Learning can be both a hard and easy process depending on what kind of training system you are following. Since kids today have different perceptions on reality, the same holds true for how they are taught. This is why teachers and instructors strive to look for a universal system that works for most students without sacrificing the integrity or the efficiency of the lesson itself.

How Dual Coding Theory Works in Practical Terms

Allan Paivio of the University of Western Ontario believes that there are essentially two phases of how a person learns something: visual and verbal information. This is essentially learning something by instruction and learning something by having someone show it to you. His belief is that learning takes these to particular paths in order to ingrain what is learned in memory.

Essentially reading or someone telling you about how pulleys work can imprint the idea, but seeing a pulley work imprints an image to accommodate that idea, therefore your cognitive thinking a more logical connection to what you have just learned. This is essentially putting an integral piece to a puzzle to complete a picture.

Supporting Dual Learning Theory

In Paivio’s theory he postulated that there are two facets to understanding things: symbolic and analogue codes. Symbolic codes are your abstract ideas like love or fear, anything that cannot be manifested as an object is an example of symbolic code. Analogue codes are essentially ideas that have shape or are objects. Examples of an analogue idea are trees and buildings, anything that you can see or feel with your five senses.

Now there has been scientific proof that verbal information or information you otherwise read is better comprehended if you have a visual cue to go with that information. PET scans and MRI results show that image and symbolic processing appear in the same regions. When analogue and symbolic codes are combined, there is an increased area of activity in these regions. Also the subjects who were tested for this particular experiment had more memory in terms of recognizing objects and concepts.

Thus, this is required when someone would get the career as a radiology technician. Skills should be developed in order to be successful in this high-end kind of career. This goes to certified nursing assistant and private investigator careers as well.

Interestingly enough Paivio also found out that when it comes to sequencing information, the use of verbal information is significantly more important that the visual cues. In his experiment, he exposed subjects to rapid sequencing of pictures where they would arrange it in order of appearance; they did the same for words. Paivio proved from this simple experiment that words or verbal information retained in our brain more than visual cues when it comes to remembering things in a certain sequence.

On this, could this be an explanation for the sonography career be more elaborated? Surely, it does really affect on criminal justice career since retaining to memory what have been heard is necessary.

Application to Dual Learning Schools

Dual learning schools are schools which apply their skills both in theory and in an actual work. Their career program is split into two places; one is going to school and the other half to work. This serves as a practical means to apply what they have learned in the workplace while applying the experience in the future.

Vocational schools may have dual learning in their curriculum if they require hands-on experience. A very good example on this on the massage therapy career since this training really needs to be hands-on. As well as for surgical technician and respiratory therapists. The whole purpose of this is so that the student will familiarize and integrate what he has learned from the school phase of the dual learning system; however this process might vary in some countries. Familiarization is really needed for these careers especially for the medical billing and coding career.

These students are essentially taken in the company as apprentices such as in cooking classes. Of course these training sessions within the company comprise of involved tutoring sessions and targeted training. This gives students an eager selection of skills that make him or her above the standard workforce since they already have hard and soft skills to apply to the workplace. Since it is work, then it will be paid. Money matters serves as the reward or the fruits of their labor after all the sacrifices being made.

Disadvantages

Of course, as is with any type of learning system they have their disadvantages. For one thing, this type of education can be expensive and getting apprenticeship from a job that fits that student’s level of education can be hard.

There’s also the problem that since companies are usually highly-specialized already, their level doesn’t usually cater to apprentices and would usually see more trouble than it’s worth since companies have to follow up on a lot of regulations to make the apprenticeship work. More complicated positions however run to the problem of the college not meeting its level of expertise.