What Does Studying Mean
When I first started as a freshman, I thought I knew what it meant to study. To be honest, in high school, I never really studied, as long as I did my homework and paid attention in class, that seemed to be sufficient to excel. Occasionally for vocab tests I made flash cards, but not often. When I came to college, I was shocked to realized that homework and paying attention was insufficient to do well. My definition of studying had to change if I wanted to master material.
First, I like to break up studying into two parts: active and passive. With active studying you are intentionally doing things to consolidate the material into your long term memory. For example, doing practice problems, teaching the material to a friend, making a study guide. With passive studying, you are just absorbing information without intentionally trying to make it stick in your brain, i.e listening to a lecture or watching a video (without pausing to take notes or write down questions). You need a little bit of both to succeed.
Second, I like to determine what kind of class am I taking and what skills are needed for this content. The way I would approach physics is a lot different than the way I would approach a psychology course. With STEM classes, I know practice and understanding concepts and exceptions to rules is important. The only way for me to do well in Physics is to do practice problems. No amount of memorizing formulas will help me do well on exams. I need to know hot to apply those formulas to whatever questions I am asked. With others classes, like psych or even general biology I know memorization is the name of the game. I need to eat, breath, and sleep concepts and facts
Studying means engaging with the material on a multiple levels. You have to pay attention in class, do your homework, spend time on concepts you don’t understand, teach your friends and host review sessions, watch videos (you’d be surprised how much easier material comes when someone else teaches it.). Studying is not a one size fits all, you have to do trial and error to find what works best for you. It’s important to know the kind of learner you are because that plays a big role in the kinds of study approaches you use.
Types of Learning
https://www.rasmussen.edu/degrees/education/blog/types-of-learning-styles/
