Understanding how your brain works, what type of learner you are and your comparative strengths in different types of intelligence can make a big difference to your life.
Some people are mainly sequential (left-brain) learners, others mainly simultanaeous (right-brain) learners, while others are very much in the middle. Of course, this is a gross oversimpliciation, but you may still find it useful.
LEFT BRAIN
Facts
Logic
Words
Details
Names
Practical
Order
Safety
RIGHT BRAIN
Imagination
Feelings
Pictures
Big Picture
Faces
Fantasy
Chaos
Risk Taking
Which type of learner are you?
AUDITORY LEARNERS learn and remember through the sense of hearing.
VISUAL LEARNERS learn and remember through the sense of sight, preferring pictures, images or diagrams.
VERBAL LEARNERS learn and remember through the sense of sight, preferring words.
LOGICAL LEARNERS learn and remember through using logic and reasoning.
TACTILE-KINAESTHETIC LEARNERS learn and remember through the sense of touch and body movement.
COMPETITIVE LEARNERS learn better when they are able to compete against other people.
COLLABORATIVE LEARNERS learn better when working with other people.
SOLITARY LEARNERS learn better when working on their own.
HIGH-STIMULATION LEARNERS learn better in a high-stimulation environment.
LOW-STIMULATION LEARNERS learn better in a low-stimulation environment.
Leading on from this we can consider Howard Gardner's theory of Multiple Intelligences.
Gardner defines eight different types of intelligence:
Schools, by their very nature, cater for left-brained auditory learners with linguistic and logical-mathematical intelligence.
But being strong in other forms of intelligence or learning in a different way is no bar to success later in life.
David Beckham and Wayne Rooney may not pass many A Levels but with their combination of bodily-kinaesthetic, spatial and interpersonal intelligence they've done pretty well for themselves.
Britain's two best known businessmen, Sir Alan Sugar and Sir Richard Branson, are both dyslexic.
And such famous figures as Einstein, Churchill and Edison all had, to a greater or lesser degree, problems at school.
By discovering your own strengths and weaknesses, and your preferred styles of learning, you can help yourself enormously, both with schoolwork and with homework.