Faculty Perspective
Learning Styles and Law School
By Professor Michael Korybut

For many entering students, law school can appear a formidable endeavor. And indeed it is. One way to make a successful transition from an undergraduate to a law student is to understand one’s learning style and how best to learn in law school. Research shows that people have different learning styles. Law students who are aware of their own learning styles can engage in metacognition: they can self-monitor to see whether their old studying habits are best suited to succeed in law school, and adjust those studying habits where necessary. In the same manner, law school professors should teach in ways that reach the various learning styles invariably represented in their classrooms.

How students absorb and process infor-mation depends on whether they are verbal learners, visual learners, oral learners, aural learners, tactile and kinesthetic learners, or some mix thereof. Verbal learners learn best through written materials, like textbooks and articles. Visual learners learn by seeing or picturing information and recalling a mental image of it. So, for example, a visual learner may mentally scroll down a textbook’s pages in her mind’s eye to recall an idea. Oral learners learn by talking out their ideas. They tend to speak more frequently in class than other students, and profit from student study groups where they can discuss what they have read. Aural learners learn by listening to information. They like class lectures and small group discussions, listening in class more than taking notes, and even taping classes. Finally, tactile and kinesthetic learners learn by touching, by doing and by movement. They tend to learn well from role-playing, clinical experiences, internships and interactive, on-line instruction.

To be successful, law students should know their learning styles. This allows students to be metacognative: to learn how they learn best in law school. Self-awareness of learning style allows students to monitor and critically assess how and whether they are absorbing assigned reading and class discussion, whether they are “getting” the material, and whether or not to alter inefficient learning processes. Several administrators at Saint Louis University School of Law are available to assist students in assessing their learning styles with the use of evaluations.

Consider two examples of the benefits of knowing one’s learning style in law school. First, legal analysis often involves under-standing complex rules, like the crime of battery. If a student is a visual learner, making charts to illustrate the elements of battery may be more effective than just reading the elements in a textbook. For the oral learner, talking in a study group about battery’s elements might be the preferred, complementary method to learn. Thus, at the margin, time spent participating in study group discussions would be of greater benefit to the oral learner than the verbal leaner. Knowing one’s learning style therefore is useful when deciding which study methods to use.

Second, students with learning style self-awareness will know when their undergraduate methods of learning are working in law school, and when they are not. Memorization of class material, for example, may have worked well in undergraduate courses, but, in law school, simply knowing “the rules” is not enough since the goal is to be able to identify relevant facts, synthesize the law, and apply the law to the facts. Verbal learners may best learn this legal analysis methodology by reading the assigned legal cases in their textbooks and working through problems at the end of the reading. Visual learners, while also reading the same material, might also do best by using diagrams or different colored markers to separate visually the facts of the assigned legal case, the case’s legal conclusion (holding) and reasons supporting the conclusion. Using the best learning practices as dictated by learning style should make students more effective learners and performers in law school.

As to law professors, in almost any class (and certainly large ones), all five learning styles will be represented. Law school professors should teach in ways that accommodate different learning styles. For example, a professor might complement written assignments with visual aids like PowerPoint or the time-tested blackboard, or use in-class hypotheticals, the analysis of which requires a high degree of oral/aural interaction between the professor and students.

In my Secured Transactions class, I use a box of cookies around which I tie a piece of string to illustrate the “attachment” of a lien to collateral. Visual learners thus can actually see a lien (the string) being attached to the collateral (the cookies), which helps them grasp the legal rules of attachment set forth in their textbook. A colleague of mine, in his Intellectual Property class, passes around boxes of cereal to his students when discussing trademark infringement. For tactile learners, handling and comparing the various boxes is very helpful to understand-ing the infringement doctrine of “confusing similarity” between products.

Research (and my own experience) shows that both law students and law professors profit when they acknowledge students’ different learning styles. Students become better students, and law professors become better teachers. That’s a happy ending.