On Intelligence Type, Preferred Learning Styles, and Working Styles

The second part of the module is a discussion on self-assessment. As a primer, we were asked to answer the Multiple Intelligences Test, to assess our strengths. My top three strengths are musical, interpersonal, and logical-mathematical.

I am a musical person. When studying, writing a paper, or reading, I need to turn on my music player because it prevents me from sleeping. I play the organ and violin. I have also tried playing other instruments such as lyre, marimba, guitar, and drums, although I did not pursue these instruments. Showering is actually one of my happiest minutes of my day because I get to sing and no once could hear me. Haha.

I guess I can also say that I am an interpersonal person. Most of the time, I am sensitive to the feelings of others. I think before I act to make sure that I do not hurt anyone. I get to talk to a lot of people and possibly influence them to do the same things (evil or not). However, public speaking is not my forte. I tend to become too nervous when speaking to a large number of people and then my train of thought gets lost.

I find numbers easier to understand. In general, I can say that I am better in Math (or Economics) than the other Humanities subjects like English, Philosophy, and Theology. I understand concepts better if it had equations, formulae or graphs. Pure texts just do not work for me.

As expected, my weaknesses include bodily-kinesthetic and spatial-visual. I am not really a sporty person. I only lay badminton, and sometimes, bowling, frisbee, and table tennis. I have an irregular exercise pattern. For 2 weeks, I would jog every morning and then I would not hit the park for 3 months. Hence, my body built. Moreover, I am poor with the arts. During aptitude tests, I find the abstract reasoning part the hardest.

To put these learning styles into practice, we were grouped according to our intelligence type. As a group, we ranked the 15 items according to importance to help us in our space crash activity. As part of the musical group, we immediately grouped the items according to kinds: food, for traveling purposes, and the unimportant ones. Thinking that we need to stay alive because we are in the moon, our first five were all food. However, what we failed to see was that we were on a task to get to the meeting point. We were pre-occupied with staying alive rather than getting to the destination.

I guess the point of knowing one's intelligence type is to understand how you will be able to relay the information you want to convey to others depending on his preferred learning style. Remember that intelligence type is tied up with the learning style. For example, musical people like me is auditory in terms of learning style. In terms of project management, it is good to know the preferred learning style of your audience. Will they better understand the concepts if colorful pictures and pie graphs are present?

It is good that we take advantage of ours and others' strengths but for a holistic formation, everyone should also work around his or her weaknesses. In project management, it is good to invest in weaknesses for the delegation of tasks but too much investment may lead to the deterioration of strengths. On the other hand, focusing too much on strengths may not get the project done. What we are tasked to do is to have a balance of the strengths and weaknesses. Combine the preferred learning style with your weakness. For example, when I study Theology, I sometimes make use of equations. (Preferential Option for the Poor = Information Awareness + Compassion + Change in Attitude + Solidarity)