This guide has been adapted from an article by Launchcode.org and from the book, “A Mind for Numbers: How to Excel at Math and Science (Even If You Flunked Algebra), courtesy of the author Barbara Oakley.
In this guide, I am going to present some of the best study skills and techniques out there. But before we do, let’s talk about “How Not To Study”. These are things that a lot of us learned to do when we were in school, but that are not effective learning methods. To become rockstar learners, we want to replace these habits with the new ones we’ll learn in the following two lessons. Here is a list of the major “bad study habits”; in the following steps, we’ll look at these in detail. Note that all of the following steps in this lesson are adapted from the excellent book A Mind for Numbers: How to Excel at Math and Science (Even If You Flunked Algebra), courtesy of the author Barbara Oakley and the publisher TarcherPerigee. This book is highly recommended and is available on Amazon.
- Passive rereading
- Highlighting instead of committing to memory
- Glancing at a solution and thinking you know how to solve it
- Waiting until the last minute to study
- Repeatedly solving the same problems that you already know how to solve
- Letting study sessions with friends turn into chat sessions
- Neglecting to read the textbook before you start working on problems
- Not checking with your instructor or classmates to clear up points of confusion
- Thinking you can learn deeply when you are being constantly distracted
- Not getting enough sleep
Bad Habit 1: Passive Rereading
Sitting passively and running your eyes back over a page gives you the illusion of studying without giving you any results. Unless you can prove that the material is moving into your brain by recalling the main ideas without looking at the page, rereading is a waste of time. Testing yourself and explaining concepts to others are much better uses of your time. Only go back to reread specific things you do not understand or remember, and with the purpose of then clarifying and drilling those concepts into your brain.
Bad Habit 2: Letting Highlights Overwhelm You
Highlighting your text can fool your mind into thinking you are putting something into your brain when all you’re really doing is moving your hand. A little highlighting here and there is okay–sometimes it can be helpful in flagging important points. But if you are using highlighting as a memory tool, make sure that what you mark is also going into your brain. Just like passive rereading, highlighting or bookmarking pages and passages does not help those things stick in your memory. Instead, your brain thinks, “I don’t need to remember this, I marked the page, so I can quickly find it when I need it.” But if you are going to be taking a test, you need to pull information from your memory, not by visiting multiple bookmarks or sifting through a bunch of highlighted text.
Bad Habit 3: Merely glancing at a problem’s solution and thinking you know how to do it
This is one of the worst errors students make while studying. You need to be able to solve a problem step-by-step, without looking at the solution. A lot of times you may get stuck trying to come up with a solution to a problem. So you may search the net or look for the solution in your textbook. Then, looking at it, you can clearly see why it works. So you think, “Ah, I get it. That’s how you solve it. Cool.” But then if you don’t practice actually solving it yourself, and thinking through the steps of your solution, when it comes time for you to solve a similar problem on your own, you won’t remember how to solve it.
Bad Habit 4: Waiting until the last minute to study
Would you cram at the last minute if you were practising for a track meet? Your brain is like a muscle–it can handle only a limited amount of exercise on one subject at a time. Studying requires regular, frequent practice. You need repeated exposure to reading example materials and repeated exercises in solving problems in order to really ingrain the concepts in your mind.
Bad Habit 5: Repeatedly solving problems of the same type that you already know how to solve
If you just sit around solving similar problems during your practice, you’re not actually preparing for a test–it’s like preparing for a big basketball game by just practicing your dribbling. You need to be sure that you have learned how to solve every type of problem (and how to use every concept) you’ve encountered so far. While it is important to solve similar problems in order to ingrain your ability to find the solution quickly, you only need to do this until you’ve got those solutions down cold. Then move on to drilling how to solve another type of problem. Practice solving problems that are harder for you. If you only keep solving the ones that are already easy for you, you won’t be improving and building your skills.
Bad Habit 6: Letting study sessions with friends turn into chat sessions.
Checking your problem solving with friends, and quizzing one another on what you know, can make learning more enjoyable, expose flaws in your thinking, and deepen your learning. But if your joint study sessions turn to fun before the work is done, you’re wasting your time and should find another study group. Practice staying on task by setting a timer. If you want to meet up for 2 hours and you want to make sure you get at least 90 minutes of study time in, start with the studying and set a timer for 90 minutes. Save the chit chat for when the timer goes off.
Bad Habit 7: Neglecting to read the textbook before you start working problems
Would you dive into a pool before you knew how to swim? The textbook is your swimming instructor–it guides you toward the answers. You will flounder and waste your time if you don’t bother to read it. Before you begin to read, however, take a quick glance over the chapter or section to get a sense of what it’s about. Read the main headings and bolded words just to get an idea of what you’ll be learning. While it’s good to be fearless and try to solve problems that are just a little harder than what you’ve solved before, it’s also good to learn the best way to solve a problem. Sometimes you’ll come up with a solution that works, but it won’t be optimal. It’s important to make sure you are using the practice problems you are assigned to reinforce the concepts you need to learn from that chapter or module.
Bad Habit 8: Not checking with your instructors or classmates to clear up points of confusion
Instructors are used to lost students reaching out for guidance–it’s our job to help you. The students we worry about are the ones who don’t reach out but seem to be struggling or not turning in work. Don’t be one of those students. Ask your classmates for help as well; when they explain concepts to you, it helps reinforce their learning as well as yours. Note that there may be times when your instructor will advise you to review a section of the material in response to a question. While instructors will help you when you are really stuck, if you have a question that could be answered by a Google search, or is already answered in the material, the instructor will expect you to try those things first. But if you have done those things and are still stuck, don’t suffer in silence, reach out!
Bad Habit 9: Thinking you can learn deeply when you are being constantly distracted
Every tiny pull toward a text message, Facebook notification, or conversation means you have less brainpower to devote to learning. Every tug of interrupted attention pulls out tiny neural roots before they can grow. We’ll talk more about how to arrange your study session so that you remove distractions in the next lesson. For now, just know that multi-tasking is a myth. We can only really focus on one thing at a time. “Multi-tasking” forces your brain to make multiple switches between what it pays attention to, and this effort drains your cognitive resources hurting your ability to remember what you are studying or practising.
Bad Habit 10: Not getting enough sleep
Your brain pieces together problem-solving techniques when you sleep, and it also practices and repeats whatever you put in mind before you go to sleep. So getting good sleep will help you learn better. And not getting enough sleep has the opposite effect: prolonged fatigue allows toxins to build up in the brain that disrupt the neural connections you need to think quickly and well. If you don’t get good sleep before a test, you will have a hard time remembering all the things you worked so hard to study.
Smart Study Design and Techniques
Now that we’ve looked at how not to study, let’s start looking at good study habits. We’ll begin by learning how to design a realistic and effective study plan and schedule. This will give you a good idea of what kind of habits you’ll want to start building to be a successful student. In both this lesson and the next, we continue to borrow and share wisdom from Barbara Oakley’s book A Mind for Numbers. Her insights into the best study habits will be weaved in with other study skills we’ve observed to be very effective. Here is a list of the tips we’ll cover:
- Schedule your study times
- Remove distractions so you can focus better
- Get “To Do’s” out of your head and onto a list or calendar
- Set goals for your study times
- Alternate between doing the hard task and getting small “wins” first
Tip: Schedule your study times
One of the keys to making something a habit is having a regularly scheduled time that you do it. This will train your body and mind to expect to do that task at that time, and as they get used to this schedule, you will experience less resistance to doing it. You’ll find that your body and mind will more easily settle down and focus at those habitual study times. Just like you can get used to working out or waking up at specific times, so too you can get used to studying at specific times. There are a couple of useful things to remember when scheduling your study times.
Use the power of sleep
Your brain does a lot of work while you are asleep. Getting enough sleep helps consolidate memories and strengthen the circuitry your brain builds when you learn new skills and information. Furthermore, when you have a tough decision to make or can’t figure out a challenging task, you’ve probably been advised to “sleep on it.” This is excellent advice! Your brain continues to puzzle problems out while you sleep, so that frequently you wake up with a better idea of how to approach the problem (if not with the solution itself). This “power of sleep” has important ramifications for how you schedule your study times.
- When scheduling your study times, try not to do so at the expense of your sleep time. Make sure you are scheduling adequate sleep time for yourself as well as study times.
- If at all possible, schedule some of your study times so that they take place both soon before you go to bed as well as soon after you wake up. When you do this, you benefit from the results of giving your brain something to think about while you’re asleep and of discovering upon waking the answer (or improved approach) that your brain came up with while you were sleeping.
- If you’re able to take naps, do so right after a study session and/or between study sessions. Just a short 20-45 minute nap can help your brain consolidate what you were learning and leave you ready to learn something new.
Multiple shorter study times are better than marathon study sessions once or twice a week
We saw that “cramming” for a test is a bad study habit, so too is learning and studying for long periods of time but without much frequency. It is far easier to learn and remember material if you take it in in small batches and review or practice it on a regular basis. So instead of planning to study for 4 hours on Sunday, it would be better to look for 1 hour (or 30 minutes) time slots throughout the week that you could use to study. In fact, even if you can just find 30 minutes total to spend studying and practising daily, that would be far more effective than studying once a week for 4 or 5 hours and then not practising or reviewing again for an entire week.
Both your concentration and your memory improve by having smaller, more frequent study sessions. If you do have a longer study time planned, use breaks to help you feel refreshed. Set a timer and study for 45 or 50 minutes, then take a 10-15 minute break and rest or walk or attend to something else until your break time is up and you begin your next study sprint.
Tip: Remove distractions so you can focus better
Your brain isn’t going to do the hard work of committing something to memory unless it knows that it is important. And if you’re not giving your full attention to the material or task at hand, it won’t think that what you are studying is important. Therefore, you won’t remember it well and you’ll be wasting your time.
To prevent this from happening, study somewhere that it is easier for you to focus. Find somewhere relatively quiet (or use earplugs or noise-cancelling headphones) and without visual distractions (people moving about, a TV on in front of you, etc.) to use as your study place. Try to identify at least a couple possibilities (maybe one place at home and one place at a public library) for study locations so that if one isn’t available for any reason, you have a backup option. If you have children or other relatives you care for at home, do your best to arrange for them to be situated and engaged in an activity that will allow you to have at least a short amount of time (10 or 20 minutes) that you can be free from interruptions. If you can make some sort of schedule or reward system for them that will allow you to have an even longer amount of time without interruption, then that is even better. Be on the lookout for moments when you are free from those responsibilities and can do a little studying; check if it’s possible to make those moments into regularly scheduled events (for example, a home health care worker visiting your relative) that will allow you to plan regular study time.
Do not look at your phone; set it to silent (or just turn it off) and put it somewhere out of arm’s reach so that you’re not tempted to check it whenever you feel bored or challenged. Turn off all alerts that may pop up on your computer, and any sources of beeps or buzzes. If you are studying for a set period of time, or have somewhere that you need to be at a certain time, then just set one alarm to signal to you when it is time to end your study session. That is the only external cue that should interrupt your attention while studying.
Sometimes, to develop the kind of intense focus and concentration that is required to deeply learn and remember new things, it is useful to make your study sessions short–at least at first, until you build up your ability to focus for longer periods of time. You may want to set a timer for ten or twenty minutes and then commit to focusing only on whatever study task (reading, practising, problem-solving) that you have to do. It is easier to give your full attention to something when you know you will be taking a break very soon and that you can attend to whatever other concerns or duties you have when that time is up. Most things in life can wait ten or twenty minutes to be attended to, so you can feel comfortable devoting that chunk of time to focused learning.
Tip: Get “To Do’s” out of your head and onto a list or calendar
Speaking of removing distractions and focusing, it can be hard to focus during a study session if we have lots of other concerns floating through our minds. I may have trouble giving my full attention to a problem if I’m also thinking “Shoot, I need to remember to pick up milk on the way home. Oh, and I’ve got to text Wambui back about when we can hang out. So that means I need to check with Dave about whether he still needs my help picking up that couch on Saturday. Okay, where was I? Calculating the value of X… Oh, wait, I also need to let my boss know I can’t work next Thursday morning because I need to take my mom to her doctor’s appointment. Alright, cool. Let me remember all of this. Okay, now back to Calculating the value of X…“
One of the best things you can do to help yourself concentrate is to have a reliable system for putting these kinds of notes out of your head and into somewhere that you know you’ll review them. The less stuff you have to remember, the more memory and attention you’ll have available to devote to your current learning task. Get into the habit of recording any “unfinished business” that is on your mind into one of these systems below. Do so especially when you first sit down to begin your study session. Take a few minutes to first clear your mind of anything that is taking up your attention by getting it out of your head before attempting to put anything more into your head!
The system you use is up to you, but here are a few suggestions:
- A notebook. You can buy a small, cheap notebook that can easily fit into your pocket, purse, or backpack. Keep it with you constantly and get into the habit of jotting down any “To Do” that pops into your head throughout the day. Make sure that you regularly (once every day or two) review the things you write down so that you know if you write something in there, you will be reminded of it again. You may want to develop some kind of code for marking different tasks as particularly urgent or important. Maybe you put a star next to tasks that you need to do today, or you put a time and date next to tasks that have to be done at a certain time.
- Your phone. If your phone has a “Notes” app, you can use that to make “To Do” notes to yourself. Just make sure that you have a system for reviewing them regularly and marking which ones need to be done soon.
- A calendar. You may want to use one of the two methods above along with either a physical calendar or an online calendar like Google Calendar. Use your calendar to record the things you must do at a specific date and time. This frees your notebook or phone app to be used for just those things that you need to do sooner or later, but not at a specific time. Again, make sure you start a habit of checking your calendar every day to remind yourself of any appointments or scheduled tasks you have to do.
The key with all of these options is to build the habit of adding to and reviewing them regularly. Also, it’s best to just choose one format and stick with it, rather than having several different “To Do” lists scattered about. For example, if you choose to use a task management app that is on your phone, get in the habit of immediately putting any notes on there rather than writing them in a notebook to be transferred later on to that app, or to be used in addition to the app. You want to have a few things as possible to check in order to stay on top of all your projects and commitments.
If you are interested in learning more about task management and organization, you may enjoy the book Getting Things Done by David Allen. Many of the task management apps out there are based on the insights he shares in this book.
Tip: Set goals for your study times
Instead of just setting a time limit for your study session, set a goal that you want to hit as well. For instance, you might see that tomorrow you have about 45 minutes that you can study in the morning. So you look ahead at the next lesson and see that you could probably get through the first 4 or 5 steps in that amount of time. Now, make that your goal. Saying, “Tomorrow at 10 am I’m going to work through steps 1-5 of the next lesson” will help you focus and work harder than will saying “Tomorrow at 10 am I’m going to study for 45 minutes.” The first sentence gives you a clear objective, something to really work towards during your study time, and it gives you a sense of completion and accomplishment when you do achieve it.
This is where the other tips we’ve learned so far come into play as well. When you are setting your goal for a specific study session, keep in mind what kind of situation you’ll likely be in at that time. For instance, if you know that you have 25 minutes to study between the time you drop off your kids and the time you need to be at work, you might decide that your concentration may not be the best right then. So, for that study session, you might set a goal for reviewing and practising a concept you’ve recently learned to get it to stick in your memory. As another example, say you know you have about an hour to study between when you put the kids to bed and when you need to go to bed yourself. You know that is an easier time for you to focus, so you decide to set a goal of reading the next lesson in your coding class which will introduce new concepts. Learning new concepts generally requires more concentration, so it’s a good idea to schedule those tasks when you think you’ll be in a situation that makes it easier to concentrate.
Tip: Alternate between doing the hard task and getting small “wins” first
When you are setting your goal for a study session, you may want to consider whether to tackle a bigger, scarier challenge or to do a couple of easier study tasks first. There are benefits to both approaches, and there are different times that each is most useful.
“Eat Your Frogs First”
This is a good approach when you have a big or challenging task, the avoidance of which is draining your confidence, energy and focus. This approach can help clear your mind and lift your spirits by the act of just starting on the task. The anticipation and fear of doing a difficult task is always worse than just beginning to work on it, however imperfectly. Once you get started on something you build momentum that helps you to keep working on it. It’s starting in the first place that is the hard part, and once you get that hard part out of the way, you feel more energized and able to keep working through the task. Also, the simpler problems that you work on after completing this task will almost feel like rewards since they will seem so “easy” in comparison!
“Get a Small Win”
This is a good approach when your focus is a bit scattered, you’re having trouble settling into your study session, or you just aren’t really sure what the next goal should be. Identify one or two little tasks that need to be done, and tackle each one of those. This will help your brain shift into learning and practising mode. It will also help build up your confidence and energy since it feels good to accomplish a task, however small. Finally, when working on those one or two little things, it may you think of what a good, larger next step would be. For instance, after solving a couple small, simple problems, you may encounter a concept that is a little hazy for you and decide that a good next step would be to devote some time to fully understanding and practising that concept.
Expert Learning Skills
In this lesson, we’ll introduce the study skills that will allow you to make the most efficient use of the study times you’ve planned. We’ll go over each in detail, but here they are in list form:
- Use recall
- Test yourself
- Talk to yourself
- Teach it to others
- Use analogies and metaphors
- Chunk your problems
- Break big skills into smaller sub-skills and drill them until they are mastered
Tip: Use recall
After reading a page, look away and recall the main points or definitions to yourself without looking at the page again. When you are tempted to highlight or underline something, instead take the time to commit it to memory by recalling it. If necessary, re-read the passage you wish to remember again, then a few minutes later, practice recalling it without looking back at it. Also, try recalling important points later in a different environment. If you were studying in your room, then later when you’re on the bus or in the car, try recalling those important concepts.
Tip: Test yourself
In the last tip we focused on being able to recall key points immediately (or shortly after) learning them. This is a good first step, but you’ll need to put in additional energy to get the information stored in your long-term memory and make it easily retrievable. To improve the speed with which you can recall this information, make sure that you are testing yourself on it regularly and in different ways.
- Quiz (and be quizzed by) classmates. Meet fifteen or twenty minutes before class to quiz each other on what you learned at the last class.
- Use flashcards. Even though there are some online apps for flashcards, it’s best to write them out yourself on note cards. The act of writing definitions out helps reinforce them in your memory.
- Do practice problems beyond the ones you’ve already done so far. Find a problem at your skill level that covers the concept you want to get more practice with.
When testing yourself using any of the methods above, be sure to space out your repetitions with decreasing frequency. You want to get a lot of exposure to it at first, but you also want to occasionally test yourself on it later just to keep it easy to recall. If you memorize it the first day or two after you encounter it, but then don’t practise recalling it again for a month, then chances are it won’t come to mind quickly.
Tip: Talk to yourself
When solving a problem, talk out loud to yourself (or, if you’re in public, just have an inner monologue going in your head) and explain why you’re doing what you’re doing each step of the way. This helps you really understand and remember why you are coding the way you are; when you really understand why you’re doing it, solving future problems becomes much easier. Talking to yourself also helps you to understand where you are stuck or unsure about what to do next.
Tip: Teach it to others
Besides talking to yourself, teaching what you learn to others is another great way to help you remember and better understand what you are learning. If you have a family member or friend (real or imaginary; seriously, invent one if you don’t have one) who is willing to listen to you talk about what you are learning, then practice explaining concepts to them.
It’s good to practice using the lingo you are learning, but just make sure that you explain those terms in the simplest language possible, as the person you are talking to may not know what those terms mean.
And don’t be afraid of your audience asking you questions that you don’t have the answer to. When they do this it is extremely helpful! They can point out gaps in your knowledge that you will either want to review (if those questions were already answered in your lesson, but you’ve just forgotten them) or things you may want to research on your own to further your understanding. Just say, “I don’t know that yet, but I’m going to find out and I’ll get back to you.”
As we said before, helping classmates who are struggling with some concept is another great way for you to improve your understanding. So if you are going through this course (or future classes) with a buddy or a group of people, be eager to answer questions that your classmates have, or to help them find the answer themselves.
Tip: Use Analogies and Metaphors
This tip goes along with the last one. As you are explaining what you are learning to someone else (or to yourself), try to use analogies and metaphors as much as possible to think about the concept in a new way.
Tip: Chunk Your Problems
“Chunking” information means breaking down larger concepts or operations into smaller pieces that are easier to remember. For example, imagine you had to remember random items on a grocery list:
- frozen peas
- chuck roast
- milk
- sweet potatoes
- avocados
- shredded cheese
- chicken legs
- chocolate ice cream
That might be hard to do if you memorize it as a list of random items. But if you start thinking of the patterns and commonalities between the items, it might lead you to divide (chunk) the list in the following way:
- Produce: avocados, sweet potatoes
- Meat: chuck roast, chicken legs
- Dairy: milk, shredded cheese
- Frozen Foods: frozen peas, chocolate ice cream
Now, instead of eight items, you just have to remember four categories, each of which has two items. This is an easier task for your short term memory to handle. Furthermore, you could then use a “cognitive map” of imagining the grocery store layout and thinking about the order in which you’d visit each part of the store to get these items. Then when you go to the store, your brain can more easily retrieve these small chunks of information that correlate to which part of the store you are in (“I’m in the produce section, so I need to get avocados and sweet potatoes”).
Tip: Break Big Skills Into Smaller Sub-skills and Drill Them Until They Are Mastered
This skill goes along with the previous one of chunking. As you learn to chunk concepts, you’ll find that it is easier to practice and memorize these small chunks. You can start to drill each chunk (or sub-skill) until it is mastered, and then you’ll be able to piece these chunks together and solve any problem easily.
Other useful study guides from Intelligent.com:
- https://www.intelligent.com/create-a-study-plan/ – Study plans are particularly important for online students since you need to have self-discipline and determination to complete your studies without the constant reminders of an instructor. This guide will help you get started on creating your study plan.
- https://www.intelligent.com/study-smart-before-exams/ – When it comes time to study, there are many common study methods that can help enhance your exam prep, and reduce your stress. Here is a detailed list of common study methods college students use to prepare for exams.
- https://www.intelligent.com/take-effective-notes/ – Many college classes involve lectures from professors and discussions among classmates. Taking notes during these lectures and discussions is an important part of the learning process. There is no right or wrong way to take notes, but there are some helpful tips that can make note-taking easier and more useful for studying.
- https://www.intelligent.com/manage-your-stress/ – Learn of different ways to manage stress during this time of significant transition and discovery.
- https://www.intelligent.com/use-test-taking-strategies-on-exam-day/ – The following tips will guide you through exam prep and the exam itself.
