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1.2: Effective Learning and Reading

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    Regardless of your age or educational background, you can always cultivate your learning skills. The following insights are here to help you get off to a good start so that you can enhance your chances of being a skilled learner in whatever subject you choose to study.

    clipboard_e9f8d312fe719fee208a39f6bd6b401e1.png
    Figure \(\PageIndex{1}\): Students study at Shree Sahara Bal Primary School, Pokhara, Grade 1, Pokhara, Nepal. Jim Holmes; Pixabay
    https://www.flickr.com/photos/dfataustralianaid/10727334216 ; pixabay.com/en/students-outdoor-people-young-703003/; CC BY-NC 3.0

    Discipline is your key to success. It is the ability to do what you're supposed to do when no one is looking. Discipline means making a total commitment to your studying plans, and schedules. You've probably had an experience you're proud of where you've disciplined yourself to do something well (such as maintain an exercise schedule) or break a bad habit (such as smoking).

    Set study goals. Setting goals is the best way to motivate yourself to study effectively. When you have a specific goal in mind you know what you want to achieve, and that makes it easier to achieve it. Setting study goals enables you to study with a purpose. Starting every study assignment with specific study goals gives focus to your work. Make a list of the tasks you must complete to achieve each goal. Note how much time you need to complete each task. Arrange your tasks in order of importance. Plan to spend a specific study period completing your study tasks. Use a check list to record your progress as you complete your tasks.

    Improve your concentration. Accepting the fact that we can only do one thing at a time can improve our concentration when we sit down to do our schoolwork or other assignments. Acknowledge your concentration span. How long can you study before your mind wanders to something else? Fifteen minutes, twenty-five minutes? When you schedule your time, schedule mini-breaks that coincide with the time you're most likely to lose your concentration. Getup, stretch, get a drink of water or a breath of fresh air. When scheduling your mini breaks, make sure to stick to them. A 10-minute break shouldn't end up lasting a half hour.

    Minimize distractions. If possible, you should work in a well-structured study space, with books and materials at hand. Before studying, spend a few minutes to set up your study space. Get a comfortable chair and face it towards a bare wall. Avoid facing windows. Clear your desk or table space of objects except those used for your study. This will minimize visual distractions.

    Respect your study time. Help others to be mindful of the importance of your study time. Inform as many people as you can of your scheduled study time. This will help avoid the distraction of unexpected visitors and the telephone ringing.

    Manage your time. Time management starts with being able to:

    • Set goals and make priorities. This gives you a sense of what has to be done and when. Do important things first. Important things become pressing and use up more of our time when we avoid doing them.
    • Say "No". There will be many interruptions and requests for your time. Anything that is not in your schedule, can be scheduled later. Start and stop specific activities at predetermined times. This enables you to concentrate on the task at hand.
    • Make "to do" lists and schedules.

    Before organizing your study time examine your daily routine including meals, travel, work, appointments, etc. How much time does it take for each task? Now decide how much study time you need, when you want to study, and how studying fits in with the rest of your activities.

    Daily "To Do" List. Get in the habit of making a daily "to do" list that combines your scheduled activities and the important things you want to do that day. After listing what you want to do, code the most important items and make sure you give them priority over less important items.

    Weekly Schedules. To decide what is important, you need to know your week's schedule. Start each week by making a schedule. Fill in work time, study time, important events, etc.

    Monthly Schedule. A monthly schedule can help you look more broadly at what you want to accomplish. The task you list on your monthly schedule can be incorporated into your weekly and daily schedules.

    At the end of each day, week or month review your schedules. Observe how well your time schedules work for you. Make adjustments as needed.

    Forget learning styles: learn in more than one way.There is no research evidence to support learning styles. You learn in many ways and you need to use a variety of methods to learn. Focus on learning in more than one way such as describing what you have learned to a friend, drawing a diagram, writing out your notes, or watching a video of a concept. Learning in many different ways will allow for storage of information in various regions of the brain. Figure out which strategies work best for you!

    Determine distinctiveness. Figure out what makes a concept very unique or different (figure out the similarities and differences in new concepts so your brain can remember better).

    Make meaningful connections. Create a visual connection of concepts, topics and components to each other. This helps you see the relationships between ideas and helps the brain learn better. Draw a map, a flowchart or a diagram to help see all the pieces and how they relate.

    Practice appropriate retrieval and application. Don’t memorize isolated facts (you can’t learn remember it a longer time if you memorize many facts that are not connected), instead figure out ways to remember what you need to know and then apply it. Practice and study related to how your teacher will want content to be recalled.

    Generate questions as you are reading. If you can find the answers to your questions, this would be better. Your brain will process the readings much better and you’ll make meaning about the content. If your instructor gave some questions to consider, write out the answers as you are doing the readings. Or you can write possible test questions (with the answers) on your reading. Anytime you are thinking about questions when you are reading – will help you actively read!

    Make a summary note of your reading. When you put in your own words what you have read, the brain will remember it better! After you have read a chapter or an article, write a one paragraph summary. Pretend you are writing your paragraph for someone who has not read the reading.

    Teach what you have learned to a friend. The best way to learn something is to teach it to someone else – someone who doesn’t know about the topic. Break down the concepts into your own words and find a way to share that learning with someone else (e.g., podcast, blog, group discussion). This is an excellent way for the brain to learn and encode new knowledge.

    clipboard_e9978d241181374be408aa32723f4fcdd.png
    Figure \(\PageIndex{2}\): The best way to learn something is to teach it to someone else.

    Repeat the information. Repeating is necessary in the memory process. Retrieval becomes quicker and easier the more we repeat or use the information.

    Enhance your wellness. Make a healthy breakfast, lunch, or dinner and enjoy it with a friend. Eating well can help increase your energy level so you’re ready to focus, and spending time with others can help reduce stress and anxiety. Take 10-minute activity breaks to reach 30 to 60 minutes of physical activity each day. Scheduling physical activity into your day can help lower stress and increase mental alertness.

    Reading Well

    But I already know how to read!

    Of course you do! But just as games get more and more complicated as you level up, so also reading means more and more things as you progress through your education. The authors whose texts you read in college, whether the texts are fact or fiction, are engaging in a slow-motion conversation on a topic. Your goal is to listen carefully to the author's side of the conversation so that you, too, can participate in the conversation. You don't want to simply parrot back what other people have said in the conversation, and you don't want to talk about something completely irrelevant. Instead, you want to listen (read) carefully and then contribute to the conversation in a meaningful way.

    Read critically. Critical reading involves more than simply understanding the information that the text conveys. That is the first step. But reading critically requires reading actively, in constant conversation with the text as you discern not only what it says, but how it says it. In the end, according to Dan Kurkland, you want to know three things:

    • What the text says - information conveyed
    • What the text does - purpose and techniques
    • What the text means - interpretation in context

    To help you do this, take notes as you are reading. The goals is to give yourself ways to find patterns and key moments in the text. This is your initial conversation with the author.

    Make notes that:

    • summarize key sections of the text
    • mark important structural elements of the text,
    • ask questions of the text,
    • indicate places where you would like to go back and follow up on an allusion or citation,
    • mark the most important phrases or sentences that you might want to quote later.

    Reading without printing

    While reading on a screen may not be as appealing as reading on printed paper, there are several advantages

    • It uses less paper and (even more importantly) less toner.
    • You can take notes that are searchable and organizable.
    • You can have multiple pages open at the same time on computer screens, which reduces flipping back and forth to look at a key chart or bibliography.

    Evaluate your sources. Essentially, evaluating a source means passing judgment on it, not only in terms of whether you agree or disagree with the point that the author is making, but in deciding what kind of source you are dealing with. It's important to use the appropriate kind of source in certain situations. For example, if your professor requires that you use only scholarly journal articles as sources for an assignment, you need to know how to identify that kind of source. Identifying the kind of source may help you in deciding how to judge its content as well.

    One of the first things that you should look for in any source material is the author. Anonymous sources should be considered suspect until you have verified the information they contain. Many journals, magazines, and books will not only include the author's name, but give a brief description of who the author is and what his/her credentials are for writing on the subject. If you need more information about the author, you might consult a directory (there are directories for specific professions) or do a web search for information about the author.

    It's always important to know where an author got his/her information. An author should cite the sources for particular information in the text or list references used in a bibliography at the end of the work. Factual information used to strengthen the author's argument that is given without a source should be verified before you use it to strengthen your own argument.

    You should also notice where the information has been published or who published it. In the case of a book, check the press that published it. A scholarly or university press differs from a commercial press in its goals and stringency. Self-published work, whether in print or on the web, should be examined carefully. If you are looking at an article, notice if it has been published in a scholarly journal or a popular magazine. You can usually tell by looking at the publication. The differences between the two kinds of publication are important. Scholarly journals are refereed, which means that all articles published by them must be approved by a group of known scholars in the field (called "referees"). Popular magazines sometimes report research, but their coverage is at one remove from the actual research, so the description of the research may be very general or may even misinterpret the work. Try to find the actual research if you can. Always check the date of publication. New research often disproves old.

    Always be aware of any bias on the part of the author. Bias alone does not disprove a thesis, but it may cause the author to ignore problems in his/her argument. Bias can also result in a misinterpretation or a narrow interpretation of the facts. There are also authors who deliberately misrepresent facts and ideas.

    Cite your sources. Citing your references can be time-consuming, but here's why it's important:

    • Citing your sources helps you to avoid plagiarism.
    • Readers can go back and look at your sources if they'd like to follow up or read further.
    • By demonstrating how widely you've researched a topic, your own argument ends up being more credible. Citations can show you've considered a wide variety of opinions when forming your own argument.
    • Citing is standard practice in academic conversations. Scholars have been debating ideas through written works for years and citing is a way of respecting those who've engaged in the topic before you.

    Contributors and Attributions


    1.2: Effective Learning and Reading is shared under a CC BY-NC license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by LibreTexts.

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