The world of education is filled with ideas, strategies, and approaches about how to learn. Unfortunately, many of the most popular learning strategies—while they may generate some learning benefit—do not represent the best approach to learning. Students often rely on mediocre strategies because they seem to work well enough for them, and they are not aware of better, more effective approaches. Consequently, they may be spending more time and exhausting more energy than necessary to learn well enough, rather than experiencing greater learning returns, often gained with less effort and time invested.
This is a good time to inventory the learning practices upon which our students rely to determine whether they are using some of these mediocre strategies and how they might gain the best learning advantages. Here are five common learning approaches that can be transformed into some of the best learning strategies by having students make a few adjustments and tweak their approach.
Common assumption #1: More practice leads to the best performance. Practice builds habits and muscle memory, absolutely, but not all practice is equal. Careless practice and unaddressed errors and confusion can undermine learning and motivation. Practice that leads to the most improvement is focused and purposeful. The highest levels of learning success result from setting challenging goals, seeking and using feedback to adjust, regularly measuring progress, and sustaining focused commitment.
Insight: The best performance results from the best practice.
Common assumption #2: Reading (and rereading) is the best way to build understanding. Repeated exposure to the same content can be marginally helpful. However, rereading, by itself, does not necessarily increase comprehension. The best way to check and build understanding is to follow reading by explaining the content to someone else or writing a summary. Having to clearly explain a new concept can surface areas of uncertainty or confusion. If returning to the text is necessary, students can do it with intentionality and in search of clarity rather than in service of repetition.
Insight: Explaining a concept is the surest and most efficient way to check and build understanding.
Common assumption #3: Longer study sessions lead to the best learning. Spending more time listening, reading, and studying is of limited value once students begin to lose the energy needed to pay attention and process information. The longer students attempt to study, the more they are likely to fight fatigue and loss of focus. Additional content studied during extended sessions becomes difficult to retain.
Insight: Short, focused study followed by reflection builds greater understanding and better memory storage.
Common assumption #4: It is best to study one subject per study session. Students may think that by focusing on a single class or topic, they will retain what they have learned longer. However, multiple research studies have shown that alternating among subjects during study sessions can increase understanding and retention of information. When students switch to a new topic or subject after a moderate study session (twenty to twenty-five minutes), their brains search for connections and seek to categorize the information studied. This approach is known as interleaving.
Insight: Breaking study sessions up and studying more than one subject in shorter sprints is the best approach.
Common assumption #5: Taking notes is the best way build learning recall. While taking notes can be better than nothing, the best learning comes from taking notes strategically and spending time reviewing them. Jotting random statements or trying to capture a transcript of a lesson typically yields limited learning and disjointed recall. On the other hand, capturing key points, organizing an outline that reflects the lesson, and summarizing key concepts can lift learning and support more efficient review and study.
Insight: Taking strategic notes and using them to refresh and self-evaluate understanding is the best way for notetaking to reinforce comprehension and increase recall.
Our students deserve to know and be able to use the most effective learning strategies and approaches we can offer. Taking some time now to inventory and assess with students the strategies they use to study can build confidence and increase the effectiveness of their learning efforts.
