Coevolving Innovations

… in Business Organizations and Information Technologies

Learning styles and online instruments

Sean Whiteley synthesized the Memletics (Learning) Styles from two brain models: Multiple Intelligences (from Howard Gardner) and the Visual-Auditory-Kinesthetic model (derived from sensory-based modes from NLP).

The Memletics Learning Styles Questionnaire on http://learning-styles-online.com is cited as created in 2004, based on the Memletics Accelerated Learning Manual, by Sean Whiteley (Advanogy, 2003).  With neither memletics.com nor advanogy.com domains currently online, the ebook has been reproduced on scribd.com by Maria McConkey.  Whiteley bases his model on “brain regions”.

… we first look at the basis of learning styles and their influence on learning.  [….] We then look at each of the Memletic Styles in turn.  In summary, these are:

  • Visual. You prefer using pictures, images, and spatial understanding.
  • Aural. You prefer using sound and music.
  • Verbal. You prefer using words, both in speech and writing.
  • Physical. You prefer using your body, hands and sense of touch.
  • Logical. You prefer using logic, reasoning and systems.
  • Social. You prefer to learn in groups or with other people.
  • Solitary. You prefer to work alone and use self-study.

Lastly, we look at how you can improve your learning by using learning styles. One obvious way is to use more of your dominant learning styles. An interesting feature of learning styles is that you can also improve your learning performance by using styles you do not often use. If you are a mainly visual person, then you can make a lesson more memorable by using some aural content in your visualizations. If you like to use logic, then use some physical learning techniques occasionally.

Why Styles? Understand the basis of learning styles

Your learning styles have more influence than you may realize. Your preferred styles guide the way you learn. They also change the way you internally represent experiences, the way you recall information, and even the words you choose. We explore more of these features in this chapter. Research shows us that each learning style uses different parts of the brain. By involving more of the brain during learning, we remember more of what we learn. Researchers using brain-imaging technologies have been able to find out the key areas of the brain responsible for each learning style. Refer to the “Brain Regions” diagram and read the following overview:

  • Visual. The occipital lobes at the back of the brain manage the visual sense.  Both the occipital and parietal lobes manage spatial orientation.
  • Aural. The temporal lobes handle aural content. The right temporal lobe is especially important for music.
  • Verbal. The temporal and frontal lobes, especially two specialized areas called Broca’s and Wernicke’s areas (in the left hemisphere of these two lobes).
  • Physical. The cerebellum and the motor cortex (at the back of the frontal lobe) handle much of our physical movement.
  • Logical. The parietal lobes, especially the left side, drive our logical thinking.
  • Social. The frontal and temporal lobes handle much of our social activities. The limbic system (not shown apart from the hippocampus) also influences both the social and solitary styles. The limbic system has a lot to do with emotions, moods and aggression.
  • Solitary. The frontal and parietal lobes, and the limbic system, are also active with this style.

I’ve based the Memletic Styles on two brain models you may have heard about. The first is “Multiple Intelligences” by Howard Gardner. I’ve broadened his model and made it more applicable to learning. You may know the other model as “VAK,” or the Visual-Auditory-Kinesthetic model. Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) books also describe this model as “modality preferences”.

Source: Sean Whiteley, Memletics Accelerated Learning Manual (2003), pp. 55-56.

As much as I would like to follow up on continuing research, the last mention that I can find about Memletics is a cached version on archive.org from 2008.

My learning styles inventory as assessed from http://learning-styles-online.com sees my highest scores as logical and solitary.  However, a closer interpretation says (i) logical, aural and verbal dominate over visual (slightly) and physical (completely), and (ii) solitary is preferred (but may not dominate) over social.  If I am to have a learning style that includes listening and talking, I would expect that to happen socially!

There’s a glitzier Flash-based Education Nation Learner Profile Assessment hosted by the University of Phoenix using the same seven categories as Memletics.  The 21 questions are phrased differently (shorter than 70 by Memletics), and the research sources is not cited, so the validity of this assessment seems weaker.  The primacy of verbal and aural over logical doesn’t feel right.

In the Perceptual Modality Preference Survey on learningstyles.org, I sense information most as a print learner and a aural (listening) learner.  I’m unlikely to learn by smelling or sniffing.

The C.I.T.E. Learning Styles Instrument from the Center for Innovative Teaching Experiences at the Murdoch Teachers Center in Wichita, Kansas, based on (Babich, Burdine, Albright, and Randol, 1976) had better academic source (pre-Howard Gardner), but is available only administered on paper, and not electronically.  A thesis by L. Harden (University of South Florida, 1992) says “use of the CITE learning style instrument … should be discontinued since no positive correlations were found with this instrument”.

Along the way, I noticed a description of learning strategies (not styles) as serialist or holist, originating from Gordon Pask, described by James Atherton as (2011) at http://www.learningandteaching.info/learning/pask.htm .

The controversy over learning styles as a topic is well described by Guy W. Wallace, “Why Is the Research on Learning Styles Still Being Dismissed by Some Learning Leaders and Practitioners?”,  November 2011, ACM eLearn Magazine at http://elearnmag.acm.org/featured.cfm?aid=2070611.

1 Comment


Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

  • RSS qoto.org/@daviding (Mastodon)

    • daviding: “Web video on "The Sustainable Development Goals: Origins, Co…” May 25, 2023
      Web video on "The Sustainable Development Goals: Origins, Context, and Perspectives" with Ned #NenadRava from @UN @JointSDGFund in discussion with #SystemsThinking Ontario. https://coevolving.com/blogs/index.php/archive/sdgs-origins-context-perspectives-st-on-2023-05-08/ #SDGs #Sustainability #Development
    • daviding: “> Leading #TVO Today’s Asian Heritage Month lineup for May 2…” May 7, 2023
      > Leading #TVO Today’s Asian Heritage Month lineup for May 2023, TVO Original Big Fight in Little Chinatown premieres on TVO, TVO Today, YouTube and smart TV services on Tuesday, May 9 at 9 pm ET.https://tvo.me/energized-communities-battle-developer-pressure-and-anti-asian-racism-in-tvo-original-big-fight-in-little-chinatown/
    • daviding: “Rereading the introduction to the 1969 _Systems Thinking: Se…” May 3, 2023
      Rereading the introduction to the 1969 _Systems Thinking: Selected Readings_ Penguin paperbook surfaces some choices by the editor #FredEEmery that I hadn't previously appreciated. https://ingbrief.wordpress.com/2023/05/03/introduction-systems-thinking-selected-readings-edited-by-f-e-emery-1969/ #SystemsThinking #LivingSystems #opensystems
    • daviding: “The "doable dozen" is a phrase that #BjornLomborg picked up …” April 27, 2023
      The "doable dozen" is a phrase that #BjornLomborg picked up from #JordanPeterson on the April 3 interview. The list is now more complete at Halftime for the Sustainable Development Goals microsite at https://www.copenhagenconsensus.com/halftime> The 12 best policies to scale up, that our experts have identified, cover a wide range of areas: tuberculosis, education, maternal and […]
    • daviding: “A series of articles by #BjornLomborg with leading media out…” April 27, 2023
      A series of articles by #BjornLomborg with leading media outlets has been lined up. This article in Forbes sets a direction. > But in 2015, when the world replaced the #MDGs [#MillenniumDevelopmentGoals], things went wrong. World leaders could again have chosen to focus on a few, crucial targets. They could even have kept the same […]
  • RSS on IngBrief

    • Introduction, “Systems Thinking: Selected Readings, volume 2”, edited by F. E. Emery (1981)
      The selection of readings in the “Introduction” to Systems Thinking: Selected Readings, volume 2, Penguin (1981), edited by Fred E. Emery, reflects a turn from 1969 when a general systems theory was more fully entertained, towards an urgency towards changes in the world that were present in 1981. Systems thinking was again emphasized in contrast […]
    • Introduction, “Systems Thinking: Selected Readings”, edited by F. E. Emery (1969)
      In reviewing the original introduction for Systems Thinking: Selected Readings in the 1969 Penguin paperback, there’s a few threads that I only recognize, many years later. The tables of contents (disambiguating various editions) were previously listed as 1969, 1981 Emery, System Thinking: Selected Readings. — begin paste — Introduction In the selection of papers for this […]
    • Concerns with the way systems thinking is used in evaluation | Michael C. Jackson, OBE | 2023-02-27
      In a recording of the debate between Michael Quinn Patton and Michael C. Jackson on “Systems Concepts in Evaluation”, Patton referenced four concepts published in the “Principles for effective use of systems thinking in evaluation” (2018) by the Systems in Evaluation Topical Interest Group (SETIG) of the American Evaluation Society. The four concepts are: (i) […]
    • Quality Criteria for Action Research | Herr, Anderson (2015)
      How might the quality of an action research initiative be evaluated? — begin paste — We have linked our five validity criteria (outcome, process, democratic, catalytic, and dialogic) to the goals of action research. Most traditions of action research agree on the following goals: (a) the generation of new knowledge, (b) the achievement of action-oriented […]
    • Western Union and the canton of Ticino, Switzerland
      After 90 minutes on phone and online chat with WesternUnion, the existence of the canton of Ticino in Switzerland is denied, so I can’t send money from Canada. TicinoTurismo should be unhappy. The IT developers at Western Union should be dissatisfied that customer support agents aren’t sending them legitimate bug reports I initially tried the […]
    • Aesthetics | Encyclopaedia Britannica | 15 edition
      Stephen C. Pepper was a contributor to the Encyclopaedia Britannica, 15th edition, on the entry for Aesthetics.
  • Recent Posts

  • Archives

  • RSS on daviding.com

    • 2023/05 Moments May 2023
      Spring full of cultural and family activities.
    • 2023/04 Moments April 2023
      Sightseeing one day in Vilnius, then variable weather in spring in Toronto.
    • 2023/03 Moments March 2023
      Right ring finger in splint discouraged activities, yet last week of month saw flying through Vienna to an intensive research visit to Kaunas University of Technology in Lithuania.
    • 2023/02 Moments February 2023
      Recovery from bike collision with automobile hit-and-run reduced exercise, while continuing social activities.
    • 2023/01 Moments January 2023
      Family time for solar new year and lunar year, otherwise at home writing a journal manuscript for a deadline, and focused on improving wellness.
    • 2022/12 Moments December 2022
      December was full of birthday, wedding, seasonal holiday events, and then family congregated in town to share time together.
  • RSS on Media Queue

    • 2021/06/17 Keekok Lee | Philosophy of Chinese Medicine 2
      Following the first day lecture on Philosophy of Chinese Medicine 1 for the Global University for Sustainability, Keekok Lee continued on a second day on some topics: * Anatomy as structure; physiology as function (and process); * Process ontology, and thing ontology; * Qi ju as qi-in-concentrating mode, and qi san as qi-in-dissipsating mode; and […]
    • 2021/06/16 Keekok Lee | Philosophy of Chinese Medicine 1
      The philosophy of science underlying Classical Chinese Medicine, in this lecture by Keekok Lee, provides insights into ways in which systems change may be approached, in a process ontology in contrast to the thing ontology underlying Western BioMedicine. Read more ›
    • 2021/02/02 To Understand This Era, You Need to Think in Systems | Zeynep Tufekci with Ezra Klein | New York Times
      In conversation, @zeynep with @ezraklein reveal authentic #SystemsThinking in (i) appreciating that “science” is constructed by human collectives, (ii) the west orients towards individual outcomes rather than population levels; and (iii) there’s an over-emphasis on problems of the moment, and…Read more ›
    • 2019/04/09 Art as a discipline of inquiry | Tim Ingold (web video)
      In the question-answer period after the lecture, #TimIngold proposes art as a discipline of inquiry, rather than ethnography. This refers to his thinking On Human Correspondence. — begin paste — [75m26s question] I am curious to know what art, or…Read more ›
    • 2019/10/16 | “Bubbles, Golden Ages, and Tech Revolutions” | Carlota Perez
      How might our society show value for the long term, over the short term? Could we think about taxation over time, asks @carlotaprzperez in an interview: 92% for 1 day; 80% within 1 month; 50%-60% tax for 1 year; zero tax for 10 years.Read more ›
    • 2020/07/13 “Making Growing Thinking” |Tim Ingold (web video)
      For the @ArchFoundation, #TimIngold distinguishes outcome-oriented making from process-oriented growing, revisiting #MartinHeidegger “Building Dwelling Thinking”. Organisms are made; artefacts grow. The distinction seems obvious, until you stop to ask what assumptions it contains, about the inside and outside of things…Read more ›
  • Meta

  • Creative Commons License
    This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License
    Theme modified from DevDmBootstrap4 by Danny Machal