(here are some study tips straight from my psych notes)
1. Interest: The brain prioritizes by meaning, value, and relevance so u remember things better if you are interested
• Find a study partner
• Do extra practice or research
• Teach it to someone else (this works so well!)
2. Intent: be actively paying attention. Very little learning actually takes place without attention
• Use a concentration check sheet (every time u get distracted, put a check on your sheet. This is supposed to program your mind to pay attention)
• While u read, talk back to the author
• Ask questions during lectures (this is scary I know!! But do it!)
3. Basic Background: make connections to what you already know
• Preview and skim the material before u read it. or google it!
• Write out a list of vocab words before a lecture and leave some spaces between them to fill in during the lecture
• Read ahead of lectures
• Watch crash course tbh
4. Selectivity: start by studying what's important
• Look for bolded words, graphics, pictures, chapter review questions in your readings
• Listen for verbal clues like emphasis and repetition during lectures
• Make yourself a study guide as u read and write down questions for yourself to answer later as a review (kinda like Cornell notes)
5. Meaningful organization- u can learn better if u group ideas into different categories
• Apply vocab words to your life
• Make flashcards and sort them (try not to have more than seven items in one category!)
• Use mnemonics
6. Recitation: saying ideas aloud in your own words strengthens synaptic connections! When u say something aloud you are forcing yourself to pay attention
• After u read, ask yourself questions
• Talk about what u learned w/ classmates outside of class
• Again, teach someone else
7. Visualization: your brain's quickest and longest-lasting response is to images
• Convert info into a chart or graph
• Draw it out
• Make a mental video of a process
• Look at picture/video examples
8. Association: memory is increased when facts are consciously associated with something you already know.
• Memory = making neural connections
• Ask yourself: is this something I already know?
9. Consolidation: give your brain some time to establish a neural pathway
• Make a list of what u remember from class
• Review notes at the end of the day, every day
• Stop after reading each paragraph to write a question in your notes
• Make your own practice quiz
10. Distributed practice: We all know cramming doesn't work, but we do it anyway! But yeah short and frequent study sections work better
• Make a daily/weekly study schedule
• Create a time budget/time tracker (track everything you're doing for a week and see how u can be more efficient w/ the time u waste)
• Divide the reading/vocab by the number of days before an exam and do a little each day (u can use sticky notes to divide your reading)
Other tips:
• Stop stressing! This sounds stupid, and it isn't going to be easy, but anxiety causes u to lose focus.
• Try your best to think positively. Sleep a lot. Minimize your caffeine intake. Take a walk maybe
• When u need to remember something, look upward or close your eyes (when your eyes are open, you're using visual parts of your brain that u might not need to be using)
• Find a rival! (like the person right above u in class rank) secretly compete for w/ them (envy can improve mental persistence be it makes u focus more intensely) but don't overdo it!
• Walking and sleeping build memory storage in your brain
• Eat flavonoids! (grapes, berries, tea leaves, cocoa beans make neurons in the brain more capable of forming new memories + increase blood flow to the brain)
• Obstacles force your brain to try harder, so space learning lessons apart or create a puzzle to solve or change your physical setting
Stitch It!