Forget Those Boring Flashcards and Learn These New Study Skills
When asked about their go-to study trick, many students will respond simply with: “flashcards.” While it might feel very satisfying to carefully color-code your vocabulary words, there are often much more effective ways to learn content. While using flashcards is one way students can make information stick, it does not work for everyone. So, what can you do to mix up your memorization techniques and improve your study skills?
1. Incorporate Movement
Incorporating movement can help a student remember the order or function of a new term or idea. For instance, maybe one needs to memorize the four steps of the water cycle process: condensation, precipitation, runoff, and evaporation. There are easy ways to incorporate movement into this process:
Condensation: put arms out and pretend to float like a cloud forming
Precipitation: use fingers to mime that it’s “raining!”
Runoff: run in place
Evaporation: pretend to be sweating from the sun
Giving each stage of a process or each step in a procedure a physical motion can help reinforce a student’s memory of the concepts and their order.
2. Image-Name Associations
If you’re less of a kinesthetic learner and more of a visual learner, visualizing an image might be most helpful. For instance, say a student is memorizing vocabulary words for an English class. Regardless of how many times she peaks at the back of her flashcard, she can’t seem to recall the definition for frigid. So, perhaps it’s time to integrate image association. The word frigid has “frig” in it, which can bring to mind the word “refrigerator.” So, it might be helpful for the student to spend 30 seconds visualizing a refrigerator (or even going to look at one in her own house) while thinking about the word “frigid” and its definition of “cold.”
3. Acronym Mnemonics
Another great option for memorization is to engage in mnemonics. Students can group the first letters of words together to form a single word (or group of letters). The most popular examples are ROY-G-BIV (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet) or HOMES (Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Erie, Superior). If a student needed to remember the butterfly life cycle and knew that there were four steps but found it difficult to remember the order, memorizing ELPB for egg, larva, pupa, and butterfly may come in handy.
4. Acrostic Mnemonics
Instead of inventing a word or phrase, acrostic mnemonics construct a sentence using the first letter of each word. When learning the order of operations in math, for example, students often memorize the steps (parenthesis, exponent, multiplication, division, addition, subtraction) using the following mnemonic: Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally. The first letter gives a cue to the first letter of the function they are attempting to recall and the sentence denotes the order. Helpful online mnemonic generators can also be used if a student is feeling less creative.
5. Write It Down By Hand
Reading the same text over and over can get exhausting and boring. It also doesn’t necessarily help a student to remember better if they just keep reading the same thing. Some students (especially those one who learn better by moving) will benefit from writing the material they are trying to remember down by hand. This is an easy strategy to trick the brain into processing new information and details. It also may help to read what they’ve written down out loud.
6. Review Before Going to Sleep
Reviewing notes before falling asleep is another easy practice to ensure that information sticks. While a student sleeps, their brain will organize the material into their subconscious. Studies suggest it is more effective to study right before bed than first thing in the morning.
7. Teach Someone Else
Students can also take a break from being the student and start being the teacher. A great way to make sense of something new is to explain it to someone else and answer any questions they might ask.
As you expand on your study skills, remember to experiment. Try something new and see what works!