To improve learning, there are certain questions you need to ask yourself ...

By asking yourself questions, your brain automatically starts searching for answers, acting as a call to action. This section is from a blog that considers the 5 best questions students can ask themselves:

The What, Why, How, Who and Where:

What do I need to do first? This question will help develop your metacognition and get you started on the right path. Metacognition is the ability to critically analyse how you think, or in simple terms, having self-awareness and control over your thoughts. It is best described as developing appropriate and helpful thinking strategies.

This sort of thinking has been found to help students improve their learning, leading to better scores in reading comprehension and science tests.

Why is this true? This is a great question to ask yourself to help improve memory. Psychologists refer to this technique as ‘elaborative interrogation’ and it helps improve recall by prompting people to connect the dots of their knowledge.

'One study investigating this had students remember a list of sentences (i.e. ‘the hungry man got into the car’). The first group simply read the sentence. The second group were given an explanation (i.e. ‘to go to a restaurant’) and the third group were asked why he might he have done this? The results? Students who were prompted to ask ‘why’ remembered 72% of the sentences when tested later, compared to only 37% in the other two groups'.

How can I get better? This is the starting place to help develop a growth mindset, as it focuses on how you can improve and develop. Having a growth mindset has been associated with seeking out better feedback, coping better with transitions, improved self-regulation, reducing stress and aggression, increasing well-being and with an increase in pro-social behaviour.

Who can I ask for help? Using the social support from people around you helps to develop resilience and is the hallmark of a mature learner. The benefits of social support include an increase in work ethic, motivation, ability to deal with stress and well-being.

Where do I do my best work? Revision time can be stressful enough without the multitude of constant distractions. One of the simplest and most effective ways of improving concentration is to simply work somewhere that limits the possibility of distractions. This includes thinking about what you will need, who you work best with and what things distract you the most.

TO CONCLUDE ...

These five questions force you to think about how to get the best out of yourself. If students ask themselves these What, Why, How, Who and Where questions, then they can help improve their metacognition, memory, growth mindset, social support and concentration.