How to Study Effectively 

In our educational career much is expected of the teacher: know the inner workings of the subject they teach, know how to effectively teach the subject, and have engaging activities for the students. The end goal is each student walks away from the class with a solid understanding of the topics that were discussed and even achieved good grades throughout. It is expected that if the teacher teaches the topic well, the students will do better on the tests. However there is one missing piece of this educational puzzle, and that is studying. 

It is every student's responsibility to study and prepare themselves for each test. It sounds easy, however studying is never discussed. How does a student know if the studying method they are using is effective for the type of test or even for themselves? 

A while ago I picked up a book titled Learning How to Learn by Alistair McConville, Barbra Oakley, and Terry Sejnowski. I was fascinated with everything about learning and studying I didn't know, and how much better I could do on any test if I understood how to study effectively. Knowing the inner workings of how your brain works, how it processes new information or how it memorizes definitions and concepts can lead to an overall better understanding on how to study.

The biggest thing I took away from this book, that I still think back on every time I sit down to study, is the idea of the mouse running over memory paths. Some students go into studying for a smaller test or quiz and think, “I'll just read over the notes, and I'll be fine.”  Reading over notes results in the mouse in your brain running through these concepts once. If you read over the notes more, go through flashcards, write the concepts down, every time you go over each concept, the mouse is making each path more and more familiar. Don't go into studying with the goal to go over everything once, carve enough time to go over everything more than once. Allow the mouse to become very familiar with these paths and make these paths into solid roads in your brain that will not only be effective when you take the test, but can be found again. 

Something that goes hand in hand with this idea is shorter, intensive study sessions. If you can, start studying for something in advance. Every day study a small amount of material for a short amount of time. It will be easier for your brain to pick up concepts a little at a time. This study method is called distributing studying over multiple sessions. 

Other tips that may help effective studying are timed sessions. Think about the ideal amount of time you want to spend studying a subject. Maybe even set a timer for the amount of time you need. If you go into studying with a set amount of time, knowing there is an end to your session and a beginning, it will make it much easier to stay focused. If you go into studying and just start going through notes and review sheets trying to cram all this information in your head, you're going to get overwhelmed and not get any effective studying done. If you need to, set aside a group of material for right now. Only go over this group of material for 45 minutes. This will be much more effective than trying to cram in all of it. 

Another tip to study more effectively is testing yourself. Test your knowledge: have someone quiz you, use the “test” feature on Quizlet, or print out a study guide and try to answer it without notes. Even getting the answers wrong will help you. The American Psychological Association states, “If we had only one sentence to tell you the secret, it would be this: The secret to doing well is testing yourself on what you've studied.”

Another great method of studying is attempting to teach it yourself. In order to teach it, it will put your knowledge to the test and help you remember better when the time comes to take the test. Explain what you are studying to someone in your home.  If there is no one to teach it to, simply teach it to yourself. Work yourself through the information stating what happens first, second, third and so on to get to the final answer. 

A method of studying that has proven most effective  is Read, Recite, Review. Read a section of the text or your notes once. Close it, and try to recite everything you can remember. This will help uncover the material you didn't remember or understand when you get to the third R, reviewing. 

Try all these methods and figure out techniques that work best for you, and which study methods result in better scores. It can be hard to find the motivation to study, but if you tell yourself to study now, you can be proud later.