Do You Need Publicist?

Do You Need Publicist?

Meet Publicist Rebecca T. Crowley

If you are an author, you probably have seen how difficult it can be to be recognized.  That is why it can be very important to have some help.  Rebecca Crowley at RTC Publicity is who I use for PR.  I think she is amazing!  Check out the above link for an article telling more  about her and some great information about what all authors need in 2010 and beyond!

Learning Styles and Personality Tests

Understanding personality preferences and learning styles has always interested me. My daughter, Toni Rothpletz, and I wrote about personality assessments in our book It’s Not You It’s Your Personality.  However, in that book, we discussed more personality-related tests rather than learning style tests.  In my book for online students, I do discuss styles of learning to some extent.  Here are just a few of the learning style sites that you might find interesting to see where you fit with your learning preferences:

OVERVIEW OF LEARNING STYLES:

The site http://www.learning-styles-online.com/overview/ offers a nice overview of their breakdown of learning styles including:

• Visual (spatial). You prefer using pictures, images, and spatial understanding.
• Aural (auditory-musical). You prefer using sound and music.
• Verbal (linguistic). You prefer using words, both in speech and writing.
• Physical (kinesthetic). You prefer using your body, hands and sense of touch.
• Logical (mathematical). You prefer using logic, reasoning and systems.
• Social (interpersonal). You prefer to learn in groups or with other people.
• Solitary (intrapersonal). You prefer to work alone and use self-study.

VARK:  (Visual, Aural, Read/Write, Kinesthetic)

I currently teach for several online universities where they administer different personality and learning style tests.  One of those tests is the VARK questionnaire.  The creators of VARK claim “This questionnaire is designed to tell you something about your preferences for the way you work with information.”  This test is copyrighted. To receive information about it, you can email flemingn@ihug.co.nz.  The results of this test suggest that you adjust your studying to be more like your style.  These styles include:

• Visual
• Aural
• Read/Write
• Kinesthetic

KOLB’s Experiential Learning Theory ELT

Another important learning styles test is David Kolb’s KOLB  Learning Style.  Kolb also 4 styles or preferences.  They base these preferences on a four-stage learning cycle.  These four stages include:

Stage 1: Concrete Experience (CE)

Stage 2: Reflective Observation (RO)

Stage 3: Abstract Conceptualization (AC)

Stage 4: Active Experimentation (AE)

There are two levels to this model . . .after going through the above stages of experience, reflection, conceptualization and experimentation, there are four styles of learning that a person may prefer:

• Diverging (CE/RO) – ability to see things from different perspectives – like brainstorming, interested in people and work well in groups.
• Assimilating (AC/RO) – logical, like concepts – like clear explanations, do well in science-related careers.
• Converging (AC/AE) – problem solvers – practical – like technical tasks, do well in technology-related careers.
• Accommodating (CE/AE) – hands-on person, likes a good challenge – rely on gut instinct, do well in teams requiring action.

To find out more about KOLB learning styles click here.

To learn more about learning styles for the online student, check out The Online Student’s User Manual .  To learn more about personality styles and understanding personality assessments check out It’s Not You It’s Your Personality.

Millenials, Gen X and Baby Boomers: Who…

Top 5 Sources of Emotional Intelligence Information

Emotional Intelligence or EI has received a lot of attention thanks to Dr. Daniel Goleman and others.  There are several definitions of EI, but one of the most basic definitions is:  The ability to understand your own emotions as well as those in others. I have a lot of my doctoral students working on dissertations involving emotional intelligence. 

I know that there are a lot of books about EI, but I thought I’d share with you some of the ones that I find most helpful.  If you are interested in finding out more about EI, I suggest you check out the following:

I know I said I would include the top 5  . . .  but for those of you interested in my dissertation:  Examination of the Relationship Between Emotional Intelligence and Sales Performance . . . Click here.

EQ vs. IQ

I did quite a bit of research about the importance of emotional intelligence (EI) for my dissertation. I found that higher levels of EI did have a correlation with sales performance. This article brings up an interesting discussion about emotional quotient or EQ and IQ. It is often stated that companies are now looking at EQ over IQ. Mayer et al may not have stated this directly . . .however, many people do believe that EQ is extremely important. I still have some reservations about how accurately we can measure EQ, considering that the instruments are require self-assessment. For more information about this topic, check out the link below.

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-personality-analyst/200909/what-emotional-intelligence-is-and-is-not