Here's a selection of valuable learning strategies to try:
- Keep a learning journal. Regularly reflect on our learning by writing down thoughts and questions that arise. Write daily or weekly summarizing of what you are learning, perhaps like you are writing a letter or text to a friend.
- Retrieval practice. Every time you have to remember something, you deepen your memory of that something, which makes it easier and quicker to recall later. This is especially important with new information or knowledge that is early in the encoding process. Create opportunities to recall newly learned concepts or skills. Flashcards are a popular method of retrieval practice.
- Ask yourself why. It is common in online learning environments that instructors allow you to try to answer questions multiple times. These practice problems or formative quizzes and knowledge checks are good at providing instant feedback if you are right or wrong. But a lucky guess won't be easily remembered. Even if you get the answer right on the first try, make sure you understand why your answer is correct.Share with us learning and study strategies that you find useful. Is there a specific practice that's especially challenging or especially rewarding?
- Make connections. Drawing connections between new material you're learning and your prior knowledge or experiences is an effective way to deepen learning. For examples, identify real life examples of concepts from your course; recall related concepts from prior learning materials; review your notes from previous sessions before you learn new material; or summarize main ideas and concepts using examples not provided in the learning materials, but that you imagine.
In the discussion forum below, share with us learning and study strategies that you find useful. Is there a specific practice that's especially challenging or especially rewarding?
Effective Reading Comprehension
Have you ever read a paragraph or few pages and thought, "what did I just read." Your eyes passed over the words, but you don't remember a thing. Now you need to re-read the passage, which is 10 more minutes of studying that you don't have to spare.
The act of reading does not guarantee successful comprehension or knowledge retention. But fear not! Even if you first learned how to read decades ago, you can still become a better, more efficient and effective reader.
One enduring technique developed by Francis P. Robinson, an American education philosopher in his 1946 book Effective Study, is call SQ3R. This acronym stands for Survey, Question, Read, Recall, and Review. It may require practice to use effectively, but it is well worth the effort. The steps for SQ3R are as follows:
- First, skim or survey through your material to get a high level idea of the content.
- List out several questions you have about the content.
- Go back and read thoroughly, but this time try to answer the questions you listed.
- Next, recall from your memory what you just learned. Pretend you are telling someone about what you have just read.
- Review the material with a closer focus. Were you able to answer your questions? Did new questions arise? If so, repeat the process to try answering your new questions.
Another method for boosting comprehension and knowledge retention is to make annotations to the learning material while reading. Add notes, mark down thoughts and comments, list out questions, and make connections as you are reading. Using this technique will help you make sense of complicated materials, but will also organize your notes for reviewing later.
- Read the material once through and mark unfamiliar concepts or words, and identify the key ideas. Pose questions.
- Read the material again, making more detailed notes this time. Mark ideas you agree and disagree with.
- Make connections to other things you have read, studied or experienced. Highlight key phrases and ideas and rewrite them in your own words. Add personal comments.
Video Comprehension Techniques
The reading comprehension and retention techniques we just reviewed can also apply to recorded video lectures, which you can rewatch, slow down or speed up as you take notes. Below are additional tips for getting the most out of online learning videos.
Recorded Video Lectures
For recorded video, pause and write a brief summary of what you have heard every few minutes. You can pause the video or review as many times as you want. If the instructor has provided PowerPoint slides along with the video, consider downloading or printing them out, and take notes directly on the slides.
