Matching teaching styles to your learning styles

Students can deal more easily with the increased academic pressures in college if they take time to identify their own learning styles and take professors and classes with teaching styles that match.

Students can choose classes that fit their own style of learning as outlined here:

• Concrete Experience: Learning takes place through lectures, classroom discussions, guest speakers, reading texts, group projects, research papers and exams.
• Reflective Observation: Learning takes place when students keep learning logs or journals and engage in brainstorming sessions and group discussions. Students learn by looking back at an experience and considering its significance.
• Abstract Conceptualization: Learning takes place through lectures, paper-writing, model building and development of proofs. Students learn by comparing what has been learned with concepts or theories learned in class or in a text.
• Active Experimentation: Learning takes place through simulations, case studies, lab work and problem-solving homework. Students learn by testing generalizations in different situations.

The course description for a class will offer clues to the type of learning style the professor relies upon most heavily. Course descriptions can be obtained from admissions officers, academic advisors or online.

In some cases, required courses may be taught in a style completing opposite from what the student prefers. Whenever possible, avoid taking more than one of those types of courses during a semester.