Remembering What You Learn

How to Remember What You Learn

As students, we put in the hours of studying and understanding our course work only for us to forget it. It can be difficult to retain information, especially if it's new or without a deeper concept. Instead of spending hours trying to memorize something, here are a few ways to get the most out of fewer study sessions. Please note that you'll have to incorporate these methods into a regular study routine in order for them to actually work. 

⛅️ Active Recall ⛅️

“Don’t confuse recognizing information with being able to recall it.” - Adam Robinson, author of What Smart Students Know. Recognizing and understanding terms used in an explanation is not enough to guarantee that you'll be able to recall the concept. This is called passive learning and it is not the most efficient way to study. When we listen to a lecture or read a textbook we are not actively using our brain to think about what we're being taught. When we take a test, it forces us to recall what we've learnt and to challenge it. 

How to Use Active Recall: After you study a concept, close your books and ask yourself a question (e.g. explain, define etc) regarding the material you just studied. Without looking at your books, answer that question. No matter how difficult it is, try to come up with an answer. Now check your answer. Repeat as you see necessary. Flashcards can be very helpful for this. If you want to learn more about active recall, you can click this link.

                                             ⛅️ Spaced Repetitions ⛅️

Use active recall to its fullest potential by supplementing it with spaced repetitions. With this technique, you increase the interval of time between revision for material already learnt. By doing this you are taking advantage of the psychological spacing effect. For an easy to follow explanation of how to use this technique you can watch the video at this link.

                                                  ⛅️ Take a Nap ⛅️

Taking a nap after a study session can help you remember what you learn. A study conducted by Harvard found that students who took a 90 minute nap after learning something performed better over a 24 hour period than those who did not take a nap. 

"Sleep after learning helps solidify memory," says Susumu Tonegawa, PhD, a Nobel Prize-winning professor of biology and neuroscience at the Picower Institute for Learning and Memory at MIT. According to animal studies, when you perform a task, the brain cells fire in a certain sequence. After the task, if you then fall asleep, the same cells automatically fire in an identical sequence without being distracted or disrupted by incoming visual stimuli. That, Tonegawa says, "solidifies the synapses, which in turn helps to strengthen the information as a memory." (quoted from here)

⛅️ Create a Mnemonic ⛅️

A mnemonic is a tool used to help in information retrieval and retention. You can learn about the different types of mnemonics here. The most common type is used is an expression/word mnemonic where you use the first letters of each of the items to be remembered  to make a sentence. For exaomple, people comomonly use the phrase "Richard Of York Gave Battle In Vain" to remember the colours of the rainbow (Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, Violet). 

⛅️ Connect Old and New Material ⛅️

Connecting new concepts to previous ones can really help you to understand and also remember better. "The more you can explain about the way your new learning relates to prior knowledge," the "Make It Stick" authors write, "the stronger your grasp of the new learning will be, and the more connections you create that will help you remember it later." This article explains how brain based learning requires us to connect old knowledge with new knowledge in order to be effective.

⛅️ Create a Mind Palace ⛅️

We've all seen how Sherlock remembers things better by placing them in his mind palace; now it's time to make one of your own. It's a type of mnemonic device which uses well memorized spatial relationships (a room or building) to establish a link between items to memorize and physical locations. Imagine your room; imagine the furniture you have (the drawers, table, closet, bed etc) and associate different items you need to memorize with each piece of furniture. For an in-depth explanation of how to build a mind palace, click here.


Conclusion
Try these out and find which one works best for you. Obviously, you don't have to use all of these techniques but if you find that something isn't working for you, you can always come back to this article to find some more ideas on how to remember what you learn. Personally, I like to use the first two methods the most. I've incorporated them into my regular study routine and they make it easy for me to remember almost everything that I study. I use mnemonics to memorize things like the different phylums and domains in a kingdom and occasionally I use a memory palace too. All the links I've included are in red text. Make sure you check them out so you can get a proper idea of each technique. Good luck with your academics and don't forget to share this with your friends!

Summary:

• Active Recall
• Spaced Repitions
• Take a Nap
• Use a Mnemonic
• Connect Old and New Knowledge
• Create a Mind Palace