Learning Principles – High School Tutoring Sydney
It is a mistake to think that reading the assigned textbook is all that there is to study. Of course, that required reading is part of the process. But everybody in the class reads the same textbook, yet their performance is different on the test. Even taking different intelligence levels into account, we wonder why some students perform better on assessment tests, and other student understand the material better than others. Occasionally students of average intelligence outperform their smarter classmates. So what makes for more effective learning? Constant re-reading is not the answer.
The scientists and psychologists who study the process of learning have made several insights, but they emphasise one principle above others. That is to constantly test yourself as you learn, and revise your understanding in light of that testing. Keep doing this to find mistakes and weaknesses. Keep doing this so you can retain the information for the long term.
Practical – High School Tutoring Sydney
Read the relevant text, then recite it out loud with the book closed. Write it out in your own words if necessary. Then reopen the text and review your work, noting any mistakes. Do this until you get everything right.
This may seem straightforward, but other study methods that also seemed straightforward later proved to be less effective. Students who just read the text twice, and students who read the text once but took notes, did not do as well on a later test as the students who read, recited, and revised the information. As a bonus, the read, recite and revised method took less time.
Other Advice – High School Tutoring Sydney
Dig deep and process information as you read. Memorizing isolated facts does very little. To understand you need to see how it all fits together. This includes fiting new information together with previously learnt information.
Visualizing information helps memory. Sometimes a bizarre image helps memory, but any accurate image is beneficial.
Take notes in class, but stick to keywords, definitions, concepts.
Review the noted you have taken in class. Write them into a one or two page essay, as if you were writing an introductory text book. Get to the essence of the topic.
Put effort into any area that you find difficult. Sooner or later is will click into place, and seem obvious in hindsight. Ask questions about this in tutorials.
Do not make the mistake of neglecting information that you think is familiar. It is too easy to take this for granted, and them make simple mistakes on the final test. Be thorough with the familiar material until you can do it with minimal effort.
Myths – High School Tutoring Sydney
Cramming is a myth. Trying to do everything the night before the exam is better than nothing, but the best you can hope for is a pass. If you want an ‘A’ or ‘B’ you need to work diligently right from the start of the semester.
The ‘Learning styles’ trend of the last generation may be little more than a myth. We were told that some people are visual, some are listeners, some have better reading comprehension. In truth, while there are some individual differences, we all need to learn in all these manners.
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