When it comes to information absorption, we must be resourceful in finding ways to capture attention and engagement. This is where mixing and matching different learning styles and mediums comes into play. It’s not necessarily that any of these styles and mediums are scientifically better than others, but sometimes we can burn out, grow bored, or simply not care when something is presented in a way that we don’t like or prefer. Thus, we present a couple of different models for different styles and mediums: active versus reflective, sensing versus intuitive, visual versus verbal/other, and sequential versus global, as well as the dubious knowledge of the learning pyramid, which contains listening, reading, audio/visual, demonstration, discussion, real-life experience, and teaching others. Remember, the myth of learning styles is just that—a myth.

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Sequential versus global. This pair of learning approaches is parallel to sensing/intuitive. The sequential learner needs order and logical procession. They get knowledge in a linear fashion, one piece at a time, and each piece of knowledge is a reasonable extension from the one that came before. Sequential learners solve problems by following a series of ordered directions, advancing within them one by one.

Global learners are less systematic. They learn things on the fly as they occur and can’t necessarily describe the smaller particulars of the subject they learn. They tend to respond to leaping from topic to topic, and don’t always see how each topic connects at first. But somehow, they eventually “get it.” Their natural inclination to learn in a more accidental way allows them to form unusual relationships between individual schools of thought and knowledge, which in turn helps them solve more intricate and complicated issues in unexpected ways.

For example, in learning how to be a better public speaker, a sequential learner would want to progress step by step. They’d take one aspect at a time: writing a speech, changing vocal tone, using gestures, reading an audience—each facet of public speaking would be revealed in logical order and dealt with one at a time. A global learner would fling themselves out there and learn in practice without pondering each step. They’d dive into public speaking and analyze their overall skills in larger groups, fine-tuning the aspects gradually but separately.

By actively planning your learning, you are putting yourself in the best position for success. Whatever keeps your attention is what causes the best learning.

Next, we turn our sights to the learning pyramid. The learning pyramid is a well-known visual aid that ranks all learning methods in order of how much knowledge students retain using each strategy.

The pyramid suggests that students retain 5% of what they learn in a lecture, 20% from audiovisual sources, 75% in practice, and so forth. The pyramid is divided between passive and active learning, with the top four tiers of lecture, reading, audiovisual learning, and demonstration identified as “passive.” The bottom three layers of discussion, practice, and teaching others are described as “active.”

It’s theoretical, and most education experts dispute its applicability across the board. There is no real concrete, scientific proof that the learning pyramid is accurate.

Nevertheless, I like the idea. There’s nothing in the explanation of the learning pyramid that seems outrageously wrong, and I agree that mixing up mediums of learning is a very good idea. Again, it comes down to what keeps you engaged and focused, and the more active the type of learning, the more engaged you will be. Use all of the types of learning in the pyramid and you are bound to absorb information better—even if only out of novelty and surprise!

Here’s a breakdown of each of the tiers of the pyramid.

Listening to lectures (5% retention). The type of learning that has the least effect on memorization is the good ole professor standing at the lectern. This way of learning is increasingly becoming trivial as technology advances. I’m not entirely convinced that’s not just an excuse for not showing up to class, but I understand the thinking.

In the specific area of skill acquisition, there aren’t a lot of situations where classic lectures are an integral component—perhaps a class instructor explaining the spiritual background of yoga or an auto shop teacher explaining how an engine works. Generally, discourses about the theory of a certain skill are limited to the very beginning of your instruction. Theory is helpful and important to know, but only for background, context, and general comprehension of significance.

Reading (10% retention). There’s no question that reading books about a certain subject, especially ones about the skill you’re learning, is a vital component. You can find plenty of publications that contain valuable information: how-to books on carpentry, step-by-step manuals on self-defense, strategic volumes on real estate negotiating, even regular periodicals on fishing and landscaping. It’s always better to have too much information handy than not enough.

But all the reading in the world by itself may not help you master a skill. You’ll have to put it into practice. Even though reading is defined as “passive” learning, one needs to make it as active as one can by connecting the material you’re reading to your own ideas, observations, and life experiences. That’s true for all reading.

Audio/visual learning (20% retention). This is learning by watching or listening to programs about your topic of interest—perhaps books on tape about political history for those trying to build up debate skills or YouTube demonstration videos on cooking.

You can access enough audiovisual material over your phone and laptop—even your car. It’s certainly true that online course modules like Udemy and Coursera offer A/V materials in a very organized fashion for the topic or skill you want to learn. I’m skeptical it’s that much more memorable than active reading, but I agree that, as a passive learning plank, it’s a good one. Strictly defined, a skill is doing something, so it’s great to watch someone because it’s easier to directly emulate them.

Demonstration (30% retention). This is the live performance of a certain task right in front of you, like a cooking demonstration at a supermarket or welding wires together with a soldering iron. Demonstrations are the heart of private lesson teachers and adult classes. They’re obviously more memorable than prerecorded A/V materials because they happen right in your presence and you can actually ask questions of the person doing the demonstration. It’s a big building block of mentoring and coaching, where you’re shown how to do something and then compelled to do it yourself.

Group discussion (50% retention). This is the first example of active learning in the pyramid, where you converse with a few others who are learning the skill you’re taking up. This could be a roundtable with green thumbs who are trying to build a vegetable garden from scratch or a group of Spanish language students who get together and practice with each other. You are able to exchange ideas and thoughts and clear up misconceptions as they occur. You can compare experiences. A writing group, for example, can reveal how other writers approach the same subject from different points of view, raising questions about the subject you may not have thought about.

In particular, discussing your skill with people of different levels—both above and below you—facilitates better practicing and comprehension. When you seek to teach someone less skilled or knowledgeable, you can organize your thoughts and simplify matters for yourself. When you seek to learn from someone more skilled or knowledgeable, well, that’s the whole point.

Real-life experience (75% retention). Getting under the hood of the car to perform maintenance, knitting a sweater, playing piano to an audience, building a treehouse—actually using your hands to finish a task is the surest way to master it over time. These examples reinforce how your skill actually gets executed in the real world, not in a theoretical or abstract way.

You get a better understanding of the real purpose of your skill and learn firsthand how to handle stress and solve problems in an unambiguous manner. All the reading and lectures in the world won’t quite do simple hands-on experience justice.

Teaching others about your real-life experience (90% retention). The learning pyramid maintains that the best way to retain what you learn is by becoming a teacher yourself, in a sense. This could be giving a talk on your experiences as a mountain climber or starting a blog about filmmaking techniques you’ve employed. By verbalizing your experience, you help it resound with yourself as well as others.

When you articulate the methods you use and the experience you obtain, you find out what you know and don’t know in quick order. As you become aware of these issues and solve them, you’re able to organize your own thoughts much more effectively than when you began.

Without a doubt, teaching is one of the most involved, participatory, and non-passive types of interactions with new information we can have. Like self-explanation and the Feynman technique (covered in a later chapter), teaching someone not only roots information in your mind, but also forces you to see what you truly can explain and what you can’t. Teaching yourself is good; teaching others is even better.

Teaching exposes the gaps in your knowledge. Having to instruct and explain doesn’t let you hide behind generalizations: “Yeah, I know all about how that works. I’ll skip it for now.” That won’t fly if you’re explaining a process to someone else—you have to know how every step works and how each step relates to another. You’ll also be forced to answer questions about the information you’re teaching.

Having to explain what’s going on is essentially a test of your knowledge, and you either know it or you don’t. If you can’t explain to someone how to replicate something you are teaching, then you actually don’t know it.

Let’s take photography as an example. According to the learning pyramid, reading and lecturing combined take up 15% of your retained knowledge, which makes sense: there’s only so much you can learn about photography from a textbook or a lecture. Audiovisual aids and seeing demonstrations—what certain angles look like, how to use computers to filter a print—are yet more helpful in learning to take and process certain pictures. A group discussion about photography would unlock some memorable ideas, and of course, spending the time to practice taking and developing pictures makes solid impressions on your experience.

Now let’s examine the bottom (or top, depending on your view) part of the pyramid related to teaching others. You’re reinforcing the basic knowledge in others and explaining the principles, types, and general guidelines of photography. Theoretically, you’re overseeing all the upper (or lower) segments of the pyramid for students and using your knowledge of the photography process as a guidepost for all of them. And this doesn’t even include the pre-instruction time when you’re preparing for your own class.

All those teaching activities are active agents that call upon what you already know—and the act of pulling something out of your brain rather than putting stuff into it turns out to be incredibly important in learning, skill acquisition, memory, and any type of improvement.

That’s exactly what’s happening with the higher levels of the pyramid. You’re extracting from your previously learned knowledge, interpreting it, and reshaping it for others to understand and learn. In turn, that reinforces what you know and deepens your experience a little in the process.

It’s common that you even surprise yourself and find additional insights by explaining and reasoning out loud in a way that simplifies and condenses. Teaching forces you to create bite-sized chunks and teach replication—a task you may find far different than explaining theories or concepts.

Using these methods and mediums in combination, both from the learning pyramid and the Solomon-Felder index of learning preferences, and getting them to play well together can make for a compelling learning experience that will enrich your understanding, skill, and talent.

Say you want to learn to make sushi. Start with cookbooks and lectures on the theory and history of sushi. Sprinkle in some YouTube videos that show sushi preparation on camera and check out the documentary Jiro Dreams of Sushi, which depicts the daily life of one of the greatest sushi chefs in Japan. Any aspiring sushi chef must also attend an up-close demonstration and class, and no doubt you’ll be doing some hands-on efforts in that class as well. You can discuss techniques with other people in your class. And when you’ve gotten enough experience under your belt, you could attempt to teach your friends how to make sushi or make videos yourself.

Joining together all of these various activities into an organized plan is a near-certain way to ensure effective learning and eventual expertise in a skill.

To end this chapter, it might be helpful to touch upon the myth of learning styles as we mentioned earlier. The theory (myth, really) says some students learn better when the material is presented visually, while others prefer verbally, logically, or some other manner.

But does science exist that supports tailoring learning styles? In other words, are some people’s brains just wired differently in this regard so that information ceases to become information if it isn’t presented in the right style? Well, the learning styles in discussion are well known, and in an anecdotal way, they even make logical sense:

• Visual (spatial): Prefers learning through images, pictures, colors, and maps.

• Aural (auditory-musical): Leans toward learning through hearing sound and music.

• Verbal (linguistic): Chooses to use words, in both speech and writing—books, lectures, etc.

• Physical (kinesthetic): Prefers using the body, hands, and sense of touch. Typically enjoys sports and exercises.

• Logical (mathematical): Favors logic, reasoning, and systems, particularly finding patterns and connections between unrelated elements.

• Social (interpersonal): Likes to learn in group settings with open communication and exchange with others.

• Solitary (interpersonal): Tends to be more private and independent as well as self-reflective and personal.

It’s not a stretch to say that some students consciously like some ways of learning over others. I certainly enjoy some activities better than others and, in doing so, may create a self-fulfilling prophecy for myself based on enjoyment. There are even some biological factors that appear to support the theory, as there are different brain structures for each of these types of functions that the learning style corresponds to:

• Visual: The occipital lobes at the back of the brain manage the visual sense. Both the occipital and parietal lobes manage spatial orientation.

• Aural: The temporal lobes handle aural content. The right temporal lobe is especially important for music.

• Verbal: The temporal and frontal lobes, especially two specialized regions called Broca’s and Wernickeï’s areas.

• Physical: The cerebellum and the motor cortex (at the back of the frontal lobe) handle much of our physical movement.

• Logical: The parietal lobes, especially the left side, drive our logical thinking.

• Social: The frontal and temporal lobes handle much of our social activities. The limbic system (not shown apart from the hippocampus) also influences both the social and solitary styles. The limbic system has a lot to do with emotions, moods, and aggression.

• Solitary: The frontal and parietal lobes, and the limbic system, are also active with this style.

But?

There’s no actual scientific evidence to suggest that the brain works in such fragmented ways. The only data produced to support the theory is presented by poorly run studies or misinterpretation of certain conclusions. The myth—or neuromyth—of learning styles is starting to meet more resistance lately, but there’s still an adherence to the idea. In fact, there’s plenty of evidence to suggest that all learning styles are equally effective when you account for attention and preference.

Paul Howard-Jones, a researcher at Bristol University, said that tailoring learning styles and other neuromyths are “misconception(s) generated by a misunderstanding, a misreading, or a misquoting of facts scientifically established by brain research to make a case for use of brain research in education or other contexts.”

There’s a risk in assuming that there’s only one style that we should adhere to. We’d be doing a disservice to our range of ability and missing out on other potentially effective methods and mediums. Such an opinion tends to become a self-fulfilling prophecy in that you’ll only pay attention to one method and reject the others. That can only work to your detriment.

If you seek to learn in only one style, your options will be limited. Your options may even be terrible, whereas materials in other styles might be far superior. There is also the benefit of mixing and matching different types of media to gain full perspective of whatever you are trying to learn.

This same approach can be used in any subject that’s got enough audio, visual, and textual content to use in learning. Frankly, there aren’t many that don’t. History, mathematics, foreign languages, music, and even practical arts like woodworking or computer skills all have various forms of media with valuable information. Incorporate it into your study plans as much as you like, and don’t feel the need to chain yourself to a categorization that has no scientific basis, no matter how logical it may appear to be.