Acquiring Information:  Learning Styles

One of the most common and widely used learning styles models is Neil Fleming’s VAK (and later VARK—R=Read/Write) model. Fleming, a teacher in New Zealand, created this model (updating the VAK model in 1987) to explain why different people learn differently.

Below are the three learning styles widely accepted by psychologists and their frequency and characteristics.

Visual Learners

• 60–65% of the population.
• Learn best by seeing information presented in pictures, charts, graphics, illustrations, or diagrams.
• Remember details in picture form.
• Are able to create strong visualizations of sizes, shapes, textures, and depth in their minds.
• Pay close attention to the body language and facial expressions of others.
• Have a keen awareness of the aesthetics of the physical environment.
• Read or watch TV to relax.
• Remember people’s faces better than their names.
• Need an organized space to concentrate.
• Solve problems by writing out possible solutions.

Auditory Learners

• 30% of the population.
• Learn best by hearing information and memorizing sounds.
• Have strong language skills including a well-developed vocabulary, appreciation for words, and talent for foreign languages.
• Are interesting and articulate conversationalists.
• Are musically talented:  can hear tones, rhythms, and individual notes.
• Are easily distracted by noises.
• Listen to music or the radio to relax.
• Remember people’s names better than their faces.
• Learn new ideas from audio tapes.
• Solve problems by talking through possible solutions.

Kinesthetic Learners

• 5–10% of the population.
• Learn best by moving their bodies and through physical interaction.
• Are hands-on learners.
• Wiggle, tap feet, or move legs when sitting.
• Were often labeled “hyperactive” as children.
• Are good at working with tools and their hands.
• Play sports or do physical activity to relax.
• Remember people by recalling things they did with them.
• Are distracted by moving people when concentrating.
• Learn about a new idea by going to a seminar.
• Solve problems through hands-on experience.

Applying Information:  Types of Intelligence

Howard Gardner, an American developmental psychologist and Harvard University professor, originally conceptualized his theory on multiple intelligences as a way to merge art with psychology, not as a means of determining learning styles in an educational setting, which is how this theory is frequently used today. His book Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences, explains that there is not just one type of intelligence, but many. He defines intelligence as “…the human ability to solve problems or to make something that is valued in one or more cultures.”

Gardner initially identified seven different kinds of intelligence, but has since identified two others for a total of nine. Below is a summary of these various intelligences.

Verbal/Linguistic Intelligence: Word Smart
Ability to express yourself through language.

• Think in words.
• Are sensitive to the meaning, sounds, rhythm, and order of words.
• Have highly developed auditory skills.
• Play with sound in language.
• Enjoy storytelling, creative writing, poetry, jokes, humor, puzzles, riddles, and reading.
• Love seeing, saying, and hearing words.

Mathematical/Logical Intelligence: Number Smart
Ability to understand the underlying principles of systems and discern logical or numerical patterns.

• Think conceptually.
• Are skilled in reasoning, logic, problem solving, mathematics, and other complex logical systems.
• Explore patterns, categories, and relationships.
• Question and wonder about natural events.
• Enjoy number games, problem solving, pattern games, and experimenting.
• Have strong reasoning skills and ask questions in a logical manner.
• Like order and step-by-step directions.

Spatial/Visual Intelligence: Picture Smart
Ability to perceive and present the visual world accurately and recreate or alter it in the mind.

• Think in images and pictures.
• Produce clear visual images in their mind.
• Know the location of everything.
• Enjoy creating visual patterns and need visual stimulation.
• Are daydreamers.

Body/Kinesthetic Intelligence: Body Smart
Ability to use one’s body and handle objects in a skilled way, for self-expression or towards a goal.

• Process knowledge through bodily sensation.
• Have excellent motor skills and coordination.
• Have gut feelings about things.
• Need to move around (often labeled as hyperactive).
• Are athletic and active.
• Enjoy creative dramatics, role-playing, dancing, and expressing themselves through movement and body actions.
• Learn through physical movement and from touching and feeling.
• Use movement, gestures, and physical expression to learn and solve problems.
• May touch when talking.

Musical/Rhythmic Intelligence: Music Smart
Ability to understand, appreciate, and create music; ability to hear, recognize, and manipulate patterns.

• Think in sounds, rhythms, and patterns.
• Sing, hum, and whistle to themselves.
• Immediately respond to music.
• Perform and appreciate music.
• Are sensitive to environmental sounds: crickets, bells, alarms, ambient music, etc.
• Have strong opinions on music.
• Enjoy playing instruments, singing songs, drumming.
• Like the sounds of the human voice, environmental sounds, and instrumental sounds.
• Learn easier if things are set to music or to a beat.

Interpersonal/Social Intelligence: People Smart
Ability to understand other people—their moods, desires, and motivations.

• Think and process by relating, cooperating, and communicating with others.
• Are natural leaders.
• Sense feelings and intentions of others; are intuitive.
• Understand people; mediate conflicts.
• Are skilled at organizing, coordinating, and manipulating people.
• Are street smart.
• Have many friends.
• Are very social.
• Enjoy being part of a group.
• Can help peers work cooperatively with others.

Intrapersonal/Individualistic Intelligence: Self Smart
Ability to understanding one’s self, emotions, feelings, strengths, weaknesses, identity, and purpose.

• Are skilled in inner focusing.
• Have a deep awareness of inner feelings, dreams, and ideas.
• Are reflective, analytical, self-motivated, and individualistic.
• Prefer individual/solitary activities to group/team activities.
• Recognize self strengths and weaknesses.
• Require private space and time.
• Like to work independently.
• Understand their own feelings, motivations, and moods.

Naturalist/Environmental Intelligence: Nature Smart
Ability to recognize and classify plants, minerals, animals, and cultural artifacts; knowledge of relationships in nature.

• Sensitive to nature.
• Understand environmental systems.

Existential/Spiritual Intelligence: Spirit Smart
Ability to pose and ponder questions about the meaning of life and the structure of the universe and consciousness and to understand philosophical and theological issues.

• Are curious about the universe, consciousness, and the meaning of life.
• Seek connection/communion with a higher power.

Check out these online tests to find your learning style and type of intelligence:

• LDPride Learning Styles (http://ldpride.net/learning-style-test.html)
• My Personality (http://www.mypersonality.info/multiple-intelligences/)
• BGFL (http://www.bgfl.org/bgfl/custom/resources_ftp/client_ftp/ks3/ict/multiple_int/)

Related articles

• An Introduction to ‘Multiple Intelligences’ (howardgardnerindiatour.wordpress.com)
• Gardner’s Theory of Multiple Intelligences (psychology.about.com)
• Dr. Howard Gardner on Multiple Intelligences (greeneyezwinkin2.wordpress.com)
• Is The Concept Of Learning Styles Really “Nonsense”? (kumardeepak.wordpress.com)

 Understanding your brain dominance, and therefore what knowledge and skills come easily to you, can be a huge benefit in many areas of life, especially career. Below are a couple personality systems based on brain dominance, and three online tests to find out your brain type.

Katherine Benziger is a psychologist with over 25 years experience with personality assessing for business based on brain dominance theory. Her system focuses on wellness and places a strong emphasis on avoiding falsifying one’s type. She believes each person has one natural mode (brain area), but can develop competencies in other modes with practice.

Below is a table describing the four brain regions and how they compare to Myers-Briggs typology. In addition to these four types, there are also combinations: dual- and whole-brained competencies.

Brain typing is another personality assessment system, which was developed in the late 1970s by Jon Niednagel, a sports coach, who observed that children with similar personalities had similar motor skills. This emphasis on motor skills is how this system differs from other typologies. It recognizes 16 types, like the Myers-Briggs typology system.

The below table describes the eight functions that are matched together to create these 16 brain types:

And lastly, some keyword traits for left brain vs. right brain dominance:

To find out your brain dominance, check out these three free online tests:

Similar Minds: http://similarminds.com/brain.html

The Art Institute of Vancouver: http://www.wherecreativitygoestoschool.com/vancouver/left_right/rb_test.htm

Brain Types: http://braintypes.com/questionnaire.asp

Related articles

• Left Brain | Right Brain (saralarin.wordpress.com)
• Types and The Brain

For more information:

SpiralDynamicsOverview

SpiralNurturing

Where do you see yourself in the spiral?

The tarot is a deck of 78 cards that emerged in the Middle Ages as a card game, then later became known as a fortune-telling device. Nowadays, it is also often seen as a personal development tool to use with visualizations and journaling.

There are three parts to a tarot deck: the Major Arcana, 22 “big-picture” themes representing archetypal energies; the Minor Arcana, 40 “everyday challenges” cards divided into four suits, which differ depending upon the deck (pentacles/diamonds/earth, swords/spades/air, cups/hearts/water, and wands/clubs/fire); and the Court Cards, 16 “people cards” (page, knight, queen, and king) also divided into the four suits. This allows for a broad range of images and situations to explore.

The Court Cards are ideal for depicting Myers-Briggs type: 16 cards and 16 types. And, the Enneagram types, along with the wings, correspond to the Major Arcana cards (archetypal energies = your motivations and values). The Court Cards Correspondences Table gives the relationship between Myers-Briggs type and the cards, along with examples, and the Major Arcana Cards Meanings and Correspondences Table gives detailed information on how Enneagram type relates to the cards.

So, who are you in the tarot?

Your Mission Statement is a primary way to figure this out. It is a declaration of what your life is about and the legacy you want to leave. It gives meaning to your life, and directs, guides, and motivates you even when times are tough. It includes your Passions: knowledge, values, and skills/strengths and Goals/Aspirations/Dreams for the future. Below are some exercises to help you craft your Mission Statement.

1. Who/What/When/Where/Why/How

• Who—Choose a simple phrase as a metaphor for who you want to be in life (e.g., “I’m the …”: fountain of wisdom, teacher of teachers, butterfly of hope”, etc.)
• What—What general theme/focus/goal that is important to you? (e.g., promoting safety, inspiring creativity, healing trauma from violence, giving love, etc.)
• When—Is there a periodic cycle involved? (e.g., every festival, in the mornings, etc.)
• Where—What sector/area of life/cause is important to you? (e.g., environment, development, education, health, your community, etc.)
• Why—What are your core values (the things you can’t live without)? (e.g., creativity, fitness, truth, order, freedom, play, etc.)
• How—What are your skills—the things you’re best at? (e.g., writing, persuading, building, connecting, etc.)

2. The 90-year-old Me

Imagine yourself at 90 years old or so, having lived a full, long life that you’re extremely satisfied with. Looking back, how would you answer these questions:

• What am I most proud of in my life?
• What matters most to me?
• How did I really make a difference?
• When people think about me, how do they talk about me and describe me?
• What were my greatest lessons? How did I use that knowledge in my life?

3. The Fun, Free Me

How would you answer these questions about how you find happiness in the present:

• What do you do when you loose track of time? (How are you “in the Flow”?)
• What things do you notice that others may not?
• What do you love doing?
• What sparks your creativity?
• What would you do if you knew you couldn’t fail?
• What is your ideal day like? (What are you doing? Who are you with? Where are you?)
• What are your five strongest memories that immediately come to mind of happy times in your life? (What were you doing? Who were you with? Where were you?)

Now, once you’ve found some of these answers, it’s time to craft your Mission Statement. This is a sentence on who you want to be in life, how you ideally see yourself. Using a metaphor from the above “Who” question, begin to write your statement. Include the Who, What, and Why, and ideally How, if you know it, answers. Then, use this statement to periodically edit as necessary until you find a sentence that gives meaning and guidance to who you are and what you strive for in life this year and beyond.

Related articles

• A Girl On A Mission: How To Write A Personal Mission Statement! (galadarling.com)

Another recent Smithsonian lecture I attended was on cyborgs—past, present, and future. A cyborg is a genetically enhanced human, a person with both biological and artificial parts—and they’re everywhere now, not just in science fiction movies!

Past

Perhaps the first representation of a cyborg in media was the monster Frankenstein, who was created from reanimated dead tissue. Later, Edgar Allen Poe dealt with that issue in The Man That Was Used Up about a man with extensive prostheses. In 1960, the term was coined to use in relation to space flight. It was decided that it would be best/most efficient to modify man to adapt to space versus adapting an environment in space to human needs. The question then became how to merge technology into the body. This possibility of reengineering the human body was investigated extensively in the 1960s with NASA’s “Engineering Man for Space”, the 1963 Cyborg Study.

Throughout the 1970s and 1980s up until present day, cyborgs have been popping up in television shows and movies more and more: Star Wars’ Darth Vader, Star Trek’s Data and Borg, Battlestar Gallactica’s cylons, the Terminator, the Six Million Dollar Man, Gattaca, Iron Man, and many others.

Present/Future

Now, artificial limbs and hearts, implants, knee replacements, pacemakers, and cochlear implants, among other medical advances, are accepted as quite common. What will the future hold? Transhumanism? A larger role for artificial intelligence and augmented reality? Cryogenics? Natural evolution? Only time will tell.

Related articles

• Cyborgs in New Media (engl293introtodigitalmedia.wordpress.com)
• Canadian Cyborg Documents The Reality Behind Today’s Cyborg Tech (singularityhub.com)
• 90 Cyborg Prosthetic Innovations – Robert Spence TEDxTO Speaker Presents His Bionic Implants View (TrendHunter.com) (trendhunter.com)

The chart of Enneagram Type Development details the three levels of development, the purpose, and the lesson for each type.

Related articles

• Enneagram: The Basics of Personality (aloftyexistence.wordpress.com)

Humanistic Psychology is a branch of Psychology that focuses on human potential and the healthy, whole person. American Psychologist Abraham Maslow formulated his Hierarchy of Needs diagram to explain the various levels of needs we all have, culminating in Self-Actualization—the full realization of one’s potential (or Transcendence, a future level added later).

Characteristics of Self-Actualized People

• Accepting and Realistic—Respectful of others, objective, nondiscriminative, compassionate, embracing and enjoying all cultures
• Problem Solving—Concerned with helping others and solving problems in the world, responsible, ethical
• Spontaneous—Open, creative, original, unconventional, true to self, sense of humor
• Independent—Comfortable being alone, nonconformist, form own opinions and views, a few close friends rather than many surface relationships
• Appreciative—View world with wonder and awe, curious, interested in everything
• Have Peak Experiences—Experience moments of intense joy, awe, and ecstasy, which inspire and transform them

Related articles

• Abraham Maslow’s Unfinished Projects (psychologytoday.com)
• Social Networks: What Maslow Misses (mprcenter.org)
• The Notion of Self-Actualization (listentomethunder.wordpress.com)

You can use the gifts of your various subpersonalities to overcome challenges in life to achieve your full potential. Need to incorporate some discipline and structure into your life, where is Saturn located? Are other planets/energies combined with it? Saturn with Mercury could mean you need to plan more; Saturn with Venus, that you could use some help from a counselor or friends to get back on track. Or, maybe you need more action or change in your life. Where are Mars and Pluto? Have fun exploring the possibilities of the many combinations.

To learn more about what each planet means and possible subpersonalities for these energies, see Astrological Planets, Meanings, and Subpersonality Possibilities and apply it to your birth chart to get to know more about your many miniselves.

It has been called “Psychology with a Soul”, as it integrates a spiritual dimension into the understanding of the Self for both personal and spiritual development. Psychosynthesis recognizes various levels of consciousness and two stages of development that often overlap: Personal and Transpersonal (Spiritual). A major emphasis is placed on the spiritual part of our identity—our Higher Self, or our personal experience of Spirit.

Psychosynthesis was developed by Italian psychiatrist Roberto Assagioli in 1910 to merge the grounding, reflective process of psychology with the deeper, soul aspect of spiritualism. It is the forerunner of Humanistic Psychology and Transpersonal Psychology.

Some of the goals of Psychosynthesis are the following:

• Create self-awareness and discover our spiritual nature and potential.
• Enhance the full range of human experience and support our movement toward self-realization.
• Make the subpersonalities/roles creative and helpful in our life.
• Integrate personality through self-realization, self-actualization, and spiritual (transpersonal) development.

Working with our subpersonalities is a five-stage process:

1. Recognition
2. Acceptance
3. Coordination
4. Integration
5. Synthesis

According to Psychosynthesis, we create our own problems. We must have awareness and will to change/get unstuck. Will, imagination, and intuition are all necessary. Wants are an external manifestation of subpersonalities that mask needs.

Subpersonalities want to transform/evolve themselves and integrate to become whole. Once all our subpersonalities are integrated, we are able to experience a new level of growth on our journey of evolution.

Related articles

• Psychosynthesis and the Inner World (thejungian.com)
• Symbols of the Inner World (thejungian.com)