7. Reflective or Logical Learning Style: Students with strong logical and reasoning skills can solve problems easily and find it easy to consider different aspects of complex dilemmas and issues. They excel in lab work and information analysis. Brainstorming, discussions, and reflective writing tasks are great ways for such students to absorb information and apply it to find solutions to all types of questions.
8. Verbal Learning Style: Some students find it easier to learn by speaking it loudly. Discussion groups, thinking aloud, having quick quiz sessions with friends, verbally repeating what they have learned, and teaching others can help verbal learners imbibe, process, and retain information better.

1. Interactive Learning Style: Students with the interactive learning style learn better in groups. They benefit most from question-answer sessions, group debates or tasks, writing assignments while discussing them with friends. Quesba, for example, is a question bank website that offers answers to 40 million+ textbook questions. But it allows interactive learners to connect with tutors to seek explanations, discuss their doubts with them, and find concise information from experts.
2. Direct Experience Learning Style: Experiential learners benefit most from what they experience first-hand. Conducting lab experiments, going on field trips and educational tours, participating in apprenticeship programs are good ways to learn for these students.
3. Indirect Experience Learning Style: Some students can learn well from other people's experiences. Reading biographies, watching demonstrations, listening to guest lectures, and watching Ted Talks are some of the great ways for students to learn what to do and what not to do in different kinds of life and career situations.
4. Rhythmic or Melodic Learning Style: If you learn better with the music playing in your room, you fall into this category. Finding patterns of the information you want to learn and relating them to your favorite songs can help you memorize them easily. The Cell Song and The Bar Graph Dance are excellent examples of such mnemonics.

Multi-Sensory Learning Styles You Can Use

In multi-sensory learning, students use more than one of their senses to take in information. They may listen while watching a demonstration at the same time or draw diagrams while listening to a lecture. Multi-sensory learning is an effective way to make students retain information by using all their senses to learn. Such students tend to remember things for longer periods.

Some examples of multi-sensory learning styles are:

• Auditory-Tactile Learning Style: Some people are effective when they hear and touch things at the same time. Students with this learning style tend to remember information better when they listen to lectures and watch demonstrations while making notes of key points and using diagrams and flowcharts to visualize concepts. Other examples of auditory-tactile learning include using flashcards and reviewing concepts through self-questioning.
• Visual-Auditory Learning Style: Visual-auditory learners benefit from seeing and hearing at the same time, such as when they see demonstrations or diagrams while listening to instructions. They find it easier to use mnemonics, create mental images, and visualize concepts.
• Tactile-Kinesthetic Learning Style: Tactile-kinesthetic learners find it easier to understand concepts when given a hands-on learning experience. Doing activities that involve physical movement and practice helps them learn concepts better. They can excel in sports that involve physical activity, or while conducting experiments.

If you are a non-verbal learner, you might find it difficult to understand things from written text alone. For you, videos and podcasts offering lectures may be the best way to learn whatever information you need.

As you can see, each of us has different learning styles. To excel in academics and professional life, try to discover what works for you best.