fbpx

Take the Test   /    Login

Empowering Learners and Educators

Smart
Learning

Matters

Using the Neuro Sciences and the Enneagram, LearnSmartly helps Learners develop valuable lifelong learning skills. Educators are equipped with the tools and skills to increase learning outcomes

black-businesswoman-keyboards-on-laptop-computer-RXTPFFR.jpg
Play Video

Learning Preferences

Deepening your self-understanding can be valuable in discovering your Learning Preferences and helping you choose the best approach to learning new material.

We all have different Learning Preferences, and, if we understand them, they can help us find the optimal way to absorb, retain and recall whatever content we need to learn. This helps us on the quest to becoming lifelong learners – essential in our modern world.

At times, you may encounter teaching styles or methods that don’t match your Learning Preferences. It’s then that you need to take practical steps to maximise your learning. Understanding your Learning Preferences can help with this.

How Learn Smartly Works

For Learners

Step 1

Choose either the Standard Report or the Advanced Report that includes Personal Mastery and Resilience.

Step 2

Complete the online questionnaire and then purchase your personalised LearnSmartly feedback report. Download it, then save it and/or print it.

Step 3

Take time to read through your LearnSmartly feedback report and try out the practical suggestions it includes.

For Educators

Step 1

Complete the online questionnaire.

Step 2

Purchase your personalised LearnSmartly feedback report which covers your likely Learning Style and Teaching Style.

Step 3

Take time to read through your LearnSmartly feedback report and try out the practical suggestions it includes.

Benefits

For Educators

Self Awareness

Allows the educator to become more self-aware and proactive in leveraging the best way to teach

Improved Mastery & Resilience

Given the high level of burnout experienced by educators globally, building your personal mastery and resilience helps improve your overall emotional health

Improved Learner output

By delivering a curriculum in a way that engages all four quadrants of the brain, educators are able to exponentially improve learner results and prevent dropout

For Learners

Improved Mastery & Resilience

Improves personal mastery and resilience in the context of a learning environment

Self Awareness

Allows one to become a self-aware, self-directed, proactive learner leveraging the best way to learn

Successful Completion Of Learning

Improves throughput - more people successfully complete the learning

For Learners

Reduced Attrition

Reduces attrition, with fewer people abandoning the learning journey

Knowledge Retention

Increases retention and application of learning as well as improved workplace impact / readiness

Reports

We offer three reports to boost your learning & teaching experience

woman-using-computer-laptop-TPL3ZR2.jpg

The Educator Report

Aimed at all Educators who design, lead and/or deliver learning interventions in any context. We introduce the 4MAT model and how to use combined Teaching Styles to optimise learning. Report includes your :
  • The Enneagram
  • Personal Mastery
  • Emotional Resilience
  • Level of Extraversion/ Introversion
  • Thinking, Feeling, Sensing, and Intuiting preferences (based on Carl Jung and modern Neuroscience)
  • The implication of these aspects for optimising your Learning and Teaching capability
  • Strengths and areas for possible further development
serious-female-student-concentrated-on-writing-28UG5RG.jpg

Standard Learning Report

Aimed at Learners at all levels from high school (at age 16+years) upwards. Report includes your:
  • Level of Extraversion / Introversion

  • Thinking, Feeling, Sensing, Intuiting preferences (based on Carl Jung and modern Neuroscience)

  • Enneagram behavioural style

  • The practical implication of these aspects for optimising your learning capability.

  • Strengths and areas for possible further development.

professional-managers-at-working-place-U2Z78BQ.jpg

Advanced Learning Report

Aimed at Learners in Tertiary Education, Corporate Education, Business Schools, Post-Graduate, etc.
  • Personal Mastery
  • Extraversion-Introversion
  • Thinking, Feeling, Sensing, Intuiting preferences (based on Carl Jung and modern Neuroscience)
  • Enneagram behavioural style
  • The implication of these aspects for optimising your learning capability.
  • Strengths and areas for possible further development.

Whole Brain

Teaching

& Learning Methods

The primary aim of the Learnsmartly assessment and feedback reports is to  help learners and educators optimise their learning and teaching styles for significantly improved results.

Learners Discover how to approach learning in ways that align with your optimal learning style.

Educators Discover how to use a ‘multi-brain quadrant’ teaching style that engages learners’ whole brain.

Explore the 4MAT system or UDL scheme in designing learning experiences, or a combination of these two.

These methods stretch learners to become adept at accessing more of the brain during the learning process and enhance their learning capability.

Starting with Connect, each stage follows sequentially in a clockwise direction. By applying these steps, learners are exposed to experiences and tasks that engage all four quadrants of their brain, which ensures that even those with a strong single quadrant preference benefit.  Engaging all the quadrants has the further benefit of stretching the learners to operate in modes that are initially sub-optimal but, with practice, increases their versatility because of neuroplastic changes in their brain connections. 

Once again, this is not limited to the learners but applies equally to educators who may find themselves challenged by having to use techniques associated with their least used or even avoided quadrant   Yet, even if educators do not have the naturally versatile style required to seamlessly implement four-quadrant teaching, the skills required can be learned and their style adapted.

 

The Universal Design for Learning framework was developed in the early 1990s by the Harvard based organisation, CAST, and based on neuroscientific research, cognitive psychology and the learning sciences.  Neuroscience research indicates that there are three key networks of the brain which require stimulation for us to learn effectively and that these networks are stimulated in different ways in different people.

CAST took this research and mapped it to supporting research in the learning sciences to develop three key principles calling on educators to provide the following (Ryder, 2019)

      Multiple Means of Engagement – The ‘Why’ of Learning relating to the Affective Networks of the brain

      Multiple Means of Representation – The ‘What’ of Learning relating to the Recognition Networks of the brain

      Multiple Means of Action and Expression – The ‘How’ of Learning relating to the Strategic Networks of the brain

It has gained considerable international recognition and provides a lesson planning technique for educators. 

In many respects it seems very similar to 4MAT. However, the underlying neurology it uses is broader and less functionally specific.  To its advantage, it has a strong alignment with inclusive pedagogy and strives to make learning more widely available (Shi, 2018).

The extended Jungian four-functional theory defines thinking style, learning style and teaching style adequately, even suggesting teaching methods.  And it’s all verified by research

In the same way that learners have preferred styles, educators have preferred ways of teaching and these, too, may be traced back to the four thinking styles.  Grasha (1994) describes these. 

Grasha’s theory raises a number of speculations. Educator-centred approaches are located in the left hemisphere and are best suited to factual subject matter that relies on logic, analysis and established procedures.  The learner-centred approaches, conversely, are right-hemisphere based and suit subject matter that requires intuition, imagination and perception of subtle non-verbal cues.  

This suggests that the specific subject matter plays a part in determining the optimal teaching style.  This could also suggest that educators with a specific style preferentially elect to teach certain types of subjects. 

Grasha’s teaching styles are described in terms that relate to Hersey and Blanchard’s Situational Leadership model (Hersey & Blanchard, 1969).  Elements of Telling, Selling, Participating and Delegating are clearly present.  It may suggest that this is actually a Situational Teaching Style model with multiple parameters combining to determine the optimal teaching style in any situation. 

Lastly, it raises the issue of a teacher as a leader, which is consistent with the Latin root that becomes education in English: Educere, meaning to lead out. This suggests that the ability to inspire and lead is an indispensable quality in a successful educator.

THINKING:  Lecturer or Authoritative Style

The authoritative teaching style follows the traditional teacher-centred approach, often characterised by lecture sessions or one-way presentations. In this approach (also called the “chalk and talk” style), students are expected to pay attention, absorb the information, take notes and ask questions.

SENSING:  Demonstrator or Coach Style

Often used in mathematics, science and music, the demonstrator style involves more “showing” rather than “telling” with teachers more likely to support the information with examples or experiments, demonstrations or multimedia presentations.

FEELING: Delegator or Group Style

Well-suited for curriculums that include or emphasise group activities, the delegator style of teaching shifts much of the responsibility for learning onto the students, who are encouraged to work together in projects connected to the lesson themes (think science labs, debates, etc.). In this style, the teacher is an active observer working to guide students in the right direction.  

INTUITION: Facilitator or Activity Style

The facilitator/teacher is focussed on promoting self-learning and helping students develop critical learning and thinking skills. A student-centred approach, it involves creating learning plans and classes that require students to explore and discover the course content in creative and original ways.

Grasha’s styles align closely to the four-quadrant model, seamlessly adding the third level to this conceptual model.  Bear in mind that it is unlikely that an educator would show enhanced activity in only one of the quadrants and is more likely to use a mixture of styles in teaching. To accommodate this, he added a fifth style.

VERSATILE: Hybrid or Blended Style

The hybrid approach may integrate elements of the styles discussed above, often blending the teacher’s personality and interests with those of the students. While this method is considered inclusive, enabling teachers to tailor their styles to student needs within the subject matter, some educators believe it risks diluting the learning process by placing less emphasis on in-depth study than when following a single, focused approach.

In dismissing these misgivings, Grasha asserts that teachers often use a blend of several teaching styles. Effective teachers are flexible and are able to change their teaching style to suit the circumstances and the students’ learning requirements (Grasha, 1994).   

Yet, subsequent research suggests that faculty members in higher education initially adopt a teaching style that reflects either their own learning style or an effective teaching method they experienced during their own education (Hawk & Shah, 2007).This approach results in faculty members who are unfamiliar or uncomfortable with incorporating a variety of learning style models into their curricula.  This may need to be addressed during educator training or become an established policy in institutions.

Psychological Methods

We use five psychological models

Which gives insight into your preferred behavioural patterns.

The Enneagram describes nine patterns of behaviour that are recognised in people from diverse cultures throughout the world, and appear to be fundamental characteristics of human beings. Out of habit, past experience, and even inherited aspects, individuals tend to use one of these patterns far more frequently than the other eight. Each of the nine encapsulates certain values, likes, dislikes and other preferences linked to personality, and because of this they are each likely to present a preferred way of learning.

Personal Mastery contributes towards emotional maturity and resilience. People with high Personal Mastery are likely to cope with life in a mature way and overcome difficulties they encounter with relative ease. People with a high level of personal mastery live in a continual learning mode. They never ‘arrive’.  It is a process. It is a lifelong discipline. People with a high level of personal mastery are acutely aware of their ignorance, their incompetence, their growth areas. And they are deeply self- confident.  

The six Personal Mastery factors on which we focus our attention combine to provide an overall view indicating the degree to which an individual has progressed on this personal journey.

Personality model developed by Carl Gustav Jung

Our four-letter acronym personality model is based on the typology model developed by Carl Gustav Jung. This model essentially describes your natural behavioural preferences.

Theory suggests that your core type doesn’t change. However, studies in the neurosciences show that your behaviour can, in fact, change and adapt over time as a result of intentional practice and/or because of the requirements of the environment in which you find yourself.

Which has a relationship to levels of stress

Resilience is a fundamental temperamental factor that relates to a cluster of attributes including emotional stability and self-efficacy, both of which contribute to a ‘can do’ attitude. This allows individuals to cope with adversity because they feel adequate and believe that they can cope despite the magnitude of the issues that they face. On the other end of the dimension, we have an individual who finds it difficult to deal with the slightest adversity and who becomes immobilised in stressful situations. This converse ‘can’t do’ attitude rests equally on the lack of self-efficacy.

Jungian theory suggests that any individual’s personality may be described by an overall orientation and the degree to
which they use one or more of Jung’s four cognitive functions.  Neuroscientific research produced the fMRI scan, which allows the non-invasive observation of the working human brain. Herrmann and others soon used this methodology to put Jung’s theory to the test and were able to associate areas of the brain with the four functions.  Theory suggests that your core type doesn’t change. However, studies in the neurosciences show that your behaviour can, in fact, change and adapt over time as a result of intentional practice and/or because of the requirements of the environment in which you find yourself.

Pricing

Choose from three Reports

Standard Report

Report

$22 R220

For Learners

The following dimensions are linked to Your Learning:

  • Preferences and Behaviours
  • The Jungian Factors
  • Your Jungian Orientation
  • Your Neuro Quadrants – Primary and Secondary
  • Your Enneagram Profile – Primary and Secondary

 

This report can be used by Learners and can be integrated into learning processes

Educator Report

Report & Booklet

$55 R550

For Educators

This report can be used by all Educators who design, lead and/or deliver learning interventions in any context:

  • The Enneagram
  • Your Personal Mastery
  • Your Emotional Resilience
  • The Cognitive Functions
  • Your Jungian Orientation
  • Your Neuro Quadrants – Primary and Secondary
  • Your Learning and Teaching Profile
  • The 4MAT Model and how to use combined Teaching Styles

Advanced Report

Report & Booklet

$42 R420

For Learners

The following dimensions are linked to Your Learning Preferences and Behaviours:

 

  • Your Personal Mastery 
  • Your Emotional Resilience 
  • Your Jungian Orientation
  • Your Neuro Quadrants – Primary and Secondary
  • Your Enneagram Profile – Primary and Secondary reported at three levels


This report can be used by Learners in tertiary learning or executive education, management development skills training and learning programmes

The Science

THEORY
This report is entirely based on your responses to our online questionnaire. We have combined the Enneagram model of human behaviour with Carl Jung's personality types and later neuro-science research to create a unique self-assessment questionnaire and feedback report that offers insight into learning and teaching preferences.

VALIDITY
The validity of each item in our test is of critical importance. Each scale on the assessment is scored from the responses to a particular set of items in the questionnaire. In order to determine the usefulness and accuracy of each item in our questionnaire we make use of the following statistical measures:

Correlation coefficient

A correlation coefficient is a numerical measure of a correlation, meaning a statistical relationship between variable scales.

Cronbach’s alpha

Cronbach’s alpha is the common name used for tau-equivalent reliability which estimates the reliability of a psychometric test.

Latest Articles

Learning Matters

Cultivating a growth mindset
Growth Mindset

Cultivating a Growth Mindset

Future Fit Leaders with a Growth Mindset are those who embrace challenges and persevere when faced with adversity. They are leaders who believe they can do anything and are willing to take on complex tasks and learn through effort.

Read More »
Learning

Become an intelligent lifelong learner

As we hurtle towards the new work of work, learning new skills is and will continue to be critical. Lifelong learning and continuous learning are often terms used interchangeably. They can sometimes have slightly different meanings depending on the context.

Read More »

Trusted by these institutions

1
2
1
2
1
2
handsome-positive-bearded-young-man-cyclist-posing-GHSCY9U.png