I have students all the time telling me how much they are studying. Sometimes it pays off and sometimes it doesn’t. I think a lot of this has to do with how people study. Most students have never been taught how the learning process works and how to learn effectively. Worse still, students don’t realize that learning is a biological process (neurons grow). I’m not shocked that their first attempts to learn a topic aren’t successful. Luckily, cognitive psychologists have been working on learning theory for a while and here are 3 examples of
Samford University has 5 cool videos on the following topics: Beliefs That Make You Fail…Or Succeed, What Students Should Understand About How People Learn, Cognitive Principles for Optimizing Learning, Putting the Principles for Optimizing Learning into Practice, I Blew the Exam, Now What?. Each video goes through study skills, common missteps for learning, and learning theory. These are great videos for new college students. There are so many good points in these videos I can’t summarize them all here.
The Education Resource Center at Boston University a great (though a bit long, 50min) video (below) that speaks very specifically to how learning works. It begins with a 20min explanation by Dr. Michael Grant about learning theory. This is followed by 30min of study plans that are consistent with the learning theory. There are a lot of tactics to studying here (some more useful than others).
Finally I want to point on an Article from Chronicles of Higher Education titled “Metacognition and Student Learning” by James Lang. I think a big problem in student learning is that students don’t think about the learning process; they are just focused on getting the information in their heads to pass the test. Most students trick themselves into thinking they really understand material because they saw the professor work the problem on the board, or that they understand the material because they memorized on the key terms and equations. Metacognition is the act of thinking about your learning and learning process. This can be tough to do (similar to editing your own work) because it is difficult to step outside yourself. Here is a quotation by Dr. Chew from the article.
“Poor metacognition is a big part of incompetence,” he explained. “People who are incompetent typically do not realize how incompetent they are. People who aren’t funny at all think they are hilarious. People who are bad drivers think they are especially good. You don’t want to fly on a plane with a pilot who has poor metacognition. A lot of reality shows like American Idol highlight people with poor metacognition for entertainment. Everyone knows people who are seldom in doubt but often wrong.”
UPDATE (5/31/2012) – “Forget What You Know About Good Study Habits” in the NY Times has a nice summary of some misconceptions about studying. This includes learning styles, teaching styles, study habits, how bad study habits can hurt, and a lot of studies to support the ideas.
UPDATE (12/16/2012) – “High School Daze: The Perils Of Sacrificing Sleep For Late-Night Studying” on NPR summarized a study that makes clear the importance of sleep to learning. Â I’m not sure if anyone needs to be convinced that sleep is important for learning of real long-term value, but this helps explain the reasons.
UPDATE (1/29/2014) – Faculty Focus provided a little summary of Chew’s work. Â Again emphasizing the misconceptions students (and faculty?) have about learning.