Studying by Reading Over and Over Again

The manner most students study makes no sense.

That'due south the decision of Washington University in St. Louis psychologists Henry Roediger andMarker McDaniel — who've spent a combined 80 years studying learning and memory, and recently distilled their findings with novelist Peter Dark-brown in the bookMake It Stick: The Science of Successful Learning.

The majority of students report by re-reading notes and textbooks — just the psychologists' research, both in lab experiments and of actual students in classes, shows this is a terrible manner to learn textile. Using active learning strategies — like flashcards, diagramming, and quizzing yourself — is much more effective, as is spacing out studying over time and mixing unlike topics together.

McDaniel spoke with me nigh the eight fundamental tips he'd share with students and teachers from his body of research.

ane) Don't merely re-read your notes and readings

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"Nosotros know from surveys that a majority of students, when they report, they typically re-read assignments and notes. About students say this is their number ane go-to strategy.

"We know, even so, from a lot of research, that this kind of repetitive recycling of data is not an especially practiced way to acquire or create more permanent memories.Our studies of Washington University students, for example, show that when they re-read a textbook chapter, they accept absolutely no improvement in learning over those who just read information technology one time.

"On your beginning reading of something, you excerpt a lot of understanding. Only when you do the 2d reading, yous read with a sense of 'I know this, I know this.' So basically, you're not processing it securely, or picking more than out of it. Oftentimes, the re-reading is cursory — and information technology's insidious, because this gives y'all the illusion that yous know the textile very well, when in fact at that place are gaps."

two) Enquire yourself lots of questions

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"Ane good technique to use instead is to read once, then quiz yourself, either using questions at the back of a textbook chapter, or making up your own questions. Retrieving that data is what actually produces more than robust learning and retention.

"And fifty-fifty when you can't retrieve it — when y'all become the questions wrong — it gives you an authentic diagnostic on what you don't know, and this tells you what you should go back and study. This helps guide your studying more than effectively.

"Request questions also helps you lot understand more deeply.Say you're learning about earth history, and how aboriginal Rome and Greece were trading partners. Finish and enquire yourself why they became trading partners. Why did they become shipbuilders, and learn to navigate the seas? It doesn't always take to be why — yous tin ask how, or what.

"In request these questions, you're trying to explicate, and in doing this, you create a better agreement, which leads to meliorate retentivity and learning. So instead of simply reading and skimming, end and ask yourself things to make yourself understand the material."

3) Connect new data to something you already know

"Some other strategy is, during a 2nd reading,to try relating the principles in the text to something you already know most. Chronicle new information to prior data for amend learning.

"One example is if you lot were learning about how the neuron transmits electricity. One of the things we know if that if y'all take a fatty sheath surround the neuron, called a myelin sheath, information technology helps the neuron transmit electricity more chop-chop.

"So y'all could liken this, say, to water running through a hose. The water runs chop-chop through information technology, simply if you puncture the hose, it'south going to leak, and you won't get the same flow. And that's essentially what happens when we age — the myelin sheaths suspension downward, and transmissions become slower."

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4) Draw out the information in a visual form

"A bully strategy is making diagrams, or visual models, or flowcharts. In a get-go psychology form, you could diagram the flow of classical conditioning. Sure, you can read about classical conditioning, merely to truly sympathize information technology and exist able to write down and describe the different aspects of it on a test afterward — condition, stimulus, and and so on — it'southward a proficient thought to see if you can put it in a flowchart.

"Anything that creates active learning — generating understanding on your own — is very constructive in retention. It basically means the learner needs to go more involved and more engaged, and less passive."

v) Utilise flashcards

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"Flashcards are another good way of doing this. And ane cardinal to using them is actually re-testing yourself on the ones you got right.

"A lot of students will answer the question on a flashcard, and take it out of the deck if they get it right. Only it turns out this isn't a adept idea — repeating the deed of memory retrieval is important. Studies show that keeping the correct item in the deck and encountering it over again is useful. You might want to practice the incorrect items a fiddling more, but repeated exposure to the ones you get right is important too.

"It's not that repetition as a whole is bad. It'south that mindless repetition is bad."

6) Don't cram — space out your studying

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"A lot of students cram — they expect until the last minute, then in one evening, they echo the data again and again. But research shows this isn't skilful for long term retention. It may allow you to do okay on that examination the next 24-hour interval, simply and so on the terminal, y'all won't retain as much information, and then the next yr, when you lot need the information for the next level course, it won't be at that place.

"This oft happens in statistics. Students come back for the adjacent yr, and it seems like they've forgotten everything, because they crammed for their tests.

"The meliorate idea is to space repetition. Practice a lilliputian bit one day, then put your flashcards abroad, and then have them out the side by side solar day, then ii days afterwards. Study afterward study shows that spacing is really important."

7) Teachers should space out and mix up their lessons too

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"Our book also has data for teachers. And our educational system tends to promote massed presentation of information besides.

"In a typical higher course, you cover one topic 1 twenty-four hours, then on the second twenty-four hour period, another topic, so on the tertiary day, another topic. This is massed presentation. You never go back and recycle or reconsider the fabric.

"But the key, for teachers, is to put the material back in front of a educatee days or weeks later. There are several means they can practice this. Here at Washington University, at that place are some instructors who requite weekly quizzes, and used to just put material from that calendar week'southward classes on the quiz. At present, they're bringing back more material from 2 to three weeks agone. One psychology lecturer explicitly takes time, during each lecture, to bring back material from days or weeks beforehand.

"This tin can exist done in homework also. Information technology's typical, in statistics courses, to requite homework in which all of the issues are all in the aforementioned category. Subsequently correlations are taught, astudent'southward homework, say, is problem after trouble on correlation. Then the next week, T tests are taught, and all the problems are on T tests. But we've establish that sprinkling in questions on stuff that was covered two or three weeks ago is really good for retentiveness.

"And this can be congenital into the content of lessons themselves. Permit's say yous're taking an art history course. When I took information technology, I learned near Gauguin, and then I saw lots of his paintings, then I moved on to Matisse, and saw lots of paintings by him. Students and instructors both call back that this is a good way of learning the painting styles of these different artists.

"Simply experimental studies show that's not the case at all. It's better to give students an instance of 1 artist, then move to another, then another, then recycle dorsum effectually. That interspersing, or mixing, produces much amend learning that tin be transferred to paintings you haven't seen — letting students accurately identify the creators of paintings, say, on a test.

"And this works for all sorts of problems. Let'south go back to statistics. In upper level classes, and the real world, you're not going to be told what sort of statistical problem you're encountering — you're going to accept to figure out the method yous demand to utilize. And you tin can't learn how to do that unless you accept experience dealing with a mix of unlike types of issues, and diagnosing which requires which blazon of approach."

viii) There's no such thing as a "math person"

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"There'south some really interesting piece of work by Carol Dweck, at Stanford. She's shown that students tend to have one of two mindsets nigh learning.

"One is a fixed learning model. It says, 'I have a certain corporeality of talent for this topic — say, chemistry or physics — and I'll do well until I hit that limit. Past that, it's also hard for me, and I'm not going to practise well.'The other mindset is a growth mindset. It says that learning involves using effective strategies, putting aside time to do the work, and engaging in the process, all of which help you gradually increase your capacity for a topic.

"It turns out that the mindsets predict how well students stop up doing. Students with growth mindsets tend to stick with it, tend to persevere in the confront of difficulty, and tend to be successful in challenging classes. Students with the fixed mindset tend non to.

"And so for teachers, the lesson is that if you can talk to students and propose that a growth mindset actually is the more accurate model — and it is — and then students tend to exist more than open to trying new strategies, and sticking with the class, and working in means that are going to promote learning. Power, intelligence, and learning have to do with how y'all approach it — working smarter, we like to say."

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

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Source: https://www.vox.com/2014/6/24/5824192/study-smarter-learn-better-8-tips-from-memory-researchers

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