In terms of study techniques, there is a lot folklore out there and unfortunately people don’t often talk about evidence-based strategies. Fortunately we have a list of them here.
First thing is first, get rid of the highlighters. Burn them. Genuinely you don’t need them and they give you a false sense of knowledge.
The underlying principle of the following techniques is mindful study, which means being present in the moment and paying attention to what is in front of you rather than going through the motions (which is what the highlighters usually mean you do.)
First of all is how to approach your time. Studying in long blocks may seem smart, but it is proven to be ineffective. What I encourage is the use of what is called the Pomodoro Technique. What this essentially boils down to is management of time in a strict routine with the aid of an external timer, for which there are conveniently many apps. The technique is as follows:
- Identify a single well defined task that has an end point.
- Start the timer. You will then work on that task, and that task alone for twenty-five minutes.
- At the end of twenty-five minutes, take a five minute break; this might mean meditating, stretching, eating or getting a cup of tea or coffee.
- At the end of five minutes, you then repeat the first step and spend twenty five minutes on that task and that task alone.
- You repeat this a total of four times before taking a longer break of fifteen minutes. And that’s it.
The idea is to promote focus and stave off fatigue and ensure that you are mindfully working at the task at hand. I personally wouldn’t recommend doing more than three or four of these sets of four in order to preserve your energy, remember you are in this for the long term!
Next I will give you a list of evidence-based study techniques. I would encourage you to do some more reading around these to gain a sophisticated understanding, but here we have the basics.
- Calibration:
This refers to aligning your self-assessment of knowledge with an objective, real-world tool. Ideally you will have been doing this all year with periodic testing. This is so you can determine how hard you need to work on a given area so you can focus on what needs work and take it easy on what you have already mastered. An idea might be to ask your teacher where you rank in various areas against your peers. Or for your teacher to provide some practice tests and then mark them and tell you the results in relation to your peers.
- Generation:
This last point leads into generation. This idea is based on evidence that shows learning, memory and recall of information is markedly improved when students attempt to answer questions before they know the answer, then when they find it out later it sticks much better. Therefore a new test is a perfect opportunity for this.
- Retrieval Practice:
This is essential. As what is exercised in exams is not your ability to learn but your ability to recall, you should be seeking every opportunity to practice recall, such as with practice exams. Even better, it’s shown to improve learning and memory. Take every opportunity you can to retrieve knowledge from memory.
- Spaced repetition:
Rather than learning everything about something in one block which is the intuitive approach, evidence has actually shown that spacing your recall of a particular subject markedly improves learning and recall. This means leaving gaps of hours to days to weeks to months before revisiting material.
This leads on to,
- Interleave Practice:
This refers to filling the gaps in spaced repetition with a mix of different subject matters and question types. By forcing the brain to switch between subject matter and question formats, it may initially seem harder, but the memory benefit will be better.
- Elaboration:
This refers to forming additional levels of understanding. In order to do this, apply your knowledge to new scenarios, use metaphors to describe the material or best of all, teach it to someone else.
- Reflection:
Finally, be sure to frequently reflect on all you have done.
Use these techniques in combination with a healthy diet (cut the sugar), a lot of sleep (seven-eight hours minimum), exercise and meditation and you will do well. Good luck and all the best!
