Description
The deepest learning is learning that includes not just remembering for awhile but long-term remembering and understanding. To achieve this depth and richness, to gain knowledge that will last, requires more than just cramming for an 8 am test at midnight the night before. A major key to permanent, deep learning is repeated study and practice over time. The Study Cycles strategy incorporates this.
Method
Plan your studying so that it is methodical and regular, even to the point of studying in the same place (same desk or cubicle) at the same times each day.
The first step in developing a study cycle is to discover your own personal alertness factors.
- Are you the most awake, alert, and able to concentrate in the morninng, midday, or night?
- How long can you concentrate before you lose attention and need a break?
- Which practices help you stay focused the best? (See Learning Strategy 11: Maintaining Interest, for more information.)
Once you know your alertness rhythm, you can plan your study cycle.
- Study difficult material at your times of peak attention, and less difficult at other times. For example, if your peak alertness is midmorning, study chemistry formulas on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 9 to 11 am.
- Divide your subject study into attention span intervals. That is, if you can stay focused for 90 minutes, let that be your time on the subject each day. If you can focus for only 45 minutes or 30 minutes, then plan your study for two 45-minute sessions or three 30-minute sessioins, with breaks and other subjects in between those sessions.
- At the end of each study session, briefly review (by reciting aloud) what you have just covered. And after the break, briefly review what you studied before the break. This double review will help cement the material in your mind and provide a context for the next segment of material.
Lather, Rinse, and Repeat
Two of the golden keys to learning are
- work with or apply what you are learning: practice it in some way if possible
- repeat the information over and over: recite it aloud, summarize it to a friend, discuss it with a study buddy
This second key is the focus now. In spite of all the talk about rote memorization being “drill and kill,” memory is cemented by repetition. The more often you encounter a statement of knowledge, the more easily and deeply and lastingly you will remember it. (It will also retrievable faster–see Learning Strategy 18: Fluency / Automaticity.)
The best way to study material over and over is to plan your study cycles so that the same material is covered over time, such as once or twice a week throghout the term. Cramming for an exam the night before has little long tem value. What little information sticks is soon forgotten. Remembrance comes not from simple re-reading or memorizing, but by practicing, applying, and gaining understanding of the information.
You can introduce variety into your study cycle by using the steps of the SQ3R Learning Strategy. For your first session, survey the material and ask questions about it–what to expect, how the material fits in to the subject area, and so forth. For your second session, read the material carefully. For the third, recite (say aloud what you can remember about the reading). And for the next session, review the reading and compare your memory with the text.