Ep.3 VARK

Chicken Mind Nuggets.

Hosted by Wifey

Chickenmindnuggets.com

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@mindchicken

References for this episode

http://vark-learn.com/introduction-to-vark/the-vark-modalities/

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Introduction music graciously provided by

Music from https://filmmusic.io
"Thinking Music" by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.com)
License: CC BY (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

Show script: (may differ slightly from spoken word)

VARK stands for Visual, Audible, Read/Write, Kinesthetic and was developed by two people named Fleming and Mills. The acronym describes how people learn, and most people are a combination of two or more of these learning styles depending on the situation. You may be a great audible learner at a lecture, but are very visual and kinesthetic if you have to fix your car or computer. If your visual, that means you need to see it to remember it. If you are audible, that means you need to hear it to remember it. If you are read/write, then you have to write it down in order to remember it and if you are kinesthetic then you have to do it to remember it. This isn’t a learning gold standard, it’s just a way to help people understand how they retain information. The problem with this is no one is asked how they learn best and some people don’t even know.

I am a visual/kinesthetic learner and need to watch and get my hands on something in order for me to remember it and comfortably know how to do it. My old friend trained me in a position to his standards without ever asking me how I learn. His expectations were that I watch him once and remember how to do it weeks later and if I hesitated then I was not performing to his standards. Maybe passive-aggressively, I helped to develop a VARK course for work, based on the years of criticism he gave me for not performing to his expectations. The class went over really well and I am in a new area where I get to get my hands-on things and I don’t have negative people, like my old friend, who won’t let anyone work on anything where I could end up being better than him. He’s still in this ego mindset.

How often do you ask someone how do you learn? Were you ever asked that at a job when you were training? If you were asked, would you have known the answer and if you did, do you think your trainer could have adjusted their training to meet your needs?

Training is not for the trainer. A trainer should not say you have to do things my way or you won’t learn at all. Remember hearing, “you need to write this down” and it was an expectation that you did in order to please the teacher, but there was the one kid who never did and was always able to retain the information?

Here’s where it gets beyond work and the classroom. Your upbringing and the influences you have on the people in your life are retained by them, based off of how they learn. Someone might remember what you said, or someone might remember what you did, and you might remember what someone looked like or what they did to you. VARK is a powerful model that lets us understand our language in how we help and unintentionally hinder others. Have you ever asked your child how they learn best? Maybe the differences in memory is because someone remembers what you looked like, when you did that stupid thing you can’t get out of your head and you remember what you and everyone else did.