TRY TO TEACH SOMEONE ELSE (OR JUST PRETEND TO)
If you study like we are doing to teach someone else the material or task you are trying to understand, you will speed up your assimilation process and be able to recall more, according to a study done at Washington University in St. Louis. The expectation changes your mind-set so that you engage in more effective approaches to learning than those who simply learn to pass a test.
LEARN/STUDY IN SHORT PERIODS OF TIME
Experts at the Academic Success suggest dedicating 30-50 minutes to learning new material. “Anything less than 30 is just not enough, but anything more than 50 is too much information for your brain to take in at one time,” writes learning strategies graduate assistant Ellen Dunn. Once you’re done, take a five to 10 minute break before you start another session. Brief, frequent learning sessions are much better than longer, infrequent ones.
I recommend “Making note cards by hand for the more difficult concepts you are trying to master,” he says. “You never know when you’ll have some in-between time to take advantage of.”
TAKE NOTES BY HAND
While it’s easy and faster to take notes on a laptop or on smart devices, using a pen and paper will help you learn and understand better. Researchers found that when students took notes by hand, they listened more actively and were able to identify important concepts. Taking notes on a laptop, however, leads to mindless transcription, as well as an opportunity for distraction.
“In three studies, we found that students who took notes on laptops performed worse during exams than students who took notes longhand,” taking more notes can be beneficial, laptop note takers’ tendency to transcribe lectures verbatim rather than processing information and reframing it in their own words is detrimental to learning.”
- USE THE POWER OF MENTAL SPACING
You can learn faster when you practice distributed learning, or “spacing.” The Surprising Truth Is that learning is like watering a lawn. “You can water a lawn once a week for 90 minutes or three times a week for 30 minutes,” he said. “Spacing out the watering during the week will keep the lawn greener over time.”
To retain material, it’s best to review the information one to two days after first studying it. “One theory is that the brain actually pays less attention during short learning intervals, So repeating the information over a longer interval–say a few days or a week later, rather than in rapid succession–sends a stronger signal to the brain that it needs to retain the information.”