Effective Preparation for Assessments
[To prepare for assessments] many students rely on strategies such as highlighting, rereading and cramming the night before an exam .
Quite often students believe these relatively ineffective strategies are actually the most effective.
We found that these strategies (rereading, highlighting and cramming) are not that effective, especially if students want to retain knowledge
What are the Effective Learning strategies?
John Dunlosky and his colleagues reviewed 1,000 scientific studies looking at 10 of the most popular revision strategies. They found that eight out of 10 did not work, or even hindered learning.
Each of the learning strategies were graded as high impact, moderate impact or low impact.
This portal concentrates on the top two rated learning strategies for independent study and they were....
Most Effective Learning Strategies
Practice testing and distributed practice received high utility assessments because they benefit learners of different ages and abilities and have been shown to boost students’ performance across many criterion tasks.
Self Quizzing (Retrieval Practice)
(High Impact)
Self-testing (retrieval practice) to or taking practice tests to check knowledge.
Distributed practice
(High Impact)
Spreading out study over time with a schedule
Moderate and Low Effective Learning Strategies
Research shows that these techniques are not as effective as the learning techniques listed above.
Elaborative interrogation, self-explanation, and interleaved practice received moderate utility assessments. The benefits of these techniques do generalize across some variables, yet despite their promise, they fell short of a high utility assessment because the evidence for their efficacy is limited.
Five techniques received a low utility assessment: summarization, highlighting, the keyword mnemonic, imagery use for text learning, and rereading. These techniques were rated as low utility for numerous reasons.
Elaborative interrogation (Moderate Impact)
Being able to explain a point or fact
Self-explanation (Moderate Impact)
How a problem was solved
Interleaved practice (Moderate Impact)
Switching between different kinds of problems and topics in a single session
Keyword mnemonics (Low Impact)
Choosing a word to associate with information
Imagery (Low Impact)
Forming mental pictures while reading or listening
Summarising (Low Impact)
Writing summaries of texts
Re-reading & Highlighting (Low Impact)
Highlighting/underlining
Summary of the effectiveness of each learning strategy
Understanding how to learn effectively is as important as understanding subject content.
Watch these videos for more evidence-based learning tips
The Research
Recommendations based on the outcomes of John Dunlosky's research into effective learning strategies.
Strengthen the student toolbox | Improving Students’ Learning With Effective Learning Techniques | https://www.learningscientists.org/
Understanding How We Learn: A Visual Guide
https://www.learningscientists.org/book | Amazon Link
Educational practice does not, for the most part, rely on research findings. Instead, there's a preference for relying on our intuitions about what's best for learning. But relying on intuition may be a bad idea for teachers and learners alike.
This accessible guide helps teachers to integrate effective, research-backed strategies for learning into their classroom practice. The book explores exactly what constitutes good evidence for effective learning and teaching strategies, how to make evidence-based judgments instead of relying on intuition, and how to apply findings from cognitive psychology directly to the classroom.
Including real-life examples and case studies, FAQs, and a wealth of engaging illustrations to explain complex concepts ad emphasize key points, the book is divided into four parts:
Evidence-based education and the science of learningBasics of human cognitive processesStrategies for effective learningTips for students, teachers, and parents.
Written by "The Learning Scientists" and fully illustrated by Oliver Caviglioli, Understanding How We Learn is a rejuvenating and fresh examination of cognitive psychology's application to education. This is an essential read for all teachers and educational practitioners, designed to convey the concepts of research to the reality of a teacher's classroom.
Make it Stick: The Science of Successful Learning
Drawing on recent discoveries in cognitive psychology and other disciplines, the authors offer concrete techniques for becoming more productive learners.
Many common study habits and practice routines turn out to be counterproductive. Underlining and highlighting, rereading, cramming, and single-minded repetition of new skills create the illusion of mastery, but gains fade quickly. More complex and durable learning come from self-testing, introducing certain difficulties in practice, waiting to re-study new material until a little forgetting has set in, and interleaving the practice of one skill or topic with another. Speaking most urgently to students, teachers, trainers, and athletes, Make It Stick will appeal to all those interested in the challenge of lifelong learning and self-improvement.
