Ingredients for Successful Learning - Variety

When you sit down to study, what do you do?  Reread your lecture notes over and over?  Maybe reread the book?  The is not enough and it is boring!  Learning requires several things – variety, repetition, self-testing and being spaced out over time.  So there are many things you can do to improve your learning and the next several blogs will focus on some of these. 

One important thing is to do a variety of activities with the information you want to learn.  Rereading your notes over and over will not work.  If you do memorize your notes through that strategy you will only know the information in those exact words and in that order.  Here are some other ideas:

·       After rereading a section of notes, cover them up and restate the information in your own words.  If you can do so, move on to the next section.  If you cannot, repeat.

·       Make a review chart combining information from your notes and textbook.

·       Go to any study or review session scheduled (Supplemental Instruction, professor-led, etc.)

·       Take advantage of anything offered by the textbook such as a list of terms you should know, on-line quizzes, review questions at the end of chapters, etc.

·       Form a study group and take turns either quizzing each other or re-teaching the information to each other.

·       If you like color you can highlight you notes, add color to the study guide, use colored paper, etc.

·       Once you are pretty far along in your learning you could try to vary your study location so that you know the information in a variety of settings.

·       If you have access to a large white board or chalk board you could graph out the information on that.

·       You might find it interesting to watch a movie or documentary that relates to the information.

The point is to do a variety of things with the information to be sure you know it in different formats, different words and different order and can instantly recall it.

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