Maximizing Your Learning Efforts, Part 5 of 6

There is one last piece to the learning puzzle and that is to space your learning out over time.  You can use a variety of strategies and repetition, but they need to be over an extended period of time - not just overnight before the exam.  This is because the information needs time to become well entrenched in your memory.
Some ways to do this are:

• Review your lecture notes as soon as possible after class while they are fresh in your mind.  Make any corrections or clarifications needed.  Be sure they are neat, clear and well organized.  If necessary, rewrite them.
• Get on a study schedule.  Go to the library after each class or, if you return to your room or home, get into the habit of going straight to your desk  and studying the day's information.
• Start to study about a week before an exam.  Divide the information into logical sections and do an in-depth review of each section (one per day) and review all the material every day.
• Take advantage of any learning opportunity - professor-led review sessions, Supplemental Instruction, tutoring, study groups, etc.  These are added sources of review with the benefit of interacting with the information in different ways.
• Be sure you are reading any assignments as the semester progresses.  Don't save them until right before the exam.
• Make study cards for vocabulary or important information and use them when you have a few empty minutes during the day.
• Review hard-to-learn or crucial information right before you go to sleep at night.

Variety, repetition and this last part, spacing your learning out over time, are all important and depend on each other to be successful!


The last blog in this series will pull out two strategies that are crucial to your learning success!
*****
First Semester Success: Learning Strategies and Motivation for Your First Semester (or Any Semester) of  College, by Dr. Arden B. Hamer, is available at wordassociation.com, barnesandnoble.com and amazon.com.  Click on the upper right link.