Learning to Learn

Learning is a never-ending process. Of course, as educators, we put learning at the forefront of everything we do in the classroom. We ask ourselves many questions regarding the learning that we are hoping to witness: How am I going to see that they’ve understood? What will I do if they don’t understand? Is this a measurable objective? How can I apply this lesson to the real world? Do they care to learn this? With all of these questions about learning, it is important that we teachers step back and teach how to learn.

Especially during the transition grades—entering middle school, high school, or college—we must prepare students to learn how they learn best. Arguably, the best way to do this is to provide students with strategies that they can test out and employ. One of the major obstacles that I faced in my education involved studying. I always questioned myself in that area—Have I studied enough? Did I study the right concepts? Is memorizing the same thing as studying?

Here are a few tips that educators can teach students with regard to learning and studying:

• Teach students how to pace themselves. It is much easier to tackle small bits of information at a time than it is to cram. Waiting until the last minute to cram before a test is also a surefire way to create unnecessary anxiety. Remind students of due dates and test dates. It is also helpful to model the process of chunking the work into manageable pieces along the way.
• Encourage students to ask questions. Depending on the age and comfort level of a student, this may be a struggle at first. You could also provide question cards. Have students anonymously write questions that they’d like to have answered during the review session. It is also a good idea to encourage students to jot notes down during a class review or study.
• Teach students to embrace the flashcard. This may seem like a painfully obvious approach to studying, but flashcards truly have several benefits. Creating flashcards helps to imprint the information beyond the scope of a student’s short-term memory. Writing something begins to solidify a connection in memory. Flashcards also force students to focus on only the key points. Since the purpose is to contain the important information on a small index card, students practice narrowing in on the main ideas and take-home points of the lesson. Of course, flashcards are also very handy to quickly and conveniently review material.
• Model the mnemonic device. As crazy as it may sound, the mnemonic device was one of my best study quirks throughout all of my years of education. Even in graduate school, mnemonic devices helped to retain information that I thought I could never simply memorize. This strategy can utilize anything from a rhyme, song, pattern of words or letters, alliteration, etc., in order to solidify the information and easily recall it when necessary.

Introduce your students to these learning strategies to help them strengthen their study skills and enhance their performance across a range of subjects. As my experience suggests, these strategies will serve them well for years!