I chanced upon this article by Joseph Stromberg – “Re-reading is inefficient. Here are 8 tips for studying smarter”, and would like to share my thoughts and insights on this.
In his article, he felt how students study nowadays makes no sense. And psychologists Henry Roediger and Mark McDaniel from Washington University in St. Louis, spent a combined 80 years studying learning and memory to substantiate this finding.
I remember my days as a student where I re-read my textbook prior to exams and redo the 10-year series questions, which at that time was our ‘holy grail’ to getting good grades during exams. We felt teachers have no time to re-think new questions for examinations and they probably might as well re-use questions from the 10-year series workbook. The 10-year series was a hot-selling workbook during my time. That was how I managed to scrap through my secondary school days and get into college. Ask any Singaporeans and they will tell you the same.
However, when you enter University, you realise there’s no 10-year series to rely on. And even if there’s an existence of a 10-year series, you wouldn’t be able to scrap through major exams with just memorising textbooks and relying on the 10-year series to do wonders; Or what I famously call, creating ‘magic’, or ‘miracle’. When you start working in the workforce, purely memorising text in your Pre-Uni or Uni days without actually understanding might bring you more harm then good. As you start working in the workforce, understanding the job scope and learning on the job is of essence. Learning how to effectively read and pick up materials to boost your understanding is required. Forget the 10-year series, as there’s no 10-year series you can rely on when you start working. Welcome to the corporate world.
Hence, equipping yourself to learn how to study effectively during your school days is important, which will come beneficial when you join the workforce and learn on the job later on.
The key is using active learning strategies.
Here, I share the 8 tips I’ve read from the article written by Joseph Stromberg, in which, he sourced his wisdom from McDaniel:
1) Do not just re-read your notes and readings
Many students cite re-reading their assignments, textbook and 10-year series as their go-to-strategy before a major exam.
However, in his article, McDaniel says that re-reading a textbook chapter or redoing the same thing shows no signs of improvements to the students’ learning. Through research, It was found that repetitive recycling of information is not a good way to create permanent memories. This is because, on your first attempt of reading something, yes, you extract a lot of knowledge and understanding. But re-reading the same thing again will not get you anywhere, as you are not processing the contents deeply nor analysing them in greater details. While you feel you have ‘gained’ something, re-reading can be insidious – It gives you the illusion that you know your materials well, which in fact, there’s no progress to your learning and you are no difference from the beginning.
2) Ask yourself a lot of questions
Instead of re-reading your contents, quiz yourself, either by using the questions that are provided at the back of the textbooks or making up your own questions. Retrieving that information instead of re-reading that bunch of contents produces more robust learning and memory.
While you may think this sort of learning takes up more time, it actually helps to boost learning and retains longer-term memory.
When you get the answers wrong the questions, it gives you a good diagnostic on what you do not know and tells you exactly what you should be focusing on. Not merely going through the textbook hoping to get wisdom out from re-reading.
Asking questions also helps you understand the context more deeply and understand the reasons and rationale behind why authors say certain things. Well, it doesn’t have to be always why. Use the 5 “W’ and 1 “H” to help you with your revision – Who, What, When, Why, How?
So, the next time you read, stop, and ask yourself things to make yourself understand contents more deeply.
I always say, “Google is my best friend”. With Google, you can easily get your answers online.
3) Connect new information to something that you already know
The second time you read the book, try to relate new information to things that you already know to help you process the new information better. Usually, the next few topics will go into more in-depth on what you have studied in the previous chapters. Do not ‘throw away’ what you have learnt in the past chapters. Try to relate and piece everything together.
E.g. When writing this article, I’m imaging how best to describe to you effective learning, so I would liken to “When you go on a holiday, you do not just want to ‘touch and go’ to every city. But to fully appreciate the city, you want to explore the suburbs, stay a little longer to explore the culture, museums and interact with the people to learn new cultures and gain a better experience from further exploration”. You see where I’m coming from..
By relating (sometimes can be unrelated, but relevant), new information to something you have previously experienced or already knew, It effectively helps you to conceptualise the material better and get it in your head more quickly.
4) Draw out information in a visual form
I attended one training recently, and through some experiments, my trainer examined that most of us humans, unwary, are actually kinesthetic and visual learners. Meaning, we learn better through hands-on approach and imageries. Hence, a great strategy would be making diagrams, flowcharts or visual models to facilitate our learning. Anything that creates an active learning environment is very effective in retention of knowledge. The more engaged and involved the learner, the less passive.
5) Use flashcards
One key to using flashcards is re-testing yourself on the ones you get it right.
Keeping a set of correct cards in the deck and encountering it again is more useful.
Many students answer the questions on the flashcard, and take it out from the deck if they get it right. However, this isn’t a good idea as repeating the act of memory retrieval is important. Studies had shown that by keeping the correct item in the deck and encountering it again is actually useful. Still, you might want to practice the incorrect items a little more, but do not neglect those that you got them correct. Repeated exposure to the ones you get right is important too.
Not trying to contradict myself here – to clarify, it’s not that repetition is no good. But mindless repetition is bad.
6) Don’t cram – space out your studies
I remember on many occasions, I wait till the last minute before I opened my books to study before an important exam. And because I’m so last minute, I was not able to engage active learning, but rather, trying my best to somewhat cram everything into my head. Okay, you may have passed the exam, but come the next exam, you realise you have to ‘repeat’ the same flow again, cramming everything in your otherwise already overloaded head.
Research has shown that cramming is not helpful for long-term memory retention. While you may do okay for small test, come the final exams, where you have so much more to study, you won’t be able to retain as much information.
The trick is spacing out repetition – practicing it for one day, and revisit again two – three days later. Research has shown that such a technique is more effective for long-term retention and learning.
7) Teachers should space out and mix up their lessons
Unfortunately, our education system tends to bombard mass presentation of information to students as well.
In schools, to be able to ‘complete the syllabus’, as what my lecturers always tell me.. you cover one topic one day, and on the second day, another topic, and the third day another new topic. Come the forth and fifth day, you will never be able to recall what was taught on the first, second or third day unless lecturers revisit the first few chapters again. Students, if sincere in learning, should take the initiative to revise what was being taught in the first few lessons. If students can pay close attention during what was taught in class and practice step 1 – 6, through effective and active learning, you can actually retain a fair amount of information.
I do know of friends who typically tell me “they don’t study”, but yet their grades always top the cohort. It’s not they don’t study, but research has shown that these students engaged in ‘active learning’, being during lectures or self learning. During lectures, they pay close attention to what was being taught in class and process the thinking in their head. Not merely just ‘listening’ and ‘agreeing’ to whatever the lecturers says. They form thoughts in their heads, and question the approach in their head.
So the next time your friend tell you ‘they don’t study’, yet score better than you (worse still, you mug like crazy and burn midnight oil for the test); remember, it is the ‘active learning’ that is coming into play.
For teachers, the key is to put the material back in front of the students again after a few days or week later – this can be through sprinkling in questions on stuff that was taught in the prior week to encourage retention.
8) There’s no such thing as a ‘math person’
Mindset determines how far the student can grow. There are two approaches to learning:
One student will tell you: “Well, I am good in this topic, and I’ll do well until I hit that limit. Past that, It will not be taught in the syllabus, it’s too hard for me and I will not do well. There’s no need to learn anything more” – This, is a fixed midset.
On the contrast, the growth mindset is adopting a curious mind and believing there’s no end to learning. There’s a Chinese saying that goes “活到老， 学到老“, which means there’s no end to learning. Learning is progressive. Learning takes place even when you are old in age. A growth mindset involves using effective strategies and putting aside time to practice and engage the active learning process, all of these increasing your capacity for a topic.
Students with a growth mindset persevere in the face of difficulty and tend to be more successful later on in their lives as well.
With that, I hope this article gives you some ideas to approaching your studies better. I thank Joseph Stromberg for insights to the learning approaches.
Great luck with your studies!
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