So do what you can to start spreading your study out. It's stressful, it often cuts your sleep-time down (which is when memory is being transferred from short term to long term, too), and all of this can further impact your ability to perform well on the test the next (or just later that) day.Īnd another thing: if you're enrolling in courses that are a part of a series, and you're relying on last-minute studying/cramming to prepare for your quizzes and exams, you're sabotaging your future self who will need to know and be able to use and refer back to these foundational ideas. As they mention in their book, The New Science of Learning, Terry Doyle and Todd Zakrajsek share that a person can actually remember quite a lot post-cram-sesh, for about 18 to 36 hours within a week's worth of time, though, about 75% of that material will be lost (Doyle & Zakrajsek, 2019).ĪAACK! That's such a waste of energy! Because cramming takes a lot of energy, and deprives you of energy in the process. It's not great, it doesn't feel great, and it doesn't yield great long-term results. And we've been there too - we've used the less-than-perfect approach of waiting until the last minute to prepare and then staying up all night to do so, cramming in half a term's worth of study and practice into a single eight-hour marathon study session. We know it's not uncommon for students to cram before an exam or test, rather than to distribute their practice over the course of days/weeks/months. Often we hear from students that they just don't have enough time. All of this combined is what helps you to learn and make memory that lasts.Īnd all of this takes time. Then, add to that the repetition you engaged in, which will happen naturally as you practice more and more. In each example you find for yourself, consider your interest, what you valued about learning said example, the attention you paid it, how you made connections between it and something else you knew, and the amount of practice you engaged in.
#Creating memories worth repeating how to
This may sound like a lot, but you're doing it all the time! Think about it, and do a quick self-check - what are the things in your life that you've learned how to do, that you can do without thinking, that you know and can recall from memory? Maybe it's something to do with music, or the rules of a sport or game, or performing memorized lines in front of an audience, or riding a horse/bike/skateboard/etc. It takes being interested in what you're learning, seeing value in the material, committing attention to the information, making connections between it and what you may already know, and practicing what it is you've learned (Doyle & Zakrajsek, 2019). Making a memory is a multi-step process that we engage in daily, whether or not we recognize it at the time.
So how do we make memory and transfer it from our short-term store to our long-term store? One of the best ways to make college-level studying more effective is to understand and apply what's been researched and discovered about how humans learn most effectively, and retain information most effectively.
This is where the memory process comes in.
In college (really, in life) you need to retain much of the information you're learning so you can use it/retrieve it/perform it/etc. It happens (ideally) when we're taught something, or teach ourselves something, or study/experience what we've been taught by others. Learning is the process of acquiring knowledge or information.
0 kommentar(er)
