Typologies for inventing learning situations

To create a typology is to create an a priori classification, even before meeting the individuals. The idea is to present "typical" and contrasting forms of the reality to be described.

Classifying human behavior is an age-old need.

The most famous typologies focus on behaviors. Such is the case of those created by astrologers.

Chinese astrology offers a very graphic classification. Roosters rub shoulders with buffaloes and goats, each animal having its own character, qualities and defects. Mayan astrology, on the other hand, will introduce you to the jaguar, the tortoise, the bat or the falcon. Each animal represents a way of being with others, communication expectations and attitudes.

Hippocrates also used a typology that had a long posterity, since it can be found right up to the beginning of the 20th century. His classification remains simple, being limited to "bilious", "atrabilious", "phlegmatic" and "sanguine".

But how can this stimulate creativity?

You're preparing a communication or a sales pitch. The audience will be fairly heterogeneous, and you don't know them yet. How can you adapt your message and come up with ideas?

By remembering that you'll inevitably be facing a "sanguine", a "bilious" or an "atrabilary", to quote Hippocrates. And if you choose another typology, you know that in the group there will probably be a bat, a jaguar, an owl and a fox. Without adhering to these models or believing in their scientific reality, you'll find among the participants someone who behaves more like a goat, another more like a monkey, and maybe even a rooster.

You've been warned.

But above all, this little detour through typologies can help you come up with ideas. You haven't yet met the people you're talking to, but you already know that one of them is likely to be anxious and need a lot of information, that another is rather worried about the quality of the relationship he or she may have with you, that yet another is concerned about your personal reliability and sense of ethics... Whether it's a presentation, a communication or an argument, each of these types of audience needs to find what they're looking for. The typology functions as a checklist for preparation.

If you're preparing scenarios for speaking, arguing or negotiating, these typologies can be a source of inspiration to help you avoid playing the same characters over and over again. Film and TV scripts have fun confronting contrasting personalities for comic effect.

More recent classifications

A number of typologies emerged in the 20th century. They aim to give a scientific character to these classifications, but also to orient them towards communication, exchanges and transactions with others.

Here again, the aim is not to discuss the validity of these models, nor to go into their subtleties, but to draw inspiration from them to create communications adapted to a variety of participants. The "left brain/right brain" classification is undoubtedly simplistic from a scientific point of view, but it is very useful for getting us out of communication automatisms.

Process-Com

Derived from transactional analysis and designed by Taïbi Kahler, the"Process Com" model presents contrasting types of communication. There are the "empaths", sensitive to the quality of the relationship, the "perseverers", who attach great importance to values, and the "workaholics", who need activity and perfection. Each of us is a mixture of these different types, but a different mixture. Which explains why we don't expect the same things from communication or argumentation.

Of course, Process Com goes beyond this classification, but it's already very useful for bringing a little flexibility to our communication.

some process com types
(missing the rebel, who refused to be in the picture)

This typology invites us to question the part we give to relationships, information, values and creativity in our exchanges. It forces us to recognize our comfort zone, and to move beyond it to communicate in less familiar ways. And leaving a comfort zone is the beginning of creation.

If you're running communication training courses, this typology will provide you with an infinite number of situations, detailing the character and expectations of your interlocutors.

Other models, such as the Enneagram, present types of communication that add nuances to the process-com approach.

But the classification that most encourages us to develop our creativity is undoubtedly proposed by de Bono and his famous hats. Each hat corresponds to a mode of communication. Changing hats means communicating differently.

And what about pedagogy?

You haven't yet pushed open the door to the training room. Your e-learning trainees haven't yet logged on. And yet, you know that some will be more attentive to visual resources, others to auditory communication.
You know that some learn best by browsing and multiplying sources of information, others by having a structured plan from the outset into which the content will fit.

There are so many classifications in pedagogy that it's hard to classify them!

Each of these typologies prompts the trainer to ask the question: "How can I design a sequence that meets the needs of this or that type?" And in so doing, they stimulate creativity. But all these classifications, sometimes binary and sometimes complex, like Kolb's, can also leave us with the feeling that communicating with everyone is impossible...

Jean-François Michel's 7 learning profiles

Jean-François Michel offers a pragmatic solution in the form of seven easy-to-understand portraits. Here again, the trainer can identify his or her profile, the better to move away from it, and try to differentiate his or her approach.

Each of these profiles will prioritize four important questions for the learner:

• "Who am I going to learn with?"
• "Will I learn?
• "What's the use of what I'm going to learn?
• "Where does it all fit in?"

So, how do you go about it?

The "perfectionist" and the "intellectual" expect up-to-date, structured information. They're not averse to a good lecture... But the "enthusiast" expects a more playful approach, with a bit of humor. The "intellectual" will be more at ease with an activity they can manage on their own, but the "amiable" needs to be in touch with the learning group. The dynamic person wants to make it known that he or she has succeeded, but the emotional person is afraid of appearing to be the one who has failed.

It's in the trainer's interest to alternate learning situations. In particular, we must be wary of methods that claim to settle the question of motivation and participation once and for all.

On the other hand, André de Peretti and François Muller encourage us to think outside the box, and not to endlessly reproduce successful methods that we no longer question. The website devoted to diversification in pedagogy, which François Muller has been running for over fifteen years, also features a classification system, providing access to a wealth of ideas.

illustrations: Frédéric Duriez

Resources

Learning styles René Cahay, Maryse Honorez, Brigitte Monfort, François Remy, Jean Therer
http://www2.ulg.ac.be/lem/StyleApprent/StyleApprent_CG/index.htm

Les chapeaux de De Bono consulted February 21, 2015
http://www.projectissimo.com/articles-les-chapeaux-de-bono-pxl-349_358_377.html

Les sept profils d'apprentisage Jean-François Michel Eyrolles, 2013
https://www.editions-eyrolles.com/livre/les-sept-profils-d-apprentissage

Mille et une propositions pédagogiques, André de Peretti, François Muller ESF 2008
https://www.andredeperetti.net/blank-6

Diversifier, la diversification en pédagogie consulted February 22, 2015 François Muller
http://francois.muller.free.fr/diversifier/