How to cater to all learning styles

Even as children, we all respond to different methods of teaching. We learn in our own ways and what’s most effective for one learner won’t necessarily fit another. Back in 1992, the variety between learning styles was formalised in the so-called VARK model: Visual, Auditory, Reading (and Writing) and Kinaesthetic.

Most managers already understand the people learn in different ways. But when you’re equipping your team with an online platform to improve their skills, how can you keep everyone happy – and learning – at once?

The answer is simpler than you might think.

The power of video in learning

Visual learners prefer to see how ideas, concepts and skills fit together. Auditory learners like to have things explained to them verbally. And video content does both at once.

With high-quality video content, learners get meaningful messages and lessons that are easy to take away and action. If your platform includes a combination of advice from qualified experts, charts and graphs, and more lively real-world scenarios, both Visual and Auditory learners will be able to retain information for longer.

Video even caters to Reading and Writing learners – those people who like to make furious notes and read them back to really embed new ideas. It’s easy to make notes when you’re following along with video content. Ideally, this will also be supported by written factsheets, guides and how-to documents that sit alongside your video lessons.

Tailoring progress and assessments

Of course, catering to individual learning styles isn’t just about how you convey core lessons. It’s easy to miss the later stages of learning – how you assess development and show progress to keep your learners engaged.

In an offline setting, you’ll know that people respond to incentives, rewards and feedback in different ways. Similarly, the way progress is fed back on your learning platform needs to cover every type of user. For example, Visual learners respond to badges, charts and graphs about how well they’re doing. Conversely, Reading and Writing learners flourish when they’re tasked with quizzes, tests and exercises.

Catering to Kinaesthetic learners

So far, there’s one group we’ve missed out – and it’s the trickiest one to reach effectively. Kinaesthetic learners are those people who learn best by doing. They prefer to learn in real-world settings. And that’s hard when your main learning platform is online.

At Recruitment Juice, we’ve developed a few key ways of keeping Kinaesthetic learners engaged and improving.

First, we’ve made all our content uniquely accessible on every device, from desktops to smartphones. As a result, useful content is just a click (or a tap) away, so people can learn new things then immediately put them into practice. Because Juice is accessible from anywhere, recruiters can brush up on their skills on the way to a meeting, then see how they work for themselves.

We’ve also developed ready-made group sessions that let managers take learning offline. These 19 short structured training sessions give leaders all the content they need to generate discussion, provoke debate and encourage teams to share their best practice.

There’s no one-size-fits-all (or one-size-fits-one)

The Recruitment Juice platform includes content to cater for every type of learner. But what really counts is that it’s comprehensive – so people can dip into the content that’s most relevant to them in a given moment.

The truth about learning styles is, well, packed with uncertainty. Neuroscientists aren’t convinced that learning styles even exist – and, if they do, our preferences change depending on where we are, what we’re learning, and a million other criteria.

So as you strive to cater to all learning styles, remember: the most effective thing you can do is give people the flexibility and breadth of content they need to chart their own path.

Find out how Recruitment Juice encourages independent learning across a variety of content types. Click here to find out more.