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How to study like a bossYour brain as a chemical machine, like your musclesYour brain’s main function is to keep you alive by responding to changes that are going on around you and inside you.

One way it does this is to remember things that happen to you (experiences).

However, most of what you experience, like what your breakfast 46 days ago tasted like, or if you were too cold the 38th time you rode a bike, are not important. If your breakfast always tastes terrible, or it is always too cold when you ride a bike, then you remember, and this allows you to change what you eat or what you wear.

Really emotional events, like accidents, are the easiest to remember; the memories created from them can last a lifetime. But most of our time alive is spent in routines, and most of the information our brain processes is not needed or useful, and this short term memory is deleted (forgotten). Ideas important to a subject at school need to be stored in your long-term memory, and your brain needs your help to identify the information you will need later and store it in your long term memory.

You can’t communicate directly with your brain, and our relationship with it is very complicated and confusing (does “Free Will” exist?), but we have discovered there are different ways we can encourage our brains to store what we want for longer. As you get older you will learn more and more ways to do this. The best student is not born, they are created by good habits. You don’t need to have all of their habits, but the more you have, the smarter you will become! :o)

Key things to remember when studying

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Figure 1 Learning changes the structure of your brain

Start early: your revision should start when it is most effective, in the hours after your lesson!

https://psychology.stackexchange.com/questions/8377/how-are-these-review-forgetting-curve-calculated

Some of this revision you are forced to do by the end of topic tests, and in lessons, but a lot of the most important parts you will need to learn to do on your own: at the best universities you are already expected to be a world class student!

How you study should change and improve as you get older!!! Try new things and see how well they work!

The best way to prepare for anything is to do the thing you want to be good at: if you want to be good at exams, do lots of past exam paper practice. (I’ve put thousands of hours of my life into making resources based on exam questions for exactly this reason.) AND CHECK YOUR ANSWERS!!! Reflect on questions you got wrong. Talk to your teacher if you still can’t understand the answer or the mark scheme.

The easier your studying is, the less useful it probably is. Your brain will often try to do as little work as possible, and learning is hard work. Also remember, though, being really bored is also not studying!!!

Learn how to manage yourself and be honest about what you are actually doing with your time. Look for activities you tend to do, like cleaning, or organising your notes or whatever else, that are not revision, but done in your revision sessions. These things, if they need to be done, should be done at other times. As you get older you will get better at seeing what you are really doing with your time.

Passive reading, where you are just staring at a book, usually has very little impact on how well you will do. Active reading is far more useful.

Copying out other people’s ideas is not studying: your brain does not need to understand the idea, just what the next word is! You should be writing, but using your own words, which forces your brain to think about the idea itself.

‘Highlighting’ is often just a fancy way of saying ‘colouring-in’, and colouring in isn’t learning!

Studying with your friends can work, but it usually doesn’t.

Writing with a pen is more complicated for your brain, and allows for deeper learning, than typing, so keep your notes in handwritten form.

if you are writing anything during your revision, it should be in your own words, which means your brain has had to think about the idea: copying out what is written somewhere else is easier

For an important study on learning click here.

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The Cornell Note Taking SystemThe Cornell Note Taking system is one way to study more effectively, learn more, and to think more carefully about whatever you are studying. Central to this idea is the Forgetting Curve (shown above).

Why use the Cornell Notetaking system?

For more information from Cornell Universities Learning Strategies Center, go here:

http://lsc.cornell.edu/study-skills/

For study skills ideas go here:

http://lsc.cornell.edu/study-skills/read-about/

How to use the Cornell Notetaking system

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Other ways of looking at the same idea:

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The Five R’s:1.RECORD your notes in the right-hand column. 2.REDUCE your notes into the recall column on the left3.RECITE out loud from the recall column.4.REFLECT on the information that you are studying. 5.REVIEW your notes immediately and regularly

Step 1: RecordWrite main ideas and supporting material in the right columnUse signals from the lectureTitles & keywords= topics main ideasUse abbreviations to get the full idea.Leave spaces between ideas so you can fill in more later. see how ideas relate to one another

Step 2: ReduceWrite the topics and vocabulary words, in the left column of your notes Write questions to quiz yourself on the material. –Write a question for each new topic, main idea, or significant detail.–Write questions on the material which you think your teacher will test you.

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Step 3: Recite This will help transfer ideas to your long-term memory!Study the information by answering your questions in the left column.–Cover the Record Column.–Read your vocabulary words and questions in the left Column–Using your own words, define the words and answer your questions out loud.–You can also define the words and answer your questions on the paper you are using to cover the Record Column.–Uncover your notes and check what you have said against the facts.

Step 4: Reflect After the lecture, write a summary at the bottom of your notes.–Use complete sentences in the summary.–Choose the key points.–Organize ideas.–Link ideas together.

Step 5: ReviewImprove your memory. –If you spend 10 minutes after every class in a quick review of your notes, you will retain most of what you have studied you won’t have to cram during an “all-nighter” you will relate the facts and ideas to present lectures or readings.

Note-Taking Tips

Use indentations to distinguish between major and minor points. Put most notes in your own words, except formulas, definitions, and specific facts Use abbreviations and symbols wherever possible in the notes portion. If you completely don’t understand an idea, leave a blank space and ask your professor for help on it.

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Develop a code system of note-marking to indicate questions, comments, important points for example, Mark unfamiliar vocabulary & unclear ideas in unique ways, such as with a star or asterisk.

Highlight vocabulary terms and important people. Circle ideas that are still unclear. Make sure you can understand what you have written and if needed, make

corrections. Use drawings, arrows or other organizers to help you see concepts and

relationships between them.

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From: http://lsc.cornell.edu/notes.html

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