Everyone has been in the situation where they were learning something new in class and it made absolutely no sense whatsoever. No matter how many times they read over the PowerPoints, looked in the textbook for practice, or re-read the notes, it just would not click. It makes us want to give up and just move on. However, there is a way to help make this not happen when studying. It’s a strategy called elaboration. “Elaboration is the process of finding additional layers of meaning in new material” (Brown, et al., 2014). In simpler words, elaboration is making connections between things that one is studying, and things already known. An example of this is “relating the material to what you already know, explaining it to somebody else in your own words, or explaining how it relates to your life outside of class” (Brown, et al., 2014). Being able to make connections between new and old information may enhance understanding of difficult concepts.
Relating the material to current knowledge is a good way to practice elaboration. The book Make It Stick gives a great example on how to do this by using visual images to relate things. Brown et al. (2014) explains that if one is learning about a process like heat transfer, instead of trying to think about all the difficult concepts involved, one should just imagine they are holding a hot cup of cocoa. Everyone knows what it’s like to hold a hot drink, so relating the concept of heat transfer to the common situation of holding a hot drink can spark a connection in one’s brain.
Explaining information in one’s own words to somebody else is also a very good way to practice elaboration. A good way to know if a concept has been grasped is attempting to explain it without using notes or definitions. Explaining material to another student in the class contributes to the elaboration strategy. Talking about the material in one’s own words will help with retention of information because of the connections made that are based on the mind of the individual, not the PowerPoints seen in class. This will cause a much stronger grasp of the information.
Lastly, explaining how information relates to oneself outside of school is also a good way to practice elaboration. If students can relate information to things that they do every day, they will begin to recognize that what they have learned in class makes a lot more sense because it’s something they use all the time. For example, say students are learning about the process of anaerobic respiration and lactic acid build-up and it makes no sense. Suddenly, they think about how when they run for a long period of time, their legs start to get a burning feeling and hurt after a length of time. They realize that what they experience is, in fact, lactic acid build-up and lack of O2 in their muscles. Now the students can relate those terms to something that they’ve experienced before, and it’s easier to make the connection to what that information is later. Smith and Weinstein, of the website The Learning Scientists, wrote about elaboration, and they encouraged the use of applications of life experiences and studying. They state, “...as you go through your day, take notice of the things happening around you and make connections to the ideas you are learning in class.” Being able to make connections not just in the classroom, but outside of the classroom, will make it easier to understand and remember the information when the time comes.
Elaboration is a very important study strategy for any subject. Being able to make sense of information to something one can personally understand will help tremendously when studying. Making connections to everyday experiences, explaining information in one’s own words, and relating information to things one already knows are all forms of elaboration that can help ease the pain of studying. It helps make sense of information in a way that students can understand.