A soapbox speech from Mr. Rideout about doing the work, engaging and being prepared
Why do we review/Why do we have finals?
Times article on studying the right way versus the easy way
Click for some of my notes from the book "How We Learn...." by Benedict Carey
-The Fluency Illusion ("But I studied so hard for that test!"): If you do a lot of classic review: reread, highlight, quick recitation of basic facts in one big sitting, then you are likely to feel prepared when you are not. This kind of one-shot, passive review is not the best way to get stuff into your noggin. (although the cram session the night before does help in the short term with recall related items, it does not help with problem solving & understanding).
-Mix it up: Do not study in an extended, focused way in a quiet environment. Rather, break your study sessions into shorter sessions extended over several days and do them in different environments with different types of distractors. The more different types of contexts and the more times you've had to retrieve and use a memory, the easier it is to access later.
-Sleep is important: Early, deep sleep stages seem to be most helpful in laying down fact-related memory. Late stage sleep stages seem most useful for creativity and for impasse-breaking insights.
-Interleaving material and pretesting seem to be most efficient at getting the memories being laid down to be easily retrievable (the best way to increase recall is to retrieve the memory many times). Even physically skilled practice should be broken up so you are not just concentrating on one skill at a time. Interestingly, focused practice or study feels most effective and gives greater apparent short term gain, but performance testing shows that interleaving works better (Interleaving is more like the real thing the author suggests). Likewise, taking tests (even without any background knowledge) and getting immediate feedback is the quickest, surest route to learn new facts.
-Start early and take many breaks. The brain continues to work on stuff off-line and ideas/connections percolate up from your subconscious during the off times.