As an undergraduate, my study regimen mostly consisted of:
- Reading and highlighting assigned material (usually)
- Doing assigned homework / problem sets
- Taking notes during class
- A week or so prior to exam…
- Rereading the portions of the text that I highlighted
- Reading chapter summaries
- Rereading my notes
These are typical learning strategies, and they seemed adequate at the time. (However, grad student Patrick really wished undergrad Patrick had retained some more calculus and linear algebra.) Now, in my perpetual quest to become a better teacher, I’ve been dabbling in the cognitive sciences literature. The research around effective learning strategies (AKA studying techniques) has been especially interesting. I now realize I could have been studying much more effectively and efficiently. This literature has been wonderfully summarized by Dunlosky et al. (2013) in a comprehensive review of 10 common learning techniques used by students. Here is a small part of what they found:
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