11 tips on how to learn effectively at school
Admittedly, teaching is not always entirely fair. Someone may be lecturing on a given subject after a day of learning, while another is still struggling with the first chapter at the end of the day. But it’s not always about intelligence, efficiency also plays an important role.
In this article, we will show you 11 popular and above all effective strategies, thanks to which you will be able to store more knowledge in your head in less time.
- Go back to the learned knowledge while still learning
Constant repetition is the key to retaining information in memory. If you do not use the acquired knowledge regularly, you will gradually lose it from your memory until you forget it completely. At first it is necessary to repeat often, after a while only occasional repetition is enough.
But if the information is new to you, you will have to repeat it often. When studying, plan fewer chapters, but don’t forget to repeat them several times that day. ” Self-testing ” is also very effective – try to test yourself on past knowledge without looking at the study materials.
- Learn in different places
Some studies show that learning in different places leads to easier retention of information. It’s probably related to the lower number of distractions lurking around your home (hello TV and fridge). In addition, if you go to school, a quiet cafe or a library, the presence of other people will help you stay focused.
- Rewrite, speak, highlight
…in short, use all the senses at your disposal.
If you organize all the excerpts and rewrite them in your own words, then highlight the most important points and, at the end, recite the entire chapter to your classmate or colleague, you will be surprised how firmly the knowledge will be anchored in your memory.
- Use printed materials
Some people prefer printed materials or handwritten notes much more than in electronic form. If you belong to this group of people, rely on traditional learning and don’t be tempted by a virtual notebook.
Some experts explain the advantage of physical transcripts or printed materials by the greater interaction you have to make while studying.
- Return to the learned knowledge regularly
If you know in advance that you will need the learned knowledge in the future months or years, return to it regularly. It will be more than enough to read older notes from time to time or sign up for a similar subject, which will at least keep you in touch with the issue in question.
Refreshing live knowledge is easy, but re-learning a completely forgotten material after 2 years can be a little frustrating.
- Recognize the moment when the brain is no longer working efficiently
Very few people can study effectively all day long. In most cases, we are able to maintain full concentration for several tens of minutes , after which learning turns into mindless scrolling of lines.
When you feel that “it can’t get into your head” anymore, don’t hesitate to take a break. Go eat, get some fresh air outside, a lighter running training that clears your head will also often help. Finally, maintaining a healthy lifestyle (exercise, diet, sleep) has a demonstrable effect on learning new information.
Studying without breaks becomes ineffective for most people after a while. The level of procrastination increases and there is also a bad feeling that you have learned only a minimum of new knowledge after two hours. Also popular is the pomodoro technique , which got its name from the tomato-shaped timer. The method consists of 25-minute intervals of concentrated learning, which are interrupted by short breaks (approximately 5 minutes). Short breaks help maintain concentration and absorb knowledge. You can read more about this technique in the article Pomodoro technique: help with learning and procrastination .
- Make a clear structure in the curriculum
Although it doesn’t look like that during the lesson, the entire curriculum for the given semester, or semester, has a very carefully worked out structure. The individual chapters are not put together randomly, but usually their continuity has a deeper meaning.
You will find the material much easier to remember if you discover and understand this structure. The individual chapters fit together like Tetris pieces and maybe even connect to each other.
- Redraw the curriculum on the map
If you have enough time to study, you can try to rewrite the given chapter on high-format paper (A1, A2) and connect the individual topics in a mind map , if they are related, it just doesn’t look like that in the notebook.
Especially with science majors, you will quickly find that there are strong connections across different chapters. Any connection found between the individual topics rapidly increases the likelihood that you will remember both topics, as well as gain a better understanding.
- Share information with classmates and colleagues
With subjects or topics with a broad scope, it is easy to find that different issues suit different students differently. Joint learning and knowledge sharing is thus a very effective way to deal with many complex problems with little connection between them.
Peer-to-peer learning also has the advantage that students understand better than some lecturers what is clear to their peers and what is not. Although the knowledge itself is of course not as deep as that of the lecturers, the explanation itself can be better understood by other students.
- Draw from multiple sources
They say “you can’t hit a wall with your head”. So if you’ve been reading a paragraph for an hour and still don’t understand it, there’s no reason to continue. Try looking for other material that looks at the problem in a different way.
For example, try scripts from another author, a textbook, a book, or feel free to fire up Wikipedia. Other sources will help you see the issue from different perspectives , which can help you gain a deeper (or at least some) understanding of the topic.
- Will chewing gum help?
One of the popular recommendations to support learning and concentration is chewing gum. But does this activity really support brain function? Several studies have looked into this phenomenon, with the main tested effects being attention, concentration and memory support. Based on these experiments, it seems that chewing gum does help maintain attention, but it probably doesn’t support memory .
You can therefore use chewing gum during long study days , when fatigue already comes into play. They help you stay focused and focused.
- Plant extracts can also help with learning and memory support. You can learn more about them in our next article Natural Nootropics: 5 Most Effective Herbs to Support Brain Function .
- Are you facing exams and nervous? Read the article 12 tips to calm down the day before the exam and manage stress .
What to take from it?
Being able to learn is not just like that. It is one thing to devote time to “learning”, but being able to use it to really remember something is another. Try to try different learning techniques and see what works best for you. Someone is comfortable reading documents in a quiet room, someone prefers to copy materials in a busy cafe.
Research shows that the use of multiple senses (speaking, writing, listening) helps to retain information more effectively, and regular repetition and recall of the material is even more effective. If you manage to master at least these two techniques, learning will suddenly become much easier.