No one, as far
as I know, stops learning as soon as he or she steps out of school. If one is
already employed, we go on to study for a professional qualification, in the
hopes of a promotion, to make our working lives easier, or simply for the joy
of learning. If one is still looking for a job, additional qualification will
always help one’s prospect of getting a decent job. They say you learn every
minute of your life.
But,
If you didn’t
learn how to study effectively when you were young, and if you still don’t know,
then you’re probably wasting lot of time.
Make the most of
your studying time. Remember and understand what you’re trying to learn so that
you can store all you learnt in your brain like water in a well, so that you
can draw out in bucketfuls when you need-rather than just staring at the book In
front of you.
Reading,
Don’t just read the text book, or
their notes, over and over again. Sure, If you go on and on some of it will
eventually stick-but is this really an effective way to learn?
After
“reading” a whole page if you realize you didn’t take in a word of it, you’ll
know how easy it is for your eyes to keep moving when your brain is switched
off. There are times that after reading the book you have the feeling you’ve “got
it”- but go on only to fail at a test. Then you know that reading isn’t good
enough to lodge information in your head.
Engage with the material,
When your are studying something,
anything, engage yourself practically with the study that you’re learning.
- Instead of studying the science of cooking, bake something-and experiment with different additions.
- Instead of reciting capital cities of each country, get a blank map of the world and plot the capital cities onto it.
Memorize,
It’s
often helpful to write down on a piece of paper what you’re trying to memorize,
say a scientific formula, or a quotation from literature. The more times you do
write this down, more likely it is to stick in your head! To ensure that you’re
not just getting it into your short term memory. Try writing it out at
different times during the day. without looking it up beforehand.
