As a teen, Farid Sana often highlighted books with markers. “The colors were supposed to tell me different things.” Later, she recalls, “I had no idea what those highlighted texts were supposed to mean.”
She also took lots of notes as she read. But often she was “just copying words or changing the words around.” That work didn’t help much either, she says now In effect, "it was just to practice my handwriting skills"
The best ways to learn easily are written below, and these step use to study easily, and not longer
“No one ever taught me how to study,” Sana says
College got harder, so she worked to find better study skills. She’s now a psychologist at Athabasca University in Alberta, Canada,
There she studies how students can learn better
having good study skills is always helpful
But it’s even more important now during the COVID-19 pandemic. Many students worry about family or friends who may get sick, Sana notes
Others feel more general stress
Beyond that, students in many countries are facing different formats for learning,
Some schools are holding in-person classes again, with rules for spacing and masks Others schools have staggered classes, with students at school part-time
Still others have all online classes, at least for a while
These conditions can distract from your lessons Plus, students are likely to have to do more without a teacher or parent looking over their shoulders, They will have to manage their time and study more on their own. Yet many students never learned those skills
To them, Sana says, it may be like telling students to learn to swim by "just swimming"
The good news: Science can help
For more than 100 years, psychologists have done research on which study habits work best, Some tips help for almost every subject, For example, don’t just cram! And test yourself, instead of just rereading the material,
Other tactics work best for certain types of classes. This includes things like using graphs or mixing up what you study
Here are 10 tips to tweak your study habits
Space out your studies
Nate Cornell “definitely did cram” before big tests when he was a student
He’s a psychologist at Williams College in Williams town, Mass
He still thinks it’s a good idea to study the day before a big test
But research shows it’s a bad idea to cram all you're studying into that day
Instead, space out those study sessions
In one 2009 experiment, college students studied vocabulary words with flash cards
Some students studied all the words in spaced-apart sessions throughout four days. Others studied smaller batches of the words in crammed, or massed, sessions, each over a single day
Both groups spent the same amount of time overall
But testing showed that the first group learned better
Cornell compares our memory to water in a bucket that has a small leak
Try to refill the bucket while it’s still full, and you can’t add much more water
Allow time between study sessions, and some material may drip out of your memory. But then you’ll be able to relearn it and learn more in your next study session
And you’ll remember it better, next time, he notes
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