Study Tips for Kinesthetic-Tactile Learners

Many law students learn best kinesthetically (through movement) or tactilely (through touch). Kinesthetic-tactile learners can sometimes find the dense materials, long stretches of sitting and reading, and structured schedules of law school challenging. Amy L. Jarmon’s article, “How Movement and Touch Relate to the Study of Law” in the November issue of the ABA publication Student Lawyer offers some pointers for kinesthetic-tactile students. An older blog post, “Keeping Kinesthetic-Tactile Students on Target” from the Law School Academic Support Blog adds some additional ideas. Here’s a summary of key dos and don’ts –

Helpful for Kinesthetic-Tactile Learners:

• Pace around while practicing a presentation. Try riding a recumbent bike or walking on a treadmill while reviewing outlines.
• Take plenty of short breaks, but instead of checking your social networks, walk around the building or complete some small task at home.
• Give yourself plenty of space where you study. Pick a roomy library table or spread out your materials on a bed or couch.
• Do plenty of practice questions; make up your own hypos.

Things to minimize:

• Sitting by windows or doorways when you study – this may invite distractions.
• Spending too much time on the Internet when you are trying to study. Consider using a social network blocking tool – we have an extensive blog post on this – see Get Productive! Ways to Limit Online Distractions.
• Becoming bored or losing focus. Try to stay in tune with your mind and break down larger reading sections into manageable sessions.

You can find out more about your learning style(s) by taking this quick VARK questionnaire.