@runthenumbers9698

6 months ago

My mother is a teacher and she gave me some quality tips for learning in school... even if you have to do it from a book. You touched on a few of them, such as practicing recall WHILE you study. Some other ones though: 1. Most text books, you read a section and then at the end of the section, you have a review, right? Don't do it. Waste of time. (I know... your teachers will make you... whatever...) The better way to do this is to have 2 book marks, one of them is for the current chapter, and the other is for the review material. Do the review material about a week after you studied the content. When your teacher tells you to go through the review section, go through the review section that's a few lessons back instead. 2. Note-taking. Note-taking is done CATESTROPHICALLY wrong in schools. They write down the notes, and then you write down the notes in your notebook. Instead of listening to the lecture, you're now reading and writing, rendering yourself unable to pay attention. The notes aren't even yours, so they don't hold any of the benefits of real note-writing (note-writing is a form of immediate recall, and notes that you THOUGHT UP are not only more effective for remembering what you learned) they are also more useful for if you do need to refresh. Since you personally wrote you notes, if you actually need to LOOK UP something in your notes, it will be easier to recall its location within your notes. Your notes should be your own personal reference book... it should be easier to find things in your notes than it is to even find answers in the textbook since it's shorter, AND you have a processing relationship with your notes that you don't have with the textbook which you merely read. When you copy notes provided by a teacher, you are not only robbing yourself of the lecture, but you are doing it for notes that aren't even your own and won't help you in the way that real notes do. 3. A twist on note-taking Sometimes its hard to write your own notes. You don't know what's going to be presented, therefore you certainly don't know in advance how to organize your notes until you've already made errors. That's fine... notes are a messy process and that's aok. BUT... a little trick that you can use... instead of taking notes on what you are learning, you can take notes of what you expect to learn next or what you need to learn to better understand what you are learning. The fact is, most traditional notes... go in the garbage having never been reread. SOME waste is inevitable, but with that fact in mind, you should reduce your notes significantly, try to stay present in the lesson, and jot down only the notes that are useful to you and you alone. You aren't an author... you're a student... don't take notes for your friends. Take notes that YOU think you might reference later. If done right, this will reduce your load enough that you can do something far more productive... and start actually processing the lessons. Start asking yourself what you need to know, what is this leading to, what does this relate to, what do I wish I knew better, etc... Then, when you read through your notes, oh look at that... you've practically written yourself a review course. Just go through your questions to self, check off the questions that you DID end up learning the answer to in the lecture, research the ones you didn't, and if there are some questions that you conclude are beyond the scope of what you can study right now, note down a few things... "What would I need to know before I can study this more deeply?" "How/where would I find this knowledge?" "Will this put me in a better position to learn in this class?" "Am I going to take the proactive steps to answer this question, and if so, when and how?" Believe it or not, but learning what it is you don't know IS learning... even if you never learn that thing. Often times, simply knowing that there's something in the black box that you are never going to open saves you mental space, and prevents you from building faulty models that bite you later. You know what they say, "It's not the things that you don't know that get you... it's the things you 'know' but aren't so" 4. Download and learn how to use ANKI. Really... It's a flashcard scheduler, but you can schedule ANY note and turn them into a flashcard. The scheduler is the main feature. It's fantastic, infinitely customizeable, and it's free. It can be used for cramming, retention, learning, etc... 5. "Learning styles" are BS... kinda It's true that given the multiple choice of book-learning, auditory-learning, hands-on-learning, note-learning, etc... that you might enjoy one more than the rest... or you might respond better to one than the rest. This effect is exaggerated, but yes... different people respond differently to different types of learning. BUT... When it comes to the optimal strategy, you are NOT a unique little snowflake. The solution for you is the same as the solution to everyone else, and it is... Switch around. Do whatever learning method you enjoy... AND do the others as well... and distribute them somewhat evenly. Read the book mindfully for one section, take overly comprehensive notes for another section, do some active research for another section, focus on images for another section, look over the objectives and discuss a lesson with chat-gpt for another lesson, use flashcards... switch it up. Your knowledge base is interconnected, and if you learn things in different ways, that's multiple synaptic routes for recall, and it helps you to start to develop an overarching model in which you are better able to continue education later.

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