11. Learning Style
What’s your learning style? How do you learn best? What learning activities feel good?
I’m full of love for how we process and assimilate information in different ways. If you know your learning style and how you learn best, you can maximise your independent studies by focusing on learning tasks that fit how your unique brain works.
How do you absorb information?
Instead of reading 20 books on a subject, I want ONE AMAZING BOOK. Then I need activities to put its ideas into practice: I’m best with information I can apply. I must discuss what I’m learning. e.g. I took six months to read Liner Notes For The Revolution: The Intellectual Life of Black Feminist Sound by Daphne A Brooks. Out of its ideas I made a radio show, wrote essays; took side quests into other texts and music from the references; talked with Mark and Kate and my book group (and anyone else who would listen) for hours. It’s AMAZING: imaginative, rigorous, radical, reparative. It’s a brilliant, brilliant love-letter that speaks to the central influence of Black women on western pop music. It uplifts and foregrounds their sonic ingenuity + contributions: I needed to explore it as a world of ideas rather than just as a book. That’s how I absorb information, and how reading one book slowly changes how I see the world.
How are you with time?
I need lots of time and do not enjoy being chivvied on to take on MORE INFORMATION before I’ve had time to digest what we’ve just been talking about.
One reason I adore offering self-paced online learning is that it allows MORE PROCESSING TIME FOR THOSE WHO NEED IT and the ability to watch everything at x2 speed for those who want ALL THE INFORMATION AT SPEED.
How are you with sitting still?
I can’t sit still and listen. I will take notes to keep moving. Knitting or doodling help me focus during lectures. My ideal scenario is listening and walking – something about the rhythm of walking + the cadence of speech goes IN!
How are you with creative play?
It is the air I breathe. Dancing, blobbing paint on a page, sticking washi tape down, recording sounds: I cannot NOT do these things. They provide opportunities to see and realise things; to explore ideas in a sensory way. Colours, textures, sounds. The time it takes to paint a pile of fruit – to feel and experience its colours, as part of learning what they are.
How do you learn best?
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Dear Juliann, thank you for your kind words – I’m so happy they are helping you to spend more time making and less time consuming – I think this is a decision we all need to make! I’ve taken IG off my phone as well, as monitoring it from my computer makes it harder to lose myself in the unintentional doom-scroll and means I check the stuff I really want to when I go there. I’m honoured to be included in your selective browsing. Happy making x
I am loving these post as they are helping me with a decision I have made for this season of autumn and that is to spend more time making and less time consuming. I have actually removed IG from my phone so I am only browsing once a day but I do look forward to your posts. Thanks so much for continuing to inspire.