The first step is uploaded before,
The second step is,
Practice, practice, practice!
Musicians practice their instruments. Athletes practice sports skills. The same should go for learning,
“If you want to be able to remember information, the best thing you can do is practice,” says Katherine Rawson. She’s a psychologist at Kent State University in Ohio. In one 2013 study, students took practice tests, over several weeks. On the final test, they scored more than a full letter grade better, on average, than did students who studied the way they normally had.
In a study done a few years earlier, college students read material and then took recall tests
Some took just one test, Others took several tests with short breaks of several minutes in between. The second group recalled the material better a week later,
The third step is,
don't just reread the book and notes,
As a teen, Cynthia Nobel studied by reading her textbooks, worksheets and notebooks. “Over and over and over again,” recalls this psychologist at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn. Now, she adds, “we know that’s one of the most common bad study skills that students have.”
In one 2009 study, some college students read a text twice. Others read a text just once. Both groups took a test right after the reading. Test results differed little between these groups, Aimee Cal lender and Mark McDaniel found. She is now at Wheaton College in Illinois. He works at Washington University in St. Louis, Mo.
Too often, when students reread material, it’s superficial, says McDaniel, who also co-wrote the 2014 book, Make It Stick: The Science of Successful Learning. Rereading is like looking at the answer to a puzzle, rather than doing it yourself, he says. It looks like it makes sense. But until you try it yourself, you don’t really know if you understand it
One of McDaniel’s coauthors of Make it Stick is Henry Rodger. He, too, works at Washington University. In one 2010 study, Rodger and two other colleagues compared test results of students who reread material to two other groups,
One group wrote questions about the material. The other group answered questions from someone else. Those who answered the questions did best. Those who just reread the material did worst.
The fourth step is,
Test yourself
That 2010 study backs up one of Nobel’s preferred study habits. Before big tests, her mom quizzed her on the material. “Now I know that was retrieval practice,” she says. “It’s one of the best ways you can study.” As Nobel got older, she quizzed herself. For example, she might cover up the definitions in her notebook. Then she tried to recall what each term meant.
Such retrieval practice can help nearly everyone, Rawson and others showed in an August 2020 study in Learning and Instruction. This research included college students with an attention problem known as ADHD. It stands for Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. Overall, retrieval helped students with ADHD and those without the disorder equally well.
“Create a deck of flash cards every time you learn new information,” Sana suggests. “Put questions on one side and the answers on the other side.” Friends can even quiz each other on the phone, she says.
“Try to quiz yourself the way the teacher asks questions,” Nobel added,
But really grill yourself and your friends, she says. And here’s why. She was part of a team that asked students to write one quiz question for each class period. Students would then answer a question from another classmate. Preliminary data show that students did worse on tests afterward than when the daily quiz questions came from the teacher. Nobel’s team is still analyzing the data. She suspects the students’ questions may have been too simple
Teachers often dig deeper, she notes. They don’t just ask for definitions. Often, teachers ask students to compare and contrast ideas. That takes some critical thinking
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