Recently, the concept of how we understand material became important to me. I realized that my oldest child seemed to think the same way my father and I do. For us, learning is not consecutive and orderly but done in random leaps and large unrelated chunks. My father and I pull information together often from seemingly random places to create our understanding of a problem or situation.
When I realized that my daughter thought this way I decided it would be beneficial for me to understand learning styles in a more analytical fashion so that I could explain her method of learning to her schoolteachers whenever it was necessary. When I first approached the problem, I did a simple ‘search engine’ search and found the commonly known and understood concepts of learning styles, which deal primarily with how we take in information. Those learning styles are visual, verbal, kinesthetic, and tactile.
I found nothing that dealt with the understanding end of learning. I was unable to discover a search string that would bring me to that side of the issue. Then I stumbled onto global learning while researching how to teach whole language reading as opposed to phonetic reading.
I was researching the often frowned upon whole language reading method because my daughter knew her phonics inside and out and still was not reading. As a result, I wanted to study some alternatives. It was then that I discovered the term global learning style; the article suggested that global learners often don’t do well with phonetic reading because of its sequential nature; they do better when they look at reading as a whole.
Alarms went off in my mind and I excitedly typed in global learning. Bingo! We were global learners, the fact that people told us we thought backwards, and the realization that most people don’t see the world the way we do became verified by a simple statistic; only about fifteen percent of the population are strongly global learners.
The following points identify the primary characteristics of a global learner.
1.) Global learners like to see the big picture before going on to understand how it was put together and even then they aren’t interested in all the details.
2.) Global learners do not absorb information sequentially so when given information sequentially they are lost, often until the very end when suddenly all the random information clicks into place as the big picture becomes clear.
3.) Global learners often take the random information they absorb and put it together in unique ways making them good problem solvers, if you don’t expect them to map the route to the solution.
4.) Global learners often don’t ask questions at the end of class because often they don’t think of questions until later when they’ve absorbed the material for a while.
5.) The global learner’s approach can be described as intuitive.
Unfortunately, a lot of educational material is given to us only in a sequential manner. How global learners can help themselves in a classroom setting?
1.) Read the summary and other notes that are available before the lecture starts so that you have an idea of what the big picture is.
2.) Pay attention to outlines and as you are given information try to determine how it fits into the outline.
3.) Relate new information to information you already know.
4.) Try summarizing the information as you learn it.
5.) Because you understand information through comparison, seek examples of what you are studying. Ask the teacher for examples.
While there are disadvantages to a global learning style, for instance, not, actually understanding the beauty of multiplication until one is their thirties or being told (as my father often is) that ‘you think backwards.’ The advantages in creativity and the boundless connections one finds in life make it worthwhile.
