The Learning Process - Part 1 of 5

Over the summer, let’s spend some time reviewing exactly how learning happens AND what you can concretely do while you are “studying” to make it happen.    To successfully learn and understand information the following three criteria are necessary:

A variety of strategies

Repetition

Spaced out over time

Briefly, here is an overview of each:

Variety – the learner (you!) needs to do several different things with the information in order to truly “know” it.  This goes well beyond reading the textbook and “reviewing” or “rereading” your lecture notes.  Some basic ideas are to test yourself, outline, make study cards, etc.

Repetition – To get information firmly into your long-term memory you need to go over it and over it.  Each time you recall or think about the information it gets more firmly cemented until eventually you can recall it without any hints or clues.

Over time – This repetition needs to be spread out over time.  The time in between each study session is important because this gives the information some time to “set.”  You definitely will not get the same results if you review the information over and over just on the night before an exam.

Next week we will look at VARIETY in more detail.

Until then – keep learning!

First Semester Success: Learning Strategies and Motivation for Your First Semester (or Any Semester) of College, by Dr. Arden B. Hamer, is now available at wordassociation.com, amazon.com and barnesandnoble.com.