Learning Styles and Virtual Demos
They say that there are two types of people in the world: those who believe there are two types, and those who don’t. Although some of the ways of analyzing and compartmentalizing human beings can be short-sighted, there are some divisions that do seem to speak to useful principles. For example, everyone is right-handed, left-handed, or ambidextrous. Research on hemispheric activity in the mind does suggest very strongly that right-handed people use their left brains more often, and vice-versa. There are always exceptions to this, but it does tell people something about the way the mind works.
This can be very useful in learning and teaching, where one can find multiple ways to reach people as they are trying to grasp new concepts. Some people do well by learning through reading or listening. They have a disposition for the verbal, and the most impactful learning comes through the word. Others are much more inclined to retain information when it comes with images. The visual people tend to see the world differently than the verbal, or at least have a different way of learning. Using virtual demos to teach new concepts, develop new skills, and explore new ideas, then, is a way of bringing the visual and the verbal together, and can reach multiple learning styles at the same time.
