Effective study habits vary for each student and subject. Procrastination and cramming are common mistakes, while planning and repetition are helpful. Specific methods include previewing material, taking organized notes, and group study sessions.
When it comes to effective study, there is no one-size-fits-all method that fits every student or subject. Developing good study habits is largely a matter of the individual student understanding what works best for him or her. There are, however, some practical methods and guidelines to follow.
Two common mistakes in study habits are procrastination and cramming. Cramming is studying too much at once, perhaps dedicating only a relatively short amount of time to a huge amount of information. Thus, the student crams in information, but does not assimilate it. These mistakes sabotage any attempt to form good study habits.
Conversely, two rules of thumb for good study habits are planning and repetition. By planning a study schedule, a student can estimate how long it will take to learn the material at hand and what activities would be the most effective use of this time. Repeated exposure of the brain to the same information makes it more likely that the information will be retained. Through repeated exposure, information becomes something you simply know, rather than something you temporarily memorize.
As for specific methods for developing good study habits, one method is knowing what you are about to learn. For example, in the case of textbooks, the student would have to browse through the entire portion to be studied and read each of the chapter titles and section titles. If the textbook provides questions at the end of a section, they should be read before reading the section. This way the student knows which issues to pay attention to and can analyze them as they arise.
After reading the section, the student can check understanding by answering the questions provided without returning to the appropriate pages. If vocabulary terms are provided, the student should try to write down some facts from the reading that pertain to the vocabulary. All of this work should be written in an organized manner, which creates a study review guide that the student can follow at a later time.
Some reading materials are not in the form of textbooks, such as literary novels, essays, or scientific reports. Highlighting key information can be helpful, even though students often forget exactly why they highlighted a particular passage. In this case it can be useful to write marginalia next to the highlighted text, noting links to other important ideas, or simply reactions you have to the text.
A similar method can be used with borrowed books that cannot be bookmarked. Post-its can be written and placed on the appropriate pages of the original text. An especially good study habit is to use an organized Post-it system where each Post-it presents a group of related information. For example, you might have a sticky note titled “Important People,” followed by a short list of those people. Then separate Post-its can be dedicated to each person providing more detailed information. The Post-it method is a particularly useful strategy for establishing good study habits because these Post-it notes can later be transferred to a separate piece of paper creating a study guide.
Other good study habits include pair and group study sessions. Through these methods students can share ideas and help each other expand the material. Also, when a student teaches a piece of information to another student, it indicates that she already has a solid understanding of that material and has memorized the information.
When faced with an especially large amount of study material, students may choose to divide the information among themselves and rely on each of their fellow students to provide a comprehensive report of the information assigned to them. This is not a bad study habit, however, every student should read all of the material and be familiar with problems their fellow students may present. This way the reports provided by each study partner will be a review for each student, rather than presenting information with which the student is unfamiliar. Also, if the material is presented in linear progression, students may not understand their parts of the material without reading what has come before.
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