#active studying

Lots of people I know passively study all the time, then wonder why they don’t remember much. Passive studying includes rereading, rewriting everything, and highlighting everything. I see many people making ‘pretty notes’ but spending all their time reading it or forgetting about them after all that effort. Here are some ways to flip that mentality around.  

Pt. 1: Before studying

When you get new material in class or for reading assignments, don’t pick up your highlighter and turn the pages green. Instead, start off with a question in mind. What do I want to learn? What do I want to accomplish when I finish? Find the goal and purpose before you begin, then start highlighting and annotating material that answers your question. By doing this, you’ll be more alert and you’ll also analyze information better.

When analyzing the information, try to recognize similarities, connections, and differences. Take note of those in whatever way you want. After, use a post-it note or write in the margin (if possible) a quick summary. Try to aim to have your summary no more than a paragraph, depending on how dense the content you covered is.

Pt. 2 When studying

Use flashcards when memorizing names, dates, and formulas.

Don’t multitask!

Create an ongoing practice test with concepts you learned in the day and use it as review material. Format the questions like a teacher would.

Use different memorization techniques. (pst… post coming)

Organize your information so you can compare and contrast.

Space out your studying! (Here’s a post I made that might help)

Find practice problems.

If you’re quiet all the time when studying, there’s a chance that you’re passively studying and not actively. This is because active studying is rarely quiet.

Pt. 3 After studying

For math or any subject where the concepts build off each other, I find it beneficial to continue studying it every so often after the unit is over. This way I keep a stronger foundation to continue building off of.

Best of luck! Keep reading if you’re up for a lil sort-of related content :)

I’ve noticed that within the studyblr community there seems to be a focus on note-taking and making notes look nice. This isn’t bad at all and you need to take notes so you have a record of the information you have been taught but outside of that they don’t really help with learning information. Re-reading your notes isn’t an effective way to learn information and assess your knowledge. It is far better to use active studying techniques.

Active studying techniques are study methods that have you engaging with the information your learning constantly. Examples of this are making study guides, doing practice questions, making and using flashcards, spacing out your study so that the information can be stored in your long term memory, and summarising information in your own words (simplify it down where possible).

Out of all these methods I’ve listed above I feel as though doing lots of practice questions is the best way to go and quizzing yourself with flashcards. This is because your assessing your memory and understanding of what you’ve learnt. If you’re assessed with tests and exams in your class isn’t the best way to prepare for those to test yourself before that? 

For classes that are assessed based on essays its good to practice writing essays and showing them to your teacher whenever possible. This is specifically regarding in-class test essays.