How do you Learn? (Performing a Study)

[SaetonChapelle]

Okay, so I'm curious on how those on The Escapist learn. Your study habits.

I'm a psych major currently getting my masters, and currently we are performing a small study dealing with learning and memory. Now this will have no huge basis on the study, but I just want to get a small inkling on what I might see in the actual study. Now you don't need to be in school to participate. Any study methods whether at work or at home, as well as previous education.

Examples: I personally learn best when I pay attention in the class and write notes at the same time as the professor. I then go home and write them again on note cards and recite them out loud. Also for my most recent bio psych test I had to dissect a brain, point out the various parts and recite what each part does and why, so to prepare I ended up watching 12 + videos on the subject.

Now my friend learns best by not writing any notes at all. All he does is read the book then listen in class. No notes, no writing, just paying attention. (Pisses me right off)

Various techniques can include note taking, paying attention, drawing diagrams, verbal reciting of information, mental reciting, creating songs or different cues, listening to specific music while studying, visual cues or movies, studying with a friend or a group, so on and so forth.

Thank you guys for your time and patience~ :3

 

[RhombusHatesYou]

I learn best from visual sources (written above all). I'm terrible with sources (my memory retention for sound is way lower than for visual) so when it comes to lectures I mostly just write down key words and phrases, usually in a flowchart/web style to remind me how they all related, so I can look them up later.

As for studying habits... I prefer to study by myself, with some background music playing (usually post-rock, sludge, drone, shoegaze or noise - anything I don't have to pay attention to), and plenty of caffine and nicotine. Preferably at night.

 

[RhombusHatesYou]

Fairly recently I've had to memorize the International Phonetic Alphabet

You poor bastard.

As a word of warning, if they ever want you to do IPA comparatives on regional accents RUN... or at least hope you don't get stuck with one accent that defies the IPA.

 

[Little Woodsman]

For most things, the methods you describe for yourself work well for me.
However, for some more difficult/intimidating tasks, I can only really learn them if
I have a set of written instructions. I'm one of those very rare people who learn
better by reading than by being spoken to, shown or walked through the actions.
Made massage school a real mixed bag for me, let me tell you.

 

[miketehmage]

All through school I'd basically be handed notes from the teacher which I would then mentally recite until I could tell you everything there without pause.

I find that to be really rather tedious. But it worked and I was scared to change it.

At university there was far too much content for me to do that and keep my sanity, so I took a different approach.

Basically I would download the lecture slides and then condense those down into my own notes. I found I actually took in alot of information while doing that. Also once I was done, I would have some nice condensed notes to mentally recite, however that actually hasn't been necessary yet.


EDIT: Forgot to mention when I was in my last year of school the teacher asked us a question and nobody knew it, and it was quite a relaxed class as we were in our final year and there weren't many of us. So I jokingly said something like:

"It was the bottom left one"
"The bottom left one?"
"yeah the one I wrote at the bottom left of my page"
"There's your kin-aesthetic learner there folks."

So yeah. Apparently I'm a kin-aesthetic learner.

 

[saoirse13]

Taking notes, then re-writing them. If read the book, Il then take notes, then i will re-write them, shortening them say 3-5 times until I have something like 3 words on whatever i need to remember. I've never really been able to just listen and learn. Reciting things help too but not as effective as notes.
I also like to have music playing in the background while revising. If a room is too silent then its harder for me to take in what I am learning.

 

[Scarim Coral]

The way how I revise my subject before the exam is like this-

Rewrite all of the contentfs that will be in the exam into a simplify/ abridged pages which content highlighted keywords and phrases (like a jingle or a nursery rhymes etc) that I turn it into a way to make it easy to remember.

While reading my notes, I cover it up and write it again to see if I can remember it or not.

Take a break every two hours as we all know that we can't study/ revise 24/7.

 

[Quaxar]

I mostly learn through a combination of interpretive dance, improvised ragtime harp and precisely coordinated flashes from differently coloured lamps in the shape of flying squirrels.
... this is going down as "other", isn't it?

Also, they do bloody brain butchery in psychology now?

And a little OT:
In my last semester I had two big exams. The first one I listened to lecture recordings, carefully taking notes to the point that it took me over two hours for every 1,2 hours of lecture; a lot of extra time for 30 individual ones. The second one in the same range I just couldn't be bothered with taking notes for everything so I just listened to all the lectures once.
Exam 1 I barely made it through with 50-something percent, exam 2 I almost got a B. Go figure.

 

[Ymbirtt]

I study maths and CS, and generally what I do is attend lectures, take notes, then do examples. I don't look at the notes I take myself - the ones that the lecturers write and put online are always better than mine, but the fact that I have written it down makes it much easier for me to remember it. The examples are absolutely paramount - I'm never able to just read about how to do something then do it, I have to practice first.

 

[the_duke_CC]

When I used to study for university/school I just used to read and erything just used to stick, these days when I do research I need to make notes, really detailed notes.

 

[Tropicaz]

I read lectures/notes back at the moment and it works fine for me (currently at university).
Back in school I used to get well ticked off when they tried to make you produce mind maps and other crap as revision tools.

 

[Agayek]

When I was in school, I learned through a process that none of my peers could make work. I have no idea why I can either, I guess I'm just weird like that.

What is this process you say? I don't study at all.

I never spent any time studying anything that wasn't rote memorization (eg, for a history exam), yet somehow I learned it anyway just by going to class, where I rarely took notes.

For something like a math class, I'd take notes and follow along for the first couple example problems, then once I got a feel for it, I'd stop and just pay attention.

Then when it came to test time, I'd walk out with and 85-95% grade.

I have absolutely no idea why my brain works so well in academic settings, but it does. It made my school life so much easier than it could have been otherwise.

Edit: Though I should say that when it comes to memorization, I am god-awful at it and tended to do rather poorly on exams that required an exact memory of terms/dates/etc.

 

[chrin]

Depends on the amount and kind of information.

With straight up facts such as in history and biology, I find converting notes into mindmaps and then reciting those out to myself while pacing around a room is the secure way. A method of summary and repetition has, thus, been vital to learning in this area.

With anything else - especially science-related - a constant challenge through the use of repetetive questions helps with the basics. However, when grappeling with the core of the topic the use of abstract questions has proven robust (i.e. explain why a motor connected in parallel to a pair of bulbs may stall if connected to battery) and been of great help in allowing new approaches which, ultimately, secure the techniques and information into my brain. I, personally, have found this extra helpful when there is a large amount of overlap - particularly with derivations in physics where you have to consider seperate steps and apply mathematical skills accordingly (e.g. kinetic theory model which, in retrospect, is actually very simple).

Therefore, my main and robust methods are: repetition, challenge, relatively abstract thinking compared to that seen with the repetition.

 

[wulf3n]

I can't do taking notes and listening to a lecturer at the same time. If I try to take notes, I miss out on some of what the lecturer says, which just makes it harder to study later on.

 

[ShadowKatt]

I have a fairly spectacular recall ability, not photographic but it's up there, so I don't study. I did all my studying in class either as they assigned reading or just listening to lectures and I did fairly well. I didn't graduate an honor student, but that's mostly just because I'm lazy.

Case and point, I never did homework and consistently had Fs and 0s in that category, but I regularly aced my tests which let me squeak by with about a C average when I graduated.

Edit: I suppose I should point out that that's all academic. I still do a LOT of learning in my free time even now that I'm no longer in school, and it's no different. When I want to learn something I read it usually once or a couple times and I get about an 80% recall out of the subject I just read. I do, however, spend a lot of free brain time(My job is pretty mindless) going over everything I've learned and just simply reciting it in my head. So that might be where I compensate for my lack of actual "Studying".

 

[Calibanbutcher]

If I have to learn something, I LIVE IT.
I get so deep into the subject that I AM THE SUBJECT.
I breathe the subject, I eat the subject, I dream the subject and I sleep the subject.
Until there is no "I" anymore, until I am no longer human, until there is only the subject.

At leasts that's what studying for the finals this semester felt like.


In all seriousness:
I repeat everything until oblivion, fueled by willpower and vast amounts of coffee, I forget to eat, I forget to sleep, I simply condense and repeat, condense and repeat and repeat and repeat and repeat and repeat and almost lose it from exhaustion, get something to eat, and repeat and repeat and fall asleep and in my dreams I still repeat everything.

 

[Griffolion]

-snip-

Spoiler: Bro

[/spoiler]

I'm from a Neuropsych background. I just feel a certain solidarity with a fellow psychology person.

I'm mainly kinaesthetic. You can talk theory at me all day and I won't get how something works. But give me something to do and a basic set of instructions and I'll work out the rest myself. I've been like that as far as I can tell.

 

[Simple Bluff]

To be honest, this sort of thing really depends on WHAT you study.
I'm an undergrad in Applied Maths. I pretty much just learn by doing examples from problem sheets and textbooks. I very seldom read notes, because maths is a very practical subject - you can only learn by doing. If I don't know how to solve a problem, I'll look it up or ask for help.
I DO take notes in class but that's mainly to stop me from falling asleep. Also, although I rarely use them, it is handy to have another source to look up if I get stuck.

There's nothing more to it really; I just do maths over and over and over, and it sticks. Since college, exams have never really felt like "exams" more so than just another set of problems for me to divulge, like any other day. I'm just lucky like that I guess.