Characteristics of Tactile Learners
Tactile learners have a better understanding of concepts when they are involved in learning by doing. Tactile learners learn most effectively by being able to manipulate and physically touch objects. Students who are tactually inclined do not benefit much from listening or seeing visuals because they prefer to be involved in the process of learning. They usually have a hard time recalling names of objects and will try to describe it with motions and gestures. Tactile learners are doers and creators, they prefer to watch demonstrations over listening to instructions or seeing images. Some general characteristics of a tactile learner includes interest in creating, fidgeting with body or objects while learning, like “hands-on” activities, and need breaks when learning and studying.
Learning Activities for Different Ages
Teachers must understand how important it is to use a variety of methods to teach the students in their classroom, because one method of teaching may be interesting to one student, but to another it may not be helpful at all. It is also important for teachers to realize how important using tactile learning activities for children to learn. Students in primary school start off as kinesthetic-tactile learners and auditory and visual learning skills are added as they age (McKeown, 2003). There seems to be a common misconception that as students get older around high school and college age that learning through touch is not helpful or necessary to incorporate in the classroom and lectures are relied on more often than not. However, one-third of high school students learn best through kinesthetic-tactile learning activities (McKeown, 2003). These findings prove how important it is to meet the learning needs of tactile learners. There are many activities and lesson plans that teachers can incorporate into their classroom to meet the needs of tactile learners in their classroom. As explained before, tactile learners are students who learn best by touching, doing creating, moving, and demonstrating. We will explore three different tactile activities that has can been found to be useful in teaching different age groups of tactile learners which includes manipulatives, role play, and experiments and creating models (Dill, 2002).
Manipulatives
One of the best activities that children learn from at a young age is through manipulatives (McKeown, 2003). Manipulatives can be any object that students are allowed to play with, build, or use to touch and move to understand a lesson (Dill, 2002). For example, one activity that teachers could use for younger students is using magnetic alphabet letters on a whiteboard and have students spell words with them. Tactile learners will love this activity because they are physically interacting with objects and they are able to move while learning to spell the words. This activity is more effective than having tactile learners write spelling words with pencil and paper because the physical movement of letters creates a memory in their minds of how the words should look. Manipulatives come in many forms however, teachers could also use small objects like M&Ms or blocks to introduce mathematics to students.
(Using Manipulatives, 2013)
When students can move the manipulatives, their minds can see a visual representation of numbers instead of just an addition or multiplication problem with paper and pencil. There are countless ways that teachers can use manipulatives to enhance learning for tactile learners.
(Using Manipulatives, 2013)
When students can move the manipulatives, their minds can see a visual representation of numbers instead of just an addition or multiplication problem with paper and pencil. There are countless ways that teachers can use manipulatives to enhance learning for tactile learners.
Role Play
For older students in elementary and middle school other means of tactile teaching can be used such as role play. Role play involves assigning students to act and dress up like a certain group of people or famous person. This activity is great to use in history classes when teaching about time eras and different groups of people who lived in them. For example, if the lesson is on pioneers moving westward, some students could be assigned to act as a family of pioneers and role play what the dad, mom, and children would have been expected to do in preparation for the journey. Or another idea would be to assign the students to each pick a president that they want to learn more about and then have a day of presentations where they dress up as that president would and provide information on what their president did while in office.
(West Virginia Heritage, 2013)
Role play allows students to physically move around and demonstrate their knowledge as they act at what certain people would have acted like. Role play also helps to form memories for tactile learners instead of trying to memorize facts and information on peoples and time eras (Dill, 2002).
(West Virginia Heritage, 2013)
Role play allows students to physically move around and demonstrate their knowledge as they act at what certain people would have acted like. Role play also helps to form memories for tactile learners instead of trying to memorize facts and information on peoples and time eras (Dill, 2002).
Models
For high school students who are tactile learners, a good activity to teach in class with is models. Models are anything that demonstrates material taught in class which can be physical objects or drawings. Models are good to use for tactile teaching lessons because they can be used for most subjects. In a biology or chemistry class, teachers can use physical models of a DNA molecule, cell, or any type of molecular item to show what it would look like. Science teachers could also assign students an activity to create a model of a molecule by using a material of their choice. In a history class a drawing model could be used to show a geographical region of the world.
(Genes and Mental Models, 2013).
History teachers can assign students to draw a model representation of what a specific geographic region looks like and the resources it has surrounding it. Both of these types of models allow students to be creating something with their hands and allows for learning through demonstrating their knowledge (Dill, 2002).
(Genes and Mental Models, 2013).
History teachers can assign students to draw a model representation of what a specific geographic region looks like and the resources it has surrounding it. Both of these types of models allow students to be creating something with their hands and allows for learning through demonstrating their knowledge (Dill, 2002).
Manipulatives, role play, and models are just a few examples of activities teachers can use to incorporate tactile learning into classrooms of different ages. There are several other activities which can be used to help teach tactile learners. A few examples of other tactile activities include typing on the computer and games. Students who like to touch things usually like typing on a computer and playing computer games because their fingers are constantly moving and the computer is interactive while they are typing or playing. For younger students, computer games like mathematics or spelling can be used as activities to enhance learning. For older students, taking notes on a laptop in class is one idea instead of taking notes by hand, to allow the students to concentrate by using tactile skills in class. Also, games in general played in the classroom are a good activity for tactile learners. Games are versatile and can be used for any subject matter. Tactile students love games because it allows for movement and interacting with others and with the game itself (Dill, 2002). It is important for teachers to remember that students who are tactile learners need to be able to actively participate in the classroom, that they need to move around frequently and that they need to be able to create or do something that will be memorable in teaching them. Any tactile activities that incorporate these three things should be effective in allowing good learning opportunities for tactile learners.
Group or Individual Learning?
The majority of tactile learning is done in groups, such as playing games, creating models, role playing, or using manipulatives; many of these activities involve several students working together. Tactile learners work well in groups usually because they learn from what others do or demonstrate in a group. Therefore, teachers often do group activities to incorporate tactile lessons for students. However, tactile learning can be an individualized process. Teachers can take group activities and form them into a more individual project for students. For example, teachers could give each child manipulatives while teaching how to do addition and then give them a worksheet where they could use the manipulatives to demonstrate their understanding of addition. Another example of individual tactile learning is using models, a teacher can assign an assignment for each student to go home and create a model of a molecule and bring it back the next day to compare to other students (Dill, 2002). This activity involves individual thinking and creating at home but also combines the group learning as the students reveal their models to each other. Tactile learning should involve both group learning and individual learning, however it will most likely involve more group learning.
Visually Impaired Students & Tactile Learning
The tactile method can be helpful for many students, especially students with visual disabilities. Students who are visually impaired rely heavily on what they can tangibly touch and hear to learn. Students who have visual disabilities need to be able to physically interact with objects because touching is their sense of seeing. It is crucial for children at a young age to be exposed to tactual learning to be prepared for school. Parents of visually impaired children can start helping their children learn at home by allowing them to build towers with blocks, play with play dough, and having them hold different toys with various textures. These simple activities produce much growth in fine
motor skills that are important for children to attain before going to school (Cleveland, 2010).
(Tactile Graphics, 2013)
Touching and feeling objects at a young age also generates mental images of certain objects, emotions, and experiences which is critical before educating in school. For teachers educating young visually impaired students, there are several ways to incorporate tactile teaching and activities in the classroom. Reading books that have textured felt or shiny mirrors in them are a good way to introduce tactile learning to children, as the teacher reads allowed the student learns from feeling the object that is read to them. Research has found that when tactile input is combined with an activity that has a specific purpose (like reading) it can enhance learning (Cleveland, 2010).
motor skills that are important for children to attain before going to school (Cleveland, 2010).
(Tactile Graphics, 2013)
Touching and feeling objects at a young age also generates mental images of certain objects, emotions, and experiences which is critical before educating in school. For teachers educating young visually impaired students, there are several ways to incorporate tactile teaching and activities in the classroom. Reading books that have textured felt or shiny mirrors in them are a good way to introduce tactile learning to children, as the teacher reads allowed the student learns from feeling the object that is read to them. Research has found that when tactile input is combined with an activity that has a specific purpose (like reading) it can enhance learning (Cleveland, 2010).
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Another example of a tactile learning activity is a matching game with objects that have different textures in which the students must identify what the objects feel like and what they are and match them to the pair of that object. This activity will allow the child to store images and memories in their mind of what the textures felt like. Watch the YouTube video to the left to get more tips and ideas for this tactile matching activity (Tactile Matching Game for Blind Children, 2013). Other techniques that can be implemented in the classroom for young blind students is hand-over-hand guidance and hand-under-hand guidance (Chen, 2001). Both of these techniques involves the student and teacher moving their hands together over an object to discover characteristics of the object they are touching. This allows the student to explore the object from their personal perspective but with the comfort of the teacher aiding in their discovery. The hand-over-hand and hand-under-hand technique is great to use for younger children to develop their minds about the classroom environment they are in and their surroundings (Chen, 2001).
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For teachers who are educating older visually impaired students, incorporating various textured objects into lessons ad projects is largely important. As students get older they will learn Braille, which is important for their communications skills however, that should only be one part of their tactile learning in class. Teachers must be creative in adapting normally non-tactile objects and make them into a tactile learning object. For example, one adaptation that teachers can use in the classroom is placing a clear, textured protector over an iPad screen. Whenever the students swipe their fingers over the iPad, they can feel what they are writing with their fingers. This would help students in class as they can learn to write and spell words and visualize what they look like. Watch the video on the right to learn more about this activity (TacTouch, The Tablet Cover for Tactile Learning, 2013). Other applications could be downloaded onto the iPad as well so students could learn what geometric figures look like or even to draw what a DNA molecule looks like.
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ESL Students & Tactile Learning
Students whose secondary language is English are also well-suited to learn tactually. Students can face great challenges in the classroom due to language barriers which could prevent them from learning and interacting with classmates. A study was done on five different ethnic groups whose second language was English and the study found that all five ethnic groups showed a preference for tactile learning (Park, 2002). Tactile learning allows for students to be actively involved in learning even if their English vocabulary is small because they learn by watching classmates and doing by themselves. This type of learning method also places little stress on ESL students because they do not feel frustrated trying to speak or trying to understand a
teacher speaking to the class.
(Interactive Whiteboards, 2013)
Tactile learning allows ESL students to feel enabled by giving them activities they can do and teach themselves. A study was published in Elsevier, an online academic journal that publishes scholarly articles with scientific findings, that found that tactile and visual interactive learning was largely important for ESL students (Coyle, 2010). The research did a study on a teacher using an interactive whiteboard (similar to a smart board) to teach a literacy and numeracy lesson to a classroom of both native and non-native English speaking students. The study confirmed that the tactile learning through the interactive whiteboard lesson helped ESL students learn through visual, auditory and tactile learning combined. The non-native English speaking students who were called upon to answer math questions on the interactive board were able to see abstract math problems visually represented and able to interact with it. Also, the ESL students watched as native English speaking students demonstrated how to do problems on the board, further enhancing their understanding and knowledge. Finally, the students would be able to audibly listen to the teacher explain how to solve certain problems. The conclusion of the study stated, "Interactive software programmes can help to focus children’s attention on the lesson content, allowing them to visualize the processes involved in solving on screen tasks, making their errors more easily identifiable and promoting the sharing of knowledge through listening and talking. When this occurs in a second language learning context, the potential of the IWB (interactive white board) for supporting comprehension and promoting output is even more important" (Coyle, 2010). From this study it is clear that students whose second language is English benefit greatly from tactile learning and that being able to interact with different devices in the classroom is a safe and excellent way to enhance learning.
teacher speaking to the class.
(Interactive Whiteboards, 2013)
Tactile learning allows ESL students to feel enabled by giving them activities they can do and teach themselves. A study was published in Elsevier, an online academic journal that publishes scholarly articles with scientific findings, that found that tactile and visual interactive learning was largely important for ESL students (Coyle, 2010). The research did a study on a teacher using an interactive whiteboard (similar to a smart board) to teach a literacy and numeracy lesson to a classroom of both native and non-native English speaking students. The study confirmed that the tactile learning through the interactive whiteboard lesson helped ESL students learn through visual, auditory and tactile learning combined. The non-native English speaking students who were called upon to answer math questions on the interactive board were able to see abstract math problems visually represented and able to interact with it. Also, the ESL students watched as native English speaking students demonstrated how to do problems on the board, further enhancing their understanding and knowledge. Finally, the students would be able to audibly listen to the teacher explain how to solve certain problems. The conclusion of the study stated, "Interactive software programmes can help to focus children’s attention on the lesson content, allowing them to visualize the processes involved in solving on screen tasks, making their errors more easily identifiable and promoting the sharing of knowledge through listening and talking. When this occurs in a second language learning context, the potential of the IWB (interactive white board) for supporting comprehension and promoting output is even more important" (Coyle, 2010). From this study it is clear that students whose second language is English benefit greatly from tactile learning and that being able to interact with different devices in the classroom is a safe and excellent way to enhance learning.