Students in legal assistant training programs develop many different skills throughout their studies, as they learn everything from keyboarding skills to the fundamentals of the legal system. To help master these different skills, there are a few study tactics students may want to employ. These can help with committing information to memory, and also makes it easier to accomplish more studying in smaller blocks of time. If you have a busy schedule full of other commitments, using effective study techniques can help you find success in legal assistant training while leaving room for other important tasks too.
Curious about the kinds of techniques that work well? Here are a few study tips you can use during your training.
Tip 1: Use Self-Testing to Remember More Information
Some students aren’t aware that just re-reading course material and looking at notes isn’t the most effective way to retain information. Instead, research shows that self-testing—posing a question to yourself and attempting to answer it—is a much better technique for adding concepts and facts to your long-term memory.
One simple self-testing method you can apply is to take 30 seconds after finishing a lecture, or having completed a reading, to write down as many of the main points as you can remember. This helps you commit information to your long-term memory, and, if repeated, is a great way to master course material. This technique will be especially helpful for remembering legal concepts from the portions of your program that deal with topics like civil litigation, court systems, and wills and estate
Tip 2: Use the Pomodoro Technique to Maintain Focus During Legal Assistant Training
If you find that you have trouble staying focused when studying for your legal assistant program or at a legal school, it might be helpful to change up the way you approach studying. Some students try to force themselves to remain focused for too long, and this can be counterproductive.
Using a technique called Pomodoro can help you break up your study sessions into manageable chunks. Typically, a student using the Pomodoro technique will work and focus hard for 25 minutes and avoid all distractions during that time. Once the 25 minutes are up, it’s time to enjoy a 5-minute break. This pattern can be repeated for as long as a student has to study.
This study technique will work equally well for practicing anything you do at school, from legal concepts to exercises with Microsoft Office software, and can also provide good motivation to do a bit of studying here and there. Even the busiest people can find 25 minutes in their day to devote to studying or practice!
Make studying more interesting by turning it into a game
Tip 3: Make Preparing for Your Legal Career Into a Game
Even when applying useful study techniques like the previous examples, you might find that you crave something different to help shake things up once in a while. Turning learning into a game is one way to accomplish this goal and stay productive while completing legal assistant training.
For example, if you want to practice your skills as a typist, you might like to try one of the many typing games that are available online. Playing these once in a while can help you improve the accuracy and speed of your typing, and some even turn this practice into a competition, pitting your final scores against those of fellow players around the world.
Another option is to make studying itself into a game. Establish a goal for how long you want to study in a given week or day, and if you achieve that goal, give yourself a little reward. The promise of a favourite dessert or a nice, long bubble bath can be a great encouragement and can help you on the road to mastering your legal assistant studies.
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