presentations, what works for me

This week I was asked to think about my own learning style and what types of presentation work for me as a learner.  Most assuredly I am a kinesthetic learner.  I was always the kid that just dumped the toy onto the floor looked at the diagrams and had my thing together on Christmas morning while all my friends waited a week for their dads to assemble theirs.  In the Marines I was a radio communications specialist and I learned far more form glancing at the basics then playing with new equipment than I ever got from a lecture or manual.  In fact, when I am able to physically interact with the material I am also able to exercise the imagination effect as described by Sweller (2008).  This only increases my understanding of the material as more information is internalized and stored in long term memory.

Though Kinesthetic is my most prominent learning style I have always been able to learn through other means, which comes in handy in a world of lecture and rote memorization.  A good presentation for me would allow a lot of interaction and opportunity for me to practice the concepts being taught.  The biggest issue I see with most current presentation models is that they are simply professor-less lectures.  While all the capability exists to construct multiple paths through the knowledge and to the learning objective these paths are rarely constructed or even acknowledged.  

Reference

Sweller, J. (2008). Human Cognitive Architecture. In Driscoll, M. P., Merrill, M. D., Merrienboer, J. V., & Spector, J. M. (Eds.), Handbook of Research on Educational Communications and Technology [Kindle Version]. Retrieved from http://www.amazon.com/Handbook-Educational-Communications-Technology-ebook/dp/B000SJZO90/ref=pd_rhf_p_t_1