Studying and retaining information and knowledge can be a daunting task for many students. Some students seem to absorb everything they hear or read and are able to recall it with ease. Most students,however ,struggle with studying and retaining information. What most struggling students dont realize is that studying is not an inherent talent,but a skill set that can be learned and enhanced. Learning and implementing skills is the first step. The second step is maintaining the discipline to continue day after day.
Fortunately, learning and learning to learn well, will always be one of the most valuable skills ion your personal and professional life. My point is that you start building these skills as soon as possible, preferably when you are still a student.
Fast and effective learning is a skill for life and i could talk about it for days. however, to get you started, i will give you 5 powerful tips on how to learn more, how to learn well and how to learn effectively.
8 Tips To Make Learning Permanent:
create study space: Defining a specific study space that is free from distraction such as cell phones, televisions and family interruption accomplishes two things. First, it tells your mind that you are ready to focus and second,it cuts your actual studying time in half. Why? Because your mind retains focused study more effectively than unfocused and interrupted study.
Take effective notes both in class and while reading your text: Write down key concepts in bullet points. if you have questions,write them down. After class and after a reading session,write a summary of what you have learnt and your questions. Review all of your summaries weekly.
Implement memorization techniques. Two simple techniques are: mnemonics and journey visualization
Mnemonics uses acronyms or silly sentences as the key to retaining important data. For instance, many people remember the lines of the G-clef by remembering this simple sentence: Every Good Boy Does Fine. The lines in the G-clef are E,G,B,D and F. Make up your own helpful hints to remember key information.In journey visualization, you imagine a familiar place, such as your home or school, and assign items in the journey to the data you need to remember the seven colors of the rainbow (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet), you would begin by using a place such as your living room noting the key items in the room. Remember that the more outrageous the images, the easier they are to retain and consider that pleasure increases memory retention.
Pretend that you will have to teach what you have learnt: In the 8 habit, stephen R. Covey recommends that you teach what you have learned to at least two people to help you remember it. The process of taking the new information and teaching it to someone else will force you to fully understand the new ideas.
Write about what you have learnt: This sounds like the previous tip, right? its based on a similar principle: once you reward the information and , it has a better chance of staying in your memory
Study in short, Frequent sessions: It has been proven that short bursts of concentration repeated frequently are much more effective than one long session. So, even if you only have 10 minutes. This "distributed learning" approach is highly efficient because it honors the way the brain likes to work. The brain needs recovery and recharging time for "proteins synthesis." The rest periods are when your brain assimilates your effort. This is a powerful tool which many teachers do not acknowledge. To sit and study for hours and hours is not only boring, it creates fatigue, stress, and distraction. You cannot learn if you are fatigued, stressed, and distracted!
Take guilt-free days of rest: This follows the same principles as above, but on a longer, daily time cycle. The reason for resting is to refresh oneself. However, if you feel guilty ("I really should be studying") then your precious rest period has been used to create more stress. The brain will not absorb new data if it is stressed. On days off from studying, really enjoy yourself and do not feel bad about not studying. In a recent study conducted by jeffrey Ellenbogen of the Havard Medical School, students with adequate sleep recalled information twice as accurately as asleep-deprived students
Honor your emotional state: Do not study if you are tired, angry, distracted, or in a hurry. When the brain is relaxed, it is like a sponge and it naturally absorbs data without effort. if you are emotionally stressed, your brain literally repels data. Forcing yourself to sit and study when your mind is on other things is a complete waste of time!