Tips for Smart Study

Do you wonder how you can improve your grades or give your best in class? Or Have you ever felt how you can improve your studying habits?

We all have gone through such a phase where our mind triggers that we aren’t performing well and our old study tactics aren’t working and we promise ourselves to do better in the next class.

It is coherent that as we grow older from high school to college, college to university, teachers are less personally involved, classes get significant ,exams grades get more important. In all this nothing is concerned with learning. We strive for good grades rather than skills which might help us later.

So, as a student you have to improve yourself possessing all the above discussed traits you have to work on good study habits that may help you in effective learning so that you could get some time to work on yourself, your skills or you could learn new skills beside studying. As you have heard time is money!

Luckily there are such strategies that could save your time and are shown to be more effective in classes. Here are some strategies that may help you learn your course material effectively and efficiently if you implement them into your study routine.

1. ACTIVE STUDYING:
   Reading or re-reading isn’t actively engaging yourself in material. It leads to quick forgetting. Reading is an part of studying but learning information from that text requires actively engaging in material. Active engagement means constructing meaning from text by making connections to lectures.
   Active studying can include:
   ● Create a study guide topic by topic.
   ● Create your own quiz.
   ● Become your own teacher, say all the information aloud as you are teaching yourself as an instructor.
   ● Create diagrams, flow charts that explain material.
   ● Organizing and planning will help you learn faster. Organize your material while preparing for the test.
2. STUDY CYCLE:
   Study cycle was developed by Frank Christ in which he broke down different stages of studying that includes
   ● Previewing
   ● Attending classes
   ● Reviewing
   ● Studying
   ● Check your understanding
   Each step in this cycle seems obvious but students often try to take shortcuts and miss opportunities for good learning.
3. DISTRIBUTED PRACTICE:
   One of the most impactful strategy. The most effective practice is to work on each class for a short period of time. The total amount of time will be almost same or lesser than studying the same subject for 2 to 3 hours right before exams. The important thing is how you are going to use your study time not how long you study.
4. INTENSIVE STUDY SESSIONS:
   Not every study session is impactful. You can accomplish more if you study intensively. Intensive sessions are short and will allow you to complete more with less wasted efforts. Intensive study sessions last for an hour to 2 hour while actively engaging in a session.
5. NO MULTITASKING:
   In order to study smarter, you need to cut off all distractions during your study hours. No social media, games etc. According to research it is very clear that multitasking increases the amount of time needed and decreases the quality of learning.

Author: Tazeen Aijaz