Everyone had varying experiences at school in terms of achievement, learning and personal interaction. Members in a classroom fulfil varying roles, weather it is questioning, socialising, leading, quantifying or entertaining. It is uncommon to see a whole class as an entity learning and working in the same way. We all seem to respond to information differently.

It was not until my first year of University, the questions of my understanding of my own learning process began to pop up. Suddenly contact with tutors and lecturers was far less than what I had been accustomed to at school and having not yet met study partners I felt the school and university threshold quite broad.

There are countless amounts of Ted talks, educational resources and studies on the ways the brain connects and interacts with information. The quicker we begin to have an awareness of our own brain methods of absorbing and using information the easier building bridges with information will become. This awareness and practice can help us to become independent and learn from any type of person, teacher or lecturer – even the ones who speak extremely quietly in a monotone voice for three hours.

I found myself being a creative learner and during History of Art lectures explaining the intricate detail of Indonesian Batik patterns- I was able to connect this information with stories I imagined of the people working on Batik during the time. These stories helped me remember crucial information I would have missed due to the amount of material I was handling at the time alongside all my other classes. This method worked extremely well, I was able to hone in on the ways in which my brain worked and have time to also work on extra curricular work helping get practical experience.

Of course this method will not work for everyone! Some students are kinaesthetic learners and need to be constantly moving whilst reading and taking notes, other students are visual learners and rely on charts, video, photography and graphs in order to understand the information, the same goes to auditory learners who have no problem listening to recorded lectures or playing music whilst studying.

There is also a possibility you could use a little bit of all these methods to help you learn, either way it is important to have an awareness of your own brain and not compare yourself with others around you, just because Tom can revise for his exams in a white room with only books and essays at hand doesn’t mean this method is right for you!

Additional resources:

Do You Know Your Personal Learning Style?
Improve Learning with Tech
A Pep Talk to My Younger Self