Photo taken after students charted both themselves & their field instructors within the 4 categories of learning style. Source: UMN SSW
As students begin their field placements, one of the exercises they do in field seminar is completing a learning style inventory. This activity provides insight to the students to help them better understand themselves as learners. Do they learn and absorb information best through:
- listening?
- reading?
- observing?
- doing?
This information helps students develop strategies to enhance their learning potential. The questionnaire we use is self-administered and self-scoring and asks students to respond to sentence endings that relate to various types of learning.
After students complete the assessment for themselves, they ask their field instructors to complete it. Once this is done, they follow up with a discussion looking at similarities and differences between themselves and how they can best integrate both of their styles into the orientation phase and working phases of the internship and implications for supervision.