Teachers/Disciplers

Part 1 of this article introduced the subject of learning styles and described the four basic ways we process new information. Part 2 described the way we perceive new information, concrete or abstract, and the different ways we order that new information, sequential or random. Part 3 will explain the three basic ways we take in new information.

Simply understood, learning modalities are the sensory channels through which we give, receive, or store information. These include visual learners who prefer to take in information by seeing it. Auditory learners must hear the information, and tactile/kinesthetic (T/K) learners need to feel and touch in order to understand.

In any given group of learners, 25-30% will be strongly visual, 25-30% strongly auditory, 15% T/K, and 25-30% mixed. However, young children are almost all T/K, with many changing to visual by school age. Some will again change later to auditory. Keep this in mind depending on what age you teach. Girls more commonly learn by hearing; and boys have a higher tendency to learn through movement, which might explain why boys tend to drop out of Sunday school more often than girls. But, it must also be said that if a student is very interested in a subject, desire will often override their modality or learning deficiency. These same preferences are evident in adult learners. Personally, I am equal in my auditory and visual ability, with almost no T/K.

Auditory Learners: It is commonly understood that people remember only 10% of what they hear once. (Pastors take note.) This percentage is higher for auditory learners, depending on how long they have to listen. Historically it was said that the average adult can pay close attention for a maximum of 20 minutes. Unfortunately, today that time has dropped to 12 minutes. (Are you still listening pastors?) Attention span is improved by using other aids like printed notes, overheads, PowerPoint, etc. These learners learn best in group settings where they can listen and enter into the discussion. If you have ever observed a person moving his lips while reading, it is because he has to hear the words in order to understand them.

Visual Learners: The more visual images given to these learners the more they will remember.

“Albert Einstein was a visual learner. He had a marked disability with auditory learning and the use of language. Yet he had an extraordinary ability to construct complex card houses, use building blocks, and manipulate geometrical diagrams. These skills suggest that he had a specialized mental ability for visual-spatial (space) perception, visual reasoning, and visual memory. If he were evaluated in the traditional way, he would be labeled learning disabled.”[1]

Making great use of visual aids will even help poor readers. In fact, after 55 studies, students always did better on tests when visuals were given.[2]

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Tactile/Kinesthetic: These are the students who suffer the most in a class setting or while trying to listen to a sermon. Tactile means that the student needs to physically touch something to understand it; kinesthetic students need to be physically moving in some way in order to stay with the information being shared. I had a student who used to sit in the back of the class and knit. She never looked up or participated in the discussion, but she did very well on the test. She told me that unless her hands were in motion she could not listen.

There is more and more information becoming available on the internet on learning styles and modalities, and I would encourage you to become as learned as possible about the subject if you want to become a better teacher or preacher. I would also again refer you to Marlene LeFever’s book, Learning Styles, for more help.

On our website, I will post a modality test for you to take here. It is free and will help you understand what are your strengths and weaknesses. This should help you understand how to better work with your students, or even your children, who have a preference different from yours. Do all you can to move out of your comfort zone and use methods that will reach all the learners God has entrusted to your care.

If you are interested in having someone come to your church and do a seminar on learning styles and modalities, see our website, www.pcacep.org, under training/regional trainers.

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[1]Marlene LeFever, Learning Styles (Colorado Springs: D.C. Cook, 1995), p.103.

[2]Ibid.

In order to understand how to teach, learn, or even preach effectively, we must understand how people process information. This is the subject of learning styles. Most teaching and preaching are done according to one’s own learning style. By doing this we miss reaching those who do not learn the same way we do. Did you ever wonder why you were drawn by certain teachers and preachers and not others? It was because they communicated by the same learning style you have.

There are four basic elements to learning that need to be understood. The first two elements deal with perception; the way we take in new information. This is done in either a concrete or abstract way. Concrete learners perceive things by what their senses take in; and if they are heavily concrete, they see little more than what their senses take in. The opposite is true for the abstract learner. This type of learner takes in new information and conceives new ideas from the concrete. For example, I have two sons. The first sees only what is in front of him; he does not understand jokes or puns. When he drives, he sees the sign that says the speed limit is 35; and he will drive 35 mph, no more, no less. The other son sees the same sign and perceives this to mean 35 is the suggested limit. He has the tickets to prove it.

The next part of the process shows how we order new information. Do we put things in sequential order or random order? Most of us know that when we study history we do so from beginning to the present, and we work accordingly. We also know that what happens in history depends on what went before. This is how the sequential learner lines things up. The random learner sees not the sequence as important but the event itself. To this learner, the order is not important, just the event – in any order.

The individual elements are the easiest to understand. Now we put these together and get their combinations. If you get a learner who is abstract random, sometimes called an Imaginative Learner, you get someone who is prone to be very people-oriented, idealistic, learns by talking things through (teachers love that!), dislikes lectures and working alone, and works better in a colorful environment.

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The concrete sequential (analytics) is a detailed person who loves facts. (Just give me a new dictionary and I’m happy.) It doesn’t mean they want to do anything with the facts; they just love to collect them, such as Cliff Claven from Cheers. These are the great debaters who will use these facts to prove you wrong. This is the ONLY category that learns well by lecture! (Preachers take note.) They also love competition and working alone.

Abstract sequentials are common sense people who like to take the facts gathered by the analytics and figure out what they can do with them to put things to work in some useful way. These too do not learn much from lectures. They are goal-oriented, well structured, resent being given answers, and excel in problem solving.

The last category is concrete random. These are the dynamic people who teachers “hate” the most because they want to run the classroom, think outside the box, and are innovators who use a lot of instinct. They demand flexibility. If you give them an assignment, they will ask if there is a way to do it other than the one you required. They might get the assignment done on time but don’t expect it. These people are natural born leaders and great visionaries, but they are not detailed people.

In Part 3, we will begin to develop each of these four learning styles and put together ways to help them learn.

Over the years I have gone to MANY teacher training workshops. What I found interesting is that most of them simply focused on expanding a teacher’s arsenal of methods. After many years of studying the subject of how we learn and process new information, I have discovered that when you lay out all these teaching methods, people will pick those that best fit with their own learning style. This means that we will pick those methods we are comfortable using, but these will not reach as many as three-fourths of our students whose learning style is different from ours.

Learning styles is not a new subject, nor is it a fad. It was first defined in the 1950s. Christians were introduced to it in the early ’70s when Larry Richards taught us to develop our lessons using “Hook, Book, Look, Took.” I’m not sure how much Larry understood the science of learning styles at that time, but he got it just right.

Today it is recognized that the old “IQ” test is grossly inadequate for measuring intelligence. It is accepted that there are at least nine different intelligences that need to be measured.

How we process new information can be comfortably broken down into four categories. Cynthia Tobias calls them by more technical terms: concrete sequential, abstract sequential, abstract random, and concrete random. These can also be called concrete experience, abstract conceptualization, active experimentation, and reflective observation. Marleen LaFever and Bernice McCarthy refer to them more creatively as imaginative, analytic, common sense, and dynamic. Each describes a different way that learners take in new information and decide what to do with it.

If you have more than one child, you know how different they are. One might prefer to do homework while sitting on the floor with the radio blaring, while the other has to sit at a well lit table in complete silence. If you have more than two children there is a good chance that you are already aware of several different learning styles. For example, if you have a child or student who is very imaginative, he or she might like to talk in generalities rather than specifics and prefer to learn while talking. These children are empathetic, and might go so far as to let their grades drop so they can be part of a group. They work best in a noisy setting, and they don’t like to work alone. They also do not like lectures, which is true of three out of the four styles. Even the color scheme of the room can make a difference for them. While each of the learning styles has a list of characteristics, it must be clearly understood that almost no one fits tightly into any one category. Most of us will overlap into at least one other category.

A question I am often asked is: can our learning style change? The answer is no. We learn to adapt ourselves to the learning situation we are in if we want to survive or fit in.

One last point. Learning styles are often confused with modalities. There are three modalities: hearing, seeing, and motion. Each learning style will have those learners who are strong auditory learners, visual, and/or tactile/kinesthetic. These are subcategories of learning styles.

Nothing will ever take the place of one-on-one discipleship, and this article will not attempt to prove otherwise. Right now, I want you to just dream about what lies ahead for training in the future, the near future.

A number of years ago, I saw a cartoon where a preacher says to the congregation. “Now would you all key in … ” They all had laptops. I just laughed, but how far-fetched is that today? How many colleges don’t require them as standard equipment?

I have argued for years that the paper and ink book as we know it will begin fading away in my lifetime. Everyone then says to me that they do not like reading a book on a computer. Neither do I, but picture this: a handheld device that has a screen about the size of a book. It reads clearly. Beyond that you can change the font, its size and color, highlight the text, dog-ear the pages, and even make space to write in your own notes. Does this sound like science fiction? Well, I saw my first device like this in 1997! Today they are beginning to appear on the market. You don’t think this will take off for years? I was sitting on a ferry in Seattle a few weeks ago, and a woman in her forties was sitting across from me reading a book she downloaded from Amazon.

How does this affect discipleship? I am 57 and have used a computer since 1985, but I am not really what you would call a techno guy. However, I do know that times are changing – fast. The younger generation we want to reach knows nothing but computers, and they expect them to do everything.

Now, picture this for a Bible study. Your whole group has a device like I mentioned. They are doing the recently published study of Genesis, written by PCA pastor Will Hesterberg. There are many questions in the study that require students to write in their answers, and they can do it right on the screen – in class or at home.

CEP is working very closely with Logos Bible Software to begin producing such material in the near future. It will not only be student material. The package will contain video segments, PowerPoint presentations, notes for the students, and everything else needed to teach the course. But there will be one more feature for the teacher. Using Logos Bible Software, the teacher will be able to do research through their own, affordable library which may contain 300, 700, or more than 10,000 theological books. The teacher will not waste time trying to find things in several different books. All he or she will need to do is type in the reference (Bible text, word, or topic) and the software will search and open every source available in that library. You have got to see the power and ability of this system to believe it.

Am I promoting Logos Bible Software? You bet I am. Working with Logos, CEP will be able to expand its training and resources in incredible ways. You will begin to see more and more materials being produced by us in conjunction with them.

PS. In the future, don’t be surprised if you begin to get Equip to Disciple sent to you electronically with the capability of taking the articles and doing further research in Logos.