Thinking characteristics Potential strategies
  • Often prefer hands-on ways of learning new ideas.
  • Sometimes ask to see ideas on paper.
  • Use the concepts in a practical hands-on way or role-play.
  • Provide information visually where possible.
  • Resist new ideas or ways of doing things and may have difficulty adjusting to changes on the job.
  • Help learners develop a daily routine.
  • Model how new tasks can be broken down into manageable chunks to make tasks simpler.
  • Encourage them to complete tasks one step at a time.
  • Build in praise and constant feedback.
  • May have good ideas that seem disjointed, unrelated or out of sequence.
  • Teach strategies to help organize information.
  • Encourage learners to take time prior to speaking to organize thoughts.
  • Pay too much attention to detail and miss the big picture or idea when encountering specific situations at home or at work.
  • Use a form of mind-mapping to look at all aspects of the task or situation.
  • Teach and model problem solving.
  • “Shoot from the hip” when arriving at decisions.
  • Don’t use a structured approach to weigh options.
  • Help learners explore various solutions to problems.
  • Model problem-solving strategies and integrate into training activities.
  • Encourage them to stop and think.
  • Practise role-playing to prepare learners for various situations.
  • Approach situations without a game plan, acting without a guiding set of principles.
  • Model effective action planning – involve learners right from the beginning in assessment and training plan development.
  • Begin with small and realistic projects to practise and model.
  • Encourage learners to refer to their plan and check off each task as they complete it.
  • Encourage them to stop and think.
  • Utilize mnemonics to help remember steps to effective planning.