Research on Effective Study Habbits
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The document provides research-backed tips for effective learning. It discusses how exercise, sleep, socializing, and reducing stress can benefit brain function and memory. Specific learning strategies recommended include varying study methods, spacing out practice over time rather than cramming, studying in different locations, and involving multiple senses. Writing about anxieties and taking practice tests are also suggested for improving exam performance.
Research on Effective Study Habbits
- 1. How to Learn Effectively: What the research shows Valerie Landau Director of Assessment Samuel Merritt University December 2012
- 2. LIFE STYLE
- 3. Exercise • When you exercise the body, you exercise the brain • Exercise increases oxygen flow to the brain reducing brain-bound free radicals • Oxygen increase in the brain = uptick in mental sharpness • Aerobic exercise more effective than weight training
- 4. Exercise A 7 minute brisk walk can improve test scores -provides oxygen to the brain -reduces stress
- 5. Sleep
- 6. Improve your memory by sleeping on it • Key memory-enhancing activity occur during the deepest stages of sleep • Sleep deprivation = Decrease • Creativity, problem-solving • Critical thinking skills are compromised • Memory consolidation
- 7. Make time for socializing
- 8. Friends with benefits (to learning) • Relationships stimulate our brains— interacting with others may be the best brain exercise • Friends and fun comes with cognitive benefits
- 9. “laughter…seems to help people think more broadly and associate more freely.” – Daniel Goleman notes in his book Emotional Intelligence
- 10. Don’t sweet the small stuff and it’s all small stuff • Chronic stress destroys brain cells and damages the hippocampus (the region of the brain that forms new memories and the retrieval of old ones.)
- 11. IMPROVE MEMORY AND COMPREHENSION • Meditate • Write about anxiety • Spice up your approach to learning • Mix things up • Pace yourself • Change your study location • Involve as many sense as possible • Articulate what you’ve learned
- 12. Meditate
- 13. Meditate • Meditation can improve focus • Meditation can increase the thickness of the cerebral cortex and encourages more connections between brain
- 14. Variety is the spice of life and learning
- 15. Variety is the spice of life and learning Varying the type of material studied in a single sitting leaves a deeper impression than concentrating on a single skill •Musician practice sessions often include a mix of scales, musical pieces and rhythmic work. •Many athletes, too, routinely mix their workouts with strength, speed and skill drills. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/07/health/views/07mind.html?_r=1
- 16. Mix things up • Mixed sets of problems vs. same type of problems. • Children who studied mixed sets did twice as well as the others, outscoring them 38% to 77% Applied Cognitive Psychology, Doug Rohrer and Kelli Taylor of the University of South Florida
- 17. Pace Yourself Learning opportunities are more effective when they are spaced apart rather than massed together http://web.williams.edu/Psychology/Faculty/Kornell/Publications/Kornell.Castel.Eich.Bjork.2010.pdf Spacing as the Friend of Both Memory and Induction in Young and Older Adults Nate Kornell Williams College Alan D. Castel University of California, Los Angeles Teal S. Eich Columbia University Robert A. Bjork University of California, Los Angeles
- 18. Change Your Study Location 1) A change in perspective is worth 80 IQ points. Computer Pioneer, Alan Kay
- 19. Change Your Study Location • There are subconscious queues that help boost memory. • The more places you study (particularly discussion or reading out loud the better your recall may be)
- 20. Study in an interesting environment A classic 1978 experiment college students who studied a list of 40 vocabulary words •Windowless and cluttered vs. •View on a courtyard -Those with a view did far better on a test than students who studied the words twice, in the windowless room
- 21. Involve as many senses as possible • Articulating knowledge makes a bigger imprint • Read out loud what you want to remember. If you can recite it rhythmically, even better. • Relate information to colors, textures, smells and tastes. • Re-organize and rewriting information
- 22. Articulate to Remember • Talk about it • Re-write so it makes sense to you • Draw it • Say it out loud • Articulation of ideas and data is proven the best way to learn
- 23. Repeat to remember • The human brain can only hold about seven pieces of information for less than 30 seconds--a 7-digit phone number. • If you want to extend the 30 seconds --you will need to consistently re-expose yourself to the information. • Improve your memory by elaborately encoding it during its initial moments. • If you need help remembering Mary, it helps to repeat internally more information about her. “Mary is wearing a blue dress and my favorite color is blue.” It may seem counterintuitive at first but study after study shows it improves your memory. John Media author of Brain Rules
- 24. Short term vs. Long Term • Cramming may lead to a better grade on a given exam. • “With many students, it’s not like they can’t remember the material” when they move to a more advanced class, said Henry L. Roediger III, a psychologist at Washington University in St. Louis. “It’s like they’ve never seen it before.” Forget What You Know About Good Study Habits By BENEDICT CAREY New York Times Page D1 September 7, 2010.
- 25. Practice to remember Engage in active learning 1)Take practice tests 2)Take notes while reading 3)Participate in study groups 4)Re-write your notes 5)Illustrate concepts
- 26. Mnemonic Devices Use mnemonic devices to make memorization easier Mnemonics (the initial “m” is silent) are usually random associated links that help associate information we want to remember with a visual image, rhyme, song or word.
- 27. Mnemonic Devices Mnemonic device Technique Example Visual image Associate a visual image with a word or name to help you remember them better. Positive, pleasant images that are vivid, colorful, and three-dimensional will be easier to remember. To remember the name Rosa Parks and what she’s known for, picture a woman sitting on a park bench surrounded by roses, waiting as her bus pulls up. Acrostic (or sentence) Make up a sentence in which the first letter of each word is part of or represents the initial of what you want to remember. The sentence “Every good boy does fine” to memorize the lines of the treble clef, representing the notes E, G, B, D, and F. Acronym An acronym is a word that is made up by taking the first letters of all the key words or ideas you need to remember and creating a new word out of them. The word “HOMES” to remember the names of the Great Lakes: Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Erie, and Superior. Rhymes and alliteration Rhymes, alliteration (a repeating sound or syllable), and even jokes are a memorable way to remember more mundane facts and figures. The rhyme “Thirty days hath September, April, June, and November” to remember the months of the year with only 30 days in them. Chunking Chunking breaks a long list of numbers or other types of information into smaller, more manageable chunks. Remembering a 10-digit phone number by breaking it down into three sets of numbers: 555-867-5309 (as opposed to5558675309).
- 28. Write about your anxiety • Writing is especially effective for students who habitually choke under pressure • Students who write for 10 minutes about their worries before a test score higher than those who write about something else or who write nothing • Before beginning the second test, some students were asked to write about their emotions, and the others were told to sit quietly. Students who aired their anxieties showed an average 5% improvement on the second test. • Scores dropped by 12% for those who did not write about their anxiety Science January 13, 2011
- 29. Avoid Multitasking Stanford psychologist Clifford Nass discovered in his studies of hardcore multi-taskers: “It turns out multitaskers are terrible at every aspect of multitasking. They're terrible at ignoring irrelevant information; they're terrible at keeping information in their head nicely and neatly organized; and they're terrible at switching from one task to another. And: The truth is, virtually all multitaskers think they are brilliant at multitasking….You're really lousy at it. And even though I'm at the university and tell my students this, they say: "Oh, yeah, yeah. But not me! I can handle it. I can manage all these," which is, of course, a normal human impulse. So it's actually very scary....” The Atlantic http://www.theatlantic.com/personal/archive/2011/04/how-multi-taski http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=95256794ng-ruins-your-brain/237628/ http://news.stanford.edu/news/2009/august24/multitask-research-study-082409.html
- 30. Confessions of A Students 1) Take notes in class 2) Re-write your notes after class (preferably with 24 hours) 3) As you read, underline and write in the margin 4) Add the notes from the reading to your notes 5) Review your notes 6) Make a list of things you don’t understand 7) Make a plan on how to learn those things and follow that plan 8) Ask questions to colleagues or teachers 9) Add the new knowledge to your notes 10) The night before a test review your notes 11) Get a good nights SLEEP and eat A HEALTHY MEAL
- 31. Resources Popular articles on study skills • http://www.gearfire.net/10-ways-cram-successfully/ • http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/07/health/views/07mind.html?_r=1 • http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/07/health/views/07mind.html?src=me&ref=gen Research on Practice tests and changing of locations • http://bjorklab.psych.ucla.edu/RABjorkPublications.php • http://www.sciencemag.org/content/319/5865/966.abstract • http://sites.williams.edu/nk2/files/2011/08/Schwartz.Son_.Kornell.Finn_.201 1.pdf • http://web.williams.edu/Psychology/Faculty/Kornell/Publications/Kornell.Caste l.Eich.Bjork.2010.pdf Spacing as the Friend of Both Memory and Induction in Young and Older Adults Books Brain Rules, by John Medina http://brainrules.net/ Focus: the catalyst for innovation: Guided brainstorming for innovators, by Websites: http://www.umich.edu/~bcalab/epic.html
Editor's Notes
- #28: 04/29/13 By Valerie Landau