Learning styles
A realistic Guide to life at UCLan - written by students!
OK so you’ll have heard this a thousand times but here it is again! Everybody learns differently. Now you may be groaning at hearing that again, but when it comes to university there is a lot of independent study, so to make life easier for yourself it’s a good idea to figure out how you learn best. Lots of things can affect how we learn, for instance, some people like music on, others like to be in silence.
In lectures some people like to take a lot of notes, some take a few- it all depends on what works for you. It’s the same with assessments. Some people actually thrive on the pressure and only allocate a short period of time to focus and get it done all in one go, others like to do it a bit at a time.
Don’t worry if your class mates are doing things differently – unless of course the deadline is a few hours away and they are all finished whereas you haven’t even started! My housemate used to start her assignments weeks before me, just casually reading and taking notes while watching TV. I used to think maybe I should be working on the assignments but when I tried to do what she did I was too distracted by the TV brilliance of Diagnosis Murder and just got myself all muddled -I couldn’t keep my notes and references organised for weeks! I soon accepted that I needed to do my assignments in one go with no distractions!
Now there are tools out there that could label you with a learning style, but here on TAG we don’t necessarily agree with that. You see you may find different learning styles suit you in different circumstances. The main thing is to remember that there is more than one way to ‘skin a cat’!
The next thing to think about is how you make your group work succeed when you all have different learning styles… well that’s a whole new page!
