Learning Styles and the Paramedic Student

You will spend the rest of your life...

STUDYING!!!

I had a recent discussion with a soon to be finished paramedic student about what sort of time requirements were necessary to be successful in paramedic school. The vast majority of folks I come across speak of spending a lot of time studying. I think that stems from people's uncertainty about what type of learner they are.

I think a great disservice that is done to the vast majority of learners out there is not establishing a preferred learning style early on. I'll try to explain this better, so maybe this will help.

DISCLAIMER: This is a somewhat controversial model, but its the only one I have learned, in multiple fields. I guess maybe that is why it isn't widespread in the regular education system...

Wikipedia calls it Fleming's VAK/VARK Model. The idea is that everyone has a preferred method of disseminating information.

There are three methods:

• Auditory
• Visual
• Kinesthetic

Auditory learners typically learn best by hearing things ("Can you explain that to me?"). They typically don't need to watch a speaker, and are easily distracted by background noise. Visual learners do best by seeing things. Kinesthetic learners do best by doing. Exercises, homework and practice is key for them.

A good teacher will incorporate every style into the lesson, but that doesn't help what a learner does on their own time. 

Here is a quiz from AES education planner.Org for testing learning styles.

I think that if paramedic students are aware of their specific learning style, then it will be much easier for them to focus on how they should study, instead of wasting time.

While taking National Ski Patrol Instructor Development course I found out that the vast majority of Ski Patrollers are kinesthetic learners, and the majority of NSP's curriculum is geared towards that. I wouldn't be surprised to find that Emergency Medical Professionals are much the same way.

If that was the case, it would make sense for Paramedic Education to be difficult, because a lot of Medic school is....academic, for lack of a better word, and that kind of thing is definitely hard to teach kinesthetically. That would also explain why EMTs need to be taught that being a Medic is not about the skillz.