Kinesthetic learning

Are you one of those people who can’t stand lectures, sitting at a desk, reading a complicated book, feeling like your head is about to explode? Yet you perform best when it comes to physical activities like playing games, sports, and lab experiments? Then perhaps you are a kinetic learners.

Kinesthetic (haptic) learning is a style of learning in which students learn through physical activity rather than listening to lectures or watching instructional videos.

Neil Fleming, a New Zealand teacher and educational theorist, developed the VARK (visual, auditory, kinesthetic, and reading and writing) model. According to her, kinesthetic learners prefer physical interaction, which makes them better able to absorb information through experience. They excel in specific circumstances: on-the-job training, internships, business cases.

If you are a teacher, you should pay attention to the characteristics of such students. And if you are a kinesthetic, you can use the information in this article to learn most effectively.

When teaching, kinesthetic learners prefer https://argoprep.com/blog/personification/ and:

Role-playing: information is absorbed better if some kind of skit is played out.
Competitions: the sports component plays a big role for motivation.
Excursions: kinesthetic people prefer to see and touch rather than read and hear.
Projects: with the help of physical activities such people learn much faster.
Labs, charades, gymnastics and games that involve the whole body will also be useful.
This is due to the fact that kinestheticians cannot fully absorb knowledge if their bodies are not involved in the process. In this case, the information remains in short-term memory, but is not transferred to long-term memory, that is, it is immediately “weathered.”

Tips for kinesthetic learning

Develop a range of tactile actions
First, make a list of skills you want to master. For example, it could be:

Learning English.
Speaking skills
Time Management
Acting.
Acting is definitely best for kinesthetes. But what if you want to learn English? Then perhaps you should spend less time on grammar books (although you should do that as well) and more time on practice and communicating with other people. Also use flashcards, which can help you learn new words, whole phrases and even rules.

In short, look for all sorts of ways to use tactile sensations when learning a skill.

Focus on immersion and interactivity
To continue with the example of learning English, you can:

Find apps for your smartphone that use gamification and interactivity.
Connect photos and sound effects to learning.
Simulate the right environment: decorate your room to make it look like an English-speaking person lives here.

Make learning emotional
Use:

Colors that evoke strong positive emotions.
Biographies of people you admire. Also look for interesting examples from the lives of prominent people.
Words that elicit a rush of enthusiasm and motivation.
Remember that frustration, excitement, and stress are states in which the quality of remembering information drops several times.

Apply different kinesthetic learning styles

Kinesthetic learners can be roughly divided into four groups:

Those who prefer hands-on tasks.
Those who like to engage their whole body when learning a skill.
Those who prefer to learn with artistic ability.
Those who learn best when emotions are involved.
Of course, everyone has a combination of these abilities in some way or another. So combine and experiment: express yourself creatively, do some sculpting and drawing (including doodling), take notes and take visual notes.

Get out into the real world.
You, as a kinesthetician, don’t need to pore over books for a long time. So if you want to learn how to communicate with people, go out in public. Apply different techniques, get feedback, draw conclusions and learn from your mistakes.

Create collaborative group projects.
Kinestheticians love teamwork more than other people. It’s where they bring out their best abilities.

So if you can, stop doing solo work and come up with a team project where you get a chance to realize your potential through interaction with other people.

Do experiments
This is the most interesting thing not only for kinestheticians, but also for many other people. What is an experiment in our case? You make up some kind of game for yourself with a goal in mind. For example, to instill some habits in yourself, you might completely change your routine for an entire month. In doing so, keep a diary, describing your emotions and physical sensations.

We wish you good luck!