Note: This series details how to study smarter, not harder, to help students succeed in their academics. All information in this series draws upon principles from psychological research on learning and memory.

Students often ask me about how to take better notes. I often notice that these students use the outline method, where they write their notes bullet-by-bullet and organize the notes with headings.

While the outline method is not terrible, it also isn’t the most effective way to take notes. A better option is the Cornell method, which is one of the most effective note taking techniques.

Proper Technique

Create two columns on a page. The left column should be 2.5” wide and the right should be 6” wide. And leave a 2” tall space at the bottom. Don’t agonize over these proportions, though.

Take notes in the right column. And add comments, questions, and key terms to the left column. Then write a brief 2-4 sentence summary of the notes at the bottom of the page.

Comments can look like “important!,” “will be tested on this,” “this relates to concept x,” etc. Write a question in the left column when you don’t understand something. Or write questions that test for understanding.

Tips for Success

There are two very important tips when it comes to notetaking. Write the notes in your own words. And, review your notes repeatedly until your test. Always review notes on the same day that you took them. Then review them the next day and every few days after that.

Don’t write everything you see and hear in lecture. This is a surefire way to get overwhelmed and miss content. At the same time, don’t write too little. If your notes are too sparse, it will be difficult to study from them.

Write short, succinct sentences. To save time, try using abbreviations and symbols that you will understand later when you are reviewing your notes.

Handwriting your notes is more effective for learning than typing notes. However, if you have handwriting that you have trouble reading, then typing your notes will be just fine.

Why It Works

Cornell notes are extremely organized, which helps organize your understanding of the material. The structure of the notes provide the perfect study guide, too! Use those comments, questions, and key-terms written in the left column to test yourself on the content in the right column. And be sure to review your summaries at the bottom of the page.

Summary

The Cornell note taking technique is highly effective and doubles as a study guide. It can be challenging to use at first, but will become easier with practice.

Keep up with our weekly Building Strong Study Skills series to learn the most effective study strategies and succeed in your academics. Schedule a session with one of our expert tutors today to receive all the information and guidance you need to gain a deeper understanding of your academics and perform better on your tests! Building effective study habits takes time, so the sooner you get help, the better prepared you will be by the time finals roll around.

Read Other Articles in The Building Strong Study Skills Series

Sources:

• Terry, W.S. (2018). Learning and Memory: Basic Principles, Processes, and Procedures, Fifth Edition. New York, Routledge, a Taylor and Francis Group. ISBN 978-1-13-864591-2.
• Rhodes, M.G., Cleary, A.M. and DeLosh, E.L. (2020). A Guide to Effective Studying and Learning: Practical Strategies from the Science of Learning. New York, Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-021447-0 (pbk).

Note: This series details how to study smarter, not harder, to help students succeed in their academics. All information in this series draws upon principles from psychological research on learning and memory.

Have you ever read a chapter in your textbook and later realized that you missed a lot of important points? If so, you’re not alone. Reading a textbook can be challenging, especially when dozens of key points are interspersed throughout 15-20 pages of material. Many students read quickly and don’t stop to ask questions, which leads to ineffective learning. This is called passive reading.

Learn how to get more out of your reading with the following tips for active reading.

How To Employ Active Reading

• Predict: read all of the headings and subheadings in the chapter and take note of the key terms. Use this information to predict what each section will discuss and how they will all relate to each other.
• Externally process: read aloud or think aloud. Some students have an easier time reading aloud. Some students find it helpful to alternate between reading out loud and in their head. And thinking aloud can be a great way to connect ideas for most students.
• Activate: connect your reading to prior knowledge. Take a second to stop after a main idea and see if you can connect the information to other topics in or outside of the course.
• Infer: while reading, think about how what you’re learning relates to the main ideas of the course content.
• Clarify: if you don’t understand a part of the text, pause to clarify the confusion before moving on.
• Visualize: as you read, picture the content in your mind.
• Question: ask yourself questions about the content. Use these questions to predict, activate, infer, and clarify. And use questions to test yourself as you are reading.

Why It Works

Active reading helps you understand the individual parts of your material while also providing a framework to integrate the information into a holistic understanding.

Summary

Active reading may be challenging to implement all at once. Try introducing one or two active reading strategies at a time until you are comfortable using them all together. Active reading may take more effort and time than passive reading, but it is worth it!

Keep up with our weekly Building Strong Study Skills series to learn the most effective study strategies and succeed in your academics. Schedule a session with one of our expert tutors today to receive all the information and guidance you need to gain a deeper understanding of your academics and perform better on your tests! Building effective study habits takes time, so the sooner you get help, the better prepared you will be by the time finals roll around.

Read Other Articles in The Building Strong Study Skills Series

Sources:

• Terry, W.S. (2018). Learning and Memory: Basic Principles, Processes, and Procedures, Fifth Edition. New York, Routledge, a Taylor and Francis Group. ISBN 978-1-13-864591-2.
• Rhodes, M.G., Cleary, A.M. and DeLosh, E.L. (2020). A Guide to Effective Studying and Learning: Practical Strategies from the Science of Learning. New York, Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-021447-0 (pbk).

Note: This series details how to study smarter, not harder, to help students succeed in their academics. All information in this series draws upon principles from psychological research on learning and memory.

Throughout this series, we’ve covered a broad range of study skills. According to effect sizes in the literature, some of these skills are not very effective (Study Habits You Should Knock Part I and II), while others are moderately effective (Interleaved Studying, Self-Explanation, Elaborative Interrogation). By far, however, spaced practice and self-testing are the most effective study techniques.

So what is self-testing and how do you do it?

Proper Technique

Self-testing consists of testing your knowledge independently. It can take many forms: answering questions at the end of the chapter, flashcards, online review quizzes, etc.

Tips for Success

Self-testing is most effective in a free-recall format, as opposed to a recognition format like true-false or multiple choice questions.

Creating your own questions for self-testing increases the effectiveness of this study technique even further!

Why It Works

Research shows that the most powerful type of learning occurs when students retrieve information from their memory.

Summary

Self-testing is a straightforward study technique that most students already use. For the best results, try creating your own free-recall questions.

Keep up with our weekly Building Strong Study Skills series to learn the most effective study strategies and succeed in your academics. Schedule a session with one of our expert tutors today to receive all the information and guidance you need to gain a deeper understanding of your academics and perform better on your tests! Building effective study habits takes time, so the sooner you get help, the better prepared you will be by the time finals roll around.

Read Other Articles in The Building Strong Study Skills Series

Sources:

• Terry, W.S. (2018). Learning and Memory: Basic Principles, Processes, and Procedures, Fifth Edition. New York, Routledge, a Taylor and Francis Group. ISBN 978-1-13-864591-2.

• Rhodes, M.G., Cleary, A.M. and DeLosh, E.L. (2020). A Guide to Effective Studying and Learning: Practical Strategies from the Science of Learning. New York, Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-021447-0 (pbk).

Note: This series details how to study smarter, not harder, to help students succeed in their academics. All information in this series draws upon principles from psychological research on learning and memory.

Have you ever put off studying for a test until the night before? How much caffeine did it take to get through the hours of studying? How many hours of sleep did you lose to studying? And do you remember any of the material that you studied?

Studying all of your material in a session right before the test is called massed practice, or cramming. Spaced practice is the exact opposite of cramming and offers significant benefits.

Proper Technique

Spaced practice consists of breaking up your studying into smaller sessions over a longer period of time. It is usually recommended that students study their material on days that they don’t have the class they’re studying for.

For example, if a student has a test in two weeks, a good study practice would be to study, say, 60 minutes on each day that the student does not have that class. If there are four days each week that a student doesn’t have class, that adds up to eight hours of studying!

But students shouldn’t study for a particular subject for 60 minutes straight – they should interleave their studying with other topics.

Tips for Success

Students need to be on top of their studies in order to use spaced practice effectively. Plan out your study days and times to make sure you are on track and prepared for your test. Our tutors are the perfect resource for developing better study habits and can help you make study plans.

Why It Works

Research shows that studying for a total of five hours over a two week period, as opposed to five hours before the test, gives students a greater ability to learn the material and helps them retain the knowledge for a longer period of time.

But why? Learning and memory researchers have a couple leading explanations. The first is that studying for a long period of time offers diminishing returns; or, the longer you study, the less effective it is. After a while, the subject becomes monotonous and students lose focus.

The second theory explains that spaced practice provides a framework of reminding. The more a student is reminded of their material, the stronger their memories of that material become. And, frequent reminding also provides the student with more opportunities to make connections among different ideas.

Summary

Cramming is not a good study habit. Spaced practice provides students with better results and retention of material. And it’s easy to implement! Contact us today to begin building more effective study habits with one of our tutors.

Read Other Articles in The Building Strong Study Skills Series

Sources:

• Terry, W.S. (2018). Learning and Memory: Basic Principles, Processes, and Procedures, Fifth Edition. New York, Routledge, a Taylor and Francis Group. ISBN 978-1-13-864591-2.
• Rhodes, M.G., Cleary, A.M. and DeLosh, E.L. (2020). A Guide to Effective Studying and Learning: Practical Strategies from the Science of Learning. New York, Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-021447-0 (pbk).

Note: This series details how to study smarter, not harder, to help students succeed in their academics. All information in this series draws upon principles from psychological research on learning and memory.

How do you break up your studying when reviewing several different subjects? Do you study one subject for an hour and then switch to the next? Do you study for one subject on one day and another subject on a different day? This method is called blocked practice.

Now that we’ve gotten the worst study techniques out of the way, we will discuss effective study techniques. Today we talk about interleaved studying. Interleaving involves alternating between two or more subjects in a single study session. You can use interleaving for academics, music, and art!

Benefits of Interleaving

Compared to the blocked practice, you can retain information better with interleaving, acquire skills more effectively, and improve your abilities. These phenomena are part of the interleaving effect.

How to Interleave

To interleave your assigned readings, you may alternate between reading your physics book and your math book. Similarly, to interleave piano practice, you may switch between perfecting your performance piece, working on your technique workbook, and learning theory. To interleave illustration practice, you may rotate between using pen and ink, watercolor, and acrylics.

Interleave Properly

Everyone is different, so you have to practice interleaving to find what works best for you! But here are some general guidelines:

• Typically, interleaving works best when you study each topic  for about 15 minutes before switching to the next. But this number ranges from 10-30 minutes depending on the person and subject. And, interleaving various subjects may look different. For example, interleaving readings may work best when you spend 15 minutes on each, whereas interleaving math and physics problems may work best when you spend 10 minutes on each.

• Interleaving works best if you alternate between similar subjects, not identical ones, but also ones that aren’t too different. For example, it is more useful to interleave, say, math and chemistry than math and history. You could even interleave chemistry practice problems in thermodynamics and electrochemistry.

• Interleaving is usually best when alternating between 2-3 subjects, but not more than that.

Warning

Interleaving is challenging – especially at first. Many students give up because they think they learned less in interleaving practice than in their blocked practice. And they very well may have had less success when they were getting used to the new study skill. However, once students get the hang of interleaving, they are more likely to retain the material.

Summary

Although interleaving can be challenging for beginners, it is more effective for retaining material, mastering skills, and improving your abilities. Although interleaving is effective, it shouldn’t be your only study skill. It should be used in conjunction with other study techniques that will be detailed in coming installments of this series.

Keep up with our weekly Building Strong Study Skills series to learn the most effective study strategies and succeed in your academics. Schedule a session with one of our expert tutors today to receive all the information and guidance you need to gain a deeper understanding of your academics and perform better on your tests! Building effective study habits takes time, so the sooner you get help, the better prepared you will be by the time finals roll around.

Read Other Articles in The Building Strong Study Skills Series

Sources:

• Terry, W.S. (2018). Learning and Memory: Basic Principles, Processes, and Procedures, Fifth Edition. New York, Routledge, a Taylor and Francis Group. ISBN 978-1-13-864591-2.
• Rhodes, M.G., Cleary, A.M. and DeLosh, E.L. (2020). A Guide to Effective Studying and Learning: Practical Strategies from the Science of Learning. New York, Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-021447-0 (pbk)