Reflective Essay on Learning Styles

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Introduction

In this modern, complex, and quickly changing world it is becoming harder to perform and adapt. We all have our strong and weak sides but that doesn’t define us. We are complex creatures with many unknown characteristics that we must try to uncover and learn to use to our advantage. We try to unravel these “Life Hacks” in our studies during lessons and it helps us to understand ourselves better.

In my portfolio, I will describe my learning styles and my personality traits that have affected me and possible solutions on what they are and how to use them. Moreover, I will explain the concept of Paradigms and give a brief overview and conclusion regarding “The Business Game”. And lastly, I will express my 3 learning “SMART” goals for the upcoming 4 years of my studies.

I hope this portfolio will give an excellent overview of myself as a scholar and my understanding of these subjects. I am glad to be making this portfolio since it will not only satisfy the school’s needs but also will help me understand myself better and will hugely impact my personal development of becoming not only a successful businessman but also a successful person in life.

Self-reflection on learning styles

What are learning styles?

The term “Learning styles” refers to unique ways that people understand what they’re being taught. There are multiple criteria regarding the learning styles of a person but the most relatable are Visual, Reader, Auditory, and Kinesthetic. The way an individual perceives information is unique. These are ways to group the complicated way of people’s learning styles to gain information and knowledge to act accordingly.

Importance of your preferred learning style

The importance of learning styles is bigger than people think. Adapting your preferred learning style is a crucial step to effectively understanding what is being taught so you can save time and learn more. This is something that has come to people’s attention only recently and a lot of people don’t want to take it into account, but it is in my opinion very important to match your learning with a suitable style. It will greatly increase your overall performance and give you an upper edge over everyone who has not suited their style accordingly.

Implications on study ability

If not considered, learning style ignorance may lead to an uneven advantage in opportunity for all the students. It will cause a major disbalance since only the students that have a certain learning style will understand the material given better than the other ones. It is crucial to consider this since everyone needs the same opportunity and it is only fair, that we all get the same treatment as others.

Self-reflection on personality traits

What are personality traits?

Personality traits reflect people’s characteristic patterns of thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. It’s unique to each specific person and cannot be duplicated. Researchers have found a way to segment these traits and to create guidelines on what they are and what approach should they take. It is made for people to understand how they should continue their life.

Understanding myself for future development in business

It is crucial to understand my personality traits so I can function as well as other people or even better. When studying yourself you’ll find answers on how to deal with life’s unpredictable obstacles. By knowing your unique traits, you can understand who you are and how you function. Moreover, you can use that to plan and approach life accordingly.

Personalities test results in relation to my future role in business

As seen in “Picture 3” my personality type is “Logistician”. I am part of the most abundant group making up around 13% of the population. My defining characteristics of integrity, practical logic, and tireless dedication to duty make me a part of this group. I believe that this is a great trait to have and will suit me the best in whatever I choose to become or do.

Understanding different personalities

When trying to understand the differences you must consider that no two people are the same. A unique way of planning and object approach is needed for every and every instance. When creating a team it’s very beneficial if there is a wide range of dominant personalities and they don’t heavily overlap each other. You achieve a wide spectrum of possibilities and all the needed traits for a successful end goal.[1]

Paradigms

The concept of Paradigms

As stated in Covey’s book 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens: “A paradigm is the way you see something, your point of view, frame of reference, or belief. As you may have noticed, our paradigms are often way off the mark, and, as a result, they create limitations.” [2] I believe this generalizes the idea of what it is. Paradigms are a way of seeing the world from your eyes and feeling the emotions that you feel. It’s something that has grown with you adapting and surviving through the things you’ve experienced.

There are many paradigms of ourselves, of others, and about life in general. For example, a person could think to himself that he can’t go to school today and stay in bed. This person in the current situation has a negative paradigm of himself since he is in disbelief. He could change his paradigm and think “I will get up and go to school today no matter what” which is a positive mindset and, in this situation, a better paradigm. When doing this he changes the way he sees and approaches things so he can get a better result. This is what a “paradigm shift” means, it changes the belief and allows for a new way of acting.

Personal examples of paradigms

When I was younger, I always thought that waiters in restaurants were some non-human working machines that were only there to do you a service. I never thought of talking to them or giving them tips, they were just plain nobodies for me. With life moving on, an opportunity appeared, and I ended up working as a waiter at a restaurant and noticed this treatment first-hand. I saw what it felt like to be treated like nobody. This made me understand that workers are people too and should be treated like such. Since I’ve noticed this, my way of treating people has changed. It’s crucial to treat everyone with respect if that’s what you want to receive in return.

A more direct incident regarding paradigm shock was when I went to the supermarket and saw a guy dressed in some very saggy and old linen clothing. I thought to myself that this guy was probably a homeless person, he was buying some cheap beers so that kind of added to that paradigm. Later on, when I had exited the store and gone to the road crossing there was a car that came to the red light and got my attention. It was, at that time, the newest Mercedes-Benz which was on my dream list of cars. As I looked in to see who the driver of the car was – my jaw dropped. It was the “homeless” guy who was buying cheap beers from inside the store. I could not believe it! My paradigm of this person had completely shifted 180°.

I concluded, that you can’t judge a book by its cover, and I have never since. It’s important to give people a chance and not to jump to conclusions or assumptions by what you’re seeing in the first moments. You would not like it if someone didn’t like you without speaking to you, it only shows how shallow of a point of view you have.

“The Business Game”

The concept of pro-activeness and reactiveness

The definition of reactive and proactive is:

Proactive: Acting before a situation becomes out of hand

When pro-acting you anticipate and solve matters before they become problems. Although this provides a lot of positive things such as the constant security or caching of everything, it could also be a bad thing since you could predict the wrong future or end up wasting time on things you don’t need.

Reactive: Reacting now rather than anticipating the future

When reacting you solve matters as they arise. This does spark creativity and you can focus on other things rather than optimizing. However, when problems appear you must deal with the sleepless nights of non-stop work.

My experience during the game

During the business game, I noticed a lot of ways of reacting and proacting in the behavior of my team members. The majority of things were done reactively. This was due to the lack of organization and management by the group leaders. People did things as they received them, they didn’t really have a chance to prepare for something they didn’t know. This was a big drawback because of the time constraint it put on people and ultimately minimized group output. However, I noticed some proactive behavior also. The group’s leaders had planned on what to do and how they will achieve that. We had a plan B for every step and in some cases, it was used.

For example, we planned 2 options to expand into new markets. The first one was to enter a new continent and the second (plan B) was to use a supermarket chain to distribute and sell our produce. When we noticed that we had problems with the first option we reacted with our plan B that we had figured out while pro-acting. In conclusion, we ended up using both ways of dealing with situations and noticed that to be a successful business we must use both ways in harmony to create the perfect balance

My top 3 “Take-aways”

You should always investigate other options and exits for situations and not always immediately react. There is a skill in also foreseeing the future and preparing for the unseeable. In short, try to acknowledge the bigger picture before you act.
You should try to balance the pro-activeness and reactiveness and try to master the art. At first, it might seem difficult but, in the end, it will be totally worth the time invested in learning to use these skills appropriately.
You should try to include everyone in the picture you have in your head. Everyone is a part of something, and we all are a part of a mechanism. If one of the gears is in the wrong place it could cause the system to not function, get damaged, or even break!

Learning and Development

My 3 learning “SMART” goals

My learning and development goals

What does it look like if I have realized it
How can I see I make progress?
Who/what can help me?
What are my first steps?

Improving my ability to feel comfortable in front of an audience.

I look like a confident and successful presenter and I’m able to create connections more easily.

You can witness it first-hand when speaking to a group of people as you go.

Improving the paradigm of myself to be more open and unfearful.

Practicing in front of an audience and gradually increasing the amount of people in it.

Trying not to be too picky about small details that don’t matter in the end.

I look like a well-balanced and mannered teammate and can perform tasks in less time.

By observing how long you take to decide.

Knowing what I want beforehand and deciding faster on the most viable option.

To start with the simplest things in my daily routine in choosing and selecting.

Improve the ability to work with teammates in group projects.

I look like an effective and knowledgeable teammate who has no trouble connecting and working with people in the group.

By joining groups and listening to the feedback given or even just through self-observation.

Socializing more in your daily routine and/or joining communities (maybe even hobby-related) to try to perform tasks in groups that are fun but practical.

To find a good community that will help me in practice being a teammate.

Bibliography

“https://smallbusiness.chron.com/importance-different-personalities-workplace-10733.html” – 10.13.2019 [ONLINE]
Book: Covey (1998) “7 habits of highly effective teens”
“https://medium.com/hacking-and-gonzo/reactive-vs-proactive-development-180017c47fda” – 10.13.2019 [ONLINE]
https://www.howtolearn.com/learning-styles-quiz/?s=4 -10.14.2019 [ONLINE]
http://resources.eln.io/honey-mumford-learner-types-1986-questionnaire-online/ – 10.14.2019 [ONLINE]
https://www.16personalities.com/free-personality-test – 10.14.2019 [ONLINE] Rotterdam, The Netherlands 2019

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