Our brains are not the same

How do you think our brains work? Do you think our brains have a certain style to how they function?

If you Google the brain and learning styles, you will be inundated with a whole host of theories on how researchers categorize the brain’s learning styles. Some of these theories can get quite esoteric, such as visual-spatial learning, mathematically intuitive and right-left hemispherical dominance.

Two preeminent forms of brain learning styles are sequential and non-sequential, or, more colloquially, linear and non-linear. Each style is governed by a person’s dominant portion of their brain. Linear learning and thinking is governed by the left side of the brain while the right side is more abstract or non-linear.

Left Versus Right

Left brain thinking is verbal, factual and analytical. Right brain thinking is non-verbal and intuitive, such as using pictures rather than words. 

Consider a left and right brained person giving directions. The left brain person may say: “Go west three blocks and turn north on Main Street. Then go 3.5 miles and then turn east onto Prince Street.”

Conversely, the right brain person may say: “See that church over there? Turn right past it and keep going until you see a doughnut shop on the right. Turn left at the stoplight past the doughnut shop and then turn right at the gas station.”

Quite a dichotomous way of giving directions to the same place, but equally significant in understanding how people think. It is important to understand that right and left brain dominant people also learn differently.

New Age View

In the New Age view of learning styles, many contemporaries have coalesced around the idea that students gain more from actual experience and interaction with their fellow students than from passively sitting and listening to lectures. That is why today, it is passé to call someone a teacher in favor of referring to them as a facilitator.

Supporters of facilitation models will postulate that students are sometimes lost when trying to follow a lecture that could use a graphic approach to better explain underlying theory.

Is this the incontrovertible truth to successful learning that eons of teachers have missed? It seems as though the New Age learning theories may be a bit tilted by some right-brained theorist, if you know what I mean.

As well, there seems be a discriminatory chasm developing for the linear thinkers and learners in lieu of an “out with the old and in with the new” attitude. It has developed to the point that some neo-educators refer to non-right brained learners as being “sequentially impaired.” I wonder if Newton, Einstein and Pythagoras would roll over in their graves at the thought of being called sequentially impaired.

Differences

In all fairness to theorists on both sides of the linear and non-linear spectrum, there is a time and a place for everything. There are times when facilitative learning fits best in learning and, more importantly, the retention of what is learned.

This holds true as well for “boring, non-linear, sequentially impaired [sic]” methods of learning and retention. It’s a matter of the learning styles and brain dominant functions of the individual or dictates of the topic.

For example, I like to tinker with my old cars. In the absence of literature or instruction manuals, there is usually a YouTube video that visually demonstrates a repair or diagnostic procedure. However, the value of a manufacturer’s shop manual with hundreds of pages of procedures and cross-references is immeasurable to assist in diagnosing and repairing a piece of machinery. 

In the classroom, learning the intricacies of the design and performance of a modern engine has its place in the learning and retention process. Likewise, hands-on demonstrations and allowing the students (sequentially impaired or not) to get their hands dirty by trying it themselves also has its value in learning and retention.

A Place

Everything also must be in its place. By this I am referring to the fact that while there are two distinct theories in learning styles, the dictates of the topic may require a combination of both linear and non-linear learning.

The reason is that with a person’s brain, whether right or left side dominant, the other side of the brain does not shut down during learning. There has to be a balance to the functioning halves of the brain, otherwise, all people could do is walk in clockwise or counterclockwise circles.

Equally, there needs to be a balance in how topics are taught and retained. A picture may be worth a thousand words, but it never tells the whole story.

For the organization, as well as the individual, finding a balance in the delivery, application and retention of learning serves in the best interest of all. Forcing non-linear processes into linear applications and vice versa is like forcing the proverbial square peg into the round hole. It can work if you make the hole big enough, but it leaves a lot of unused, wasted space. 

Paul Ulasien is president and senior partner of Business Training Consultants (www.biztrainingconsult.com). The company provides innovative and effective training strategies based on Social Learning Theory that strives to stimulate individual learning retention and then share what has been learned to individuals throughout the social fabric of the organization. Ulasien has more than 30 years of experience in training consulting and education. He serves on the Advisory Panel of Faulkner Information Services, a provider of IT and communications information services; has been an Adjunct Professor of Graduate Business Studies; and holds dual Masters Degrees in Business Administration and Industrial-Organizational Psychology.