Four Learning Styles

Kim started off with Vgotsky and Bruner’s Interactive Theory. Lev Vgotsky especially developed the idea that learning involves community, or that social interaction leads to learning. This was likened to the old-world apprenticeship that has been the primary method people have learned up until the advent of structured, classroom instruction. From here she went on to explore the styles of learning or different intelligences. Howard Gardener has written expensively, and developed this idea. Piaget was responsible for the Theory of Cognitive Development and this was further explored in Jerome Bruner’s learning styles. He is famous for his Spiral Curriculum. This is continued integration of past learning subjects into new material up through the grade levels. This is the basis of Bruner’s learning nomenclature: Inactive, Iconic, and Symbolic. Inactive = The young child who can lead you to the closet but can’t tell you how to get here. Muscle and body memory of a place or event. Iconic = That same child can now draw a map from the living room to the closet and understands what representation of the map for the actual house, closet, etc. Symbolic = The comprehension that sounds and written marks mean words and numbers which have a meaning and value.

Thinking styles or cognitive styles are not identical with learning styles, but they are closely related, and this point was explored in class on 11/28. The four basic styles: the imaginative learner, the analytic learner, dynamic learner and common sense learner were illustrated in the student's project, which was one of the highlights of the evening. It was great to see Bruce Lee, one of my favorite Americans, characterizing the imaginative style. It was interesting that Carlos had mentioned martial arts in his response to the Chinese poem. Regardless of the context, I always enjoy poetry in class.


The four learning styles are not to be taken as absolute or inflexible. Learning styles are totally modifiable, where thinking styles are less modifiable and more closely related to central personality traits. Kolb's four learning styles are illustrated in the characters of Bruce Lee, the Officer who interrogated Humphrey Bogart, Peter Falk as Colombo, and Marlon Brando as the Godfather. These four characters personify each of the four thinking styles. My understanding is that each character's learning style is influenced by their thinking style. Basically, this particular style of thinker will learn most through this particular style of learning. As the imaginative learner, Bruce Lee is the diverger. He instructs his student to kick him. The student tries, but not correctly. But as the student understands that, when you point at the moon, the focus is not on your finger, he searches his imagination for meaning in Lee's lesson. Then he understands the kick. Colombo, the analytic learner, focuses on the facts: the finger print on the coin, and the time that the parking meter was in operation. He is the assimilator. He wants to find out "what." The Officer, who interrogates Bogart, wants information. He's interested in "how." He is the converger. For him, it is common sense to presume that the local American barkeeper might have some anti-Nazi acquaintances. The Godfather isn't asking any questions, he makes you an offer you can't refuse. He's a dynamic learner, the accommodator. He is a doer and a risk taker. He acts on his senses.

As one of the other people composing this Blog, I wanted ot not think too much about how I ranked my responses. I didn’t want to skew my response by over analyzing my responses, so I did the questionnaire quickly and let the indicators flow. As it turned out, not so surprisingly, that I am a Diverger. I could see this very clearly, but I don’t feel I am so creative as to have been able to have had a career in marketing, advertising or graphic artistry. I don’t’ know how this fits together, but it feel absolutely natural. (Genovefa Pinnick)

We went through some comparative break-down on the thinking of Bruner, Piaget and Vygotsky. We summarized some of the details of Vygotsky's zone of proximal development, the gap between that which has been learned and that which has not yet been learned; Piaget's three types of knowledge- Physical, Logical-Mathematical and Social and four stages of cognitive development- Sensorimotor age 1 yr., Preoperational 3-7 yrs., Concrete Operational 7-11 yrs. and Formal Operational beyond 11 yrs.; and Bruner's three modes of cognitive representation: Enactive, Iconic, and Symbolic.
The interpretations of the poem brought out the variety of thinking styles in the class, as did the Identifying Your Learning-Style Type exercise. Once I finally figured out my data point, I learned that I am an analytic learner, the Assimilator. I did not particularly enjoy traditional school though, which is one Assimilator trait.
As an example of how is was for me to actually arrive at all 36 rank numbers, I found myself questioning whether I am somewhat less a questioning or logical learner, and just how receptive I am in relation to how impartial. It was required that I have some extended time for me to prioritize all these characteristics. I finished the exercise at home. I was at times fascinated by the numerological formula used to compute the mean scale scores. It felt strange to rank in the negative integers; I scored minus four on my AE-RO.

Sterling Clark