Many of the most common methods that students use when studying have been repeatedly shown to produce poor learning outcomes. These include common practices such as re-reading texts, highlighting text, studying in a “consistent location” or having a “study routine,” studying one topic at a time in long blocks, cramming, studying with a television or radio on as “background noise” and many others. More interesting still, when students are explicitly exposed to both more and less effective methods of studying and are asked which was more effective, they almost always identify the less effective methods as being more effective. In the end, it seems that not only do learners tend to gravitate toward less effective methods of studying, they aren’t able to recognize these as being less effective. In this talk, I’ll be discussing both the less effective practices (and explaining why they’re not effective) as well as talk about the types of studying techniques that are more effective at producing learning. In this I’ll talk about the benefits of distributing studying over time, interleaving the topics that are studied, having variety in study contexts, of active (as compared to passive) studying techniques, and many more. I’ll also talk about how I instantiate these principles in my own class and encourage my students to utilize them when studying.
