Learning Style Flexibility for Effective Virtual Teams

Abstract

Changes currently taking place globally in education, training and all areas of human potential development where learning forms the crux, have implications for e-learning. Interactive participation in virtual teams has become an evident means of promoting the principles of deep and constructive learning, and the life-skill of working in teams. Team members working in virtual teams are interdependent of each other and learning to become independent learners as an end result. Value is added to learning in virtual teams when the principles of learning style flexibility (LSF) are integrated with the principles of effective collaborative e-learning. The idea of learning style flexibility proposed in this chapter underpins the notion of developing learners’ full potential and facilitating the process of becoming flexible in problem solving. The Ned Herrmann whole brain theory is used as the basis of the theoretical framework and adapted for learning style flexibility in virtual teams. In this chapter we discuss awareness of one’s own learning style preferences, flexibility in terms of learning with the aim of developing one’s full potential, formation of diverse e-learning groups according to learning style preferences for optimizing virtual group performance, and using collaborative action learning to promote constructive learning.