Sounds too good to be true? Here’s the catch. Learning 10 minutes daily for 6 days is better than learning the same subject matter for 60 minutes in a day.
We, as parents and teachers, focus on how long our kids study and are happy when they study for long hours. However, we are missing the key point–’ what have they actually internalized’ .Without internalizing, there is no point studying for long hours. So it comes down to how EFFECTIVELY students study than HOW LONG they study.
So how can a student study effectively?
Studies suggest that students who learn in a spaced manner are able to retain what they have learned. I will not ask you to rely on any research alone, but rather try it out yourself. Ask your student to read from an article for 60 minutes on the 1st day and on the 8th day ask them to recollect the main points and write it on a piece of paper. Ask the same student to read another similar article for 10 minutes every day for 6 days (they can stop reading after 10 minutes and resume the next day). Once again, on the 8th day ask them to write down what they remember. Comparing the results, you will be able to reach a conclusion without any doubt. This experiment can be extended for more days as well. Ask the student to read 2 articles, the first one for 60 minutes straight, and the other article for 10 minutes for 6 days. Ask the student to write about the articles after 30 days. Evaluate which article is retained better by the student.
When a child is repeatedly exposed to the same topic, it helps the brain focus better on that topic. This helps the brain get more and more involved in the topic, and in activating and storing the data in a better way even without our knowledge. Have you ever wondered how we are able to learn the lines of our favorite songs effortlessly? It is a classic example of spaced learning in action.
So the solution is simple. To master a topic, we have to get involved with it for a few days consistently, which leads to effective learning and retention.
Let us explore how we can make the best use of spaced learning. Theories suggest that the human brain forgets 90% of what it had learned in a week’s time !!! So how do we remember the things that we have learned? REVISION IS THE MAGIC WAND! I will help you devise effective ways to study and revise. This has worked for me,so it will definitely work for you too.
Suppose you are studying a topic that requires 2 hours of study.
After spending the required hours ,write a summary of the whole topic. This will help you in structuring the topic in your mind.
fter 24 hours, review the topic by skimming through the text and going through the brief in 1 hour.
After 2 more days, go through the brief in half an hour.After one week,you have to go through the brief again.
If need be, you can repeat step 3 after one month..
From then on, this topic is embedded in your brain forever. Whenever you need it, you can retreive it. This is the power of spaced learning.
If you don’t revise, your retention is going to be low.
With the help of more revision, you will be able to retain more.
This is definitely one of the techniques that you can suggest to your children to improve their studies.
Now I would like to show you one of the chapters from 9th grade ,which I took for one of my students ..you can see how we can make it so short so that it becomes very easy for the students to revise it later.
A TOTAL OF 56 PAGES ALTOGETHER ..WITH A LOT OF THEOREMS TO MEMORIZE !!!
The below three pages show the whole chapter in a condensed form. Any student who has studied the topic well, can easily revise the whole chapter by going through these 3 sheets. If need be this, can further be shortened without losing the steam. A topic that spans across 50 pages is condensed into just 2 or 3 pages!!!
This way of learning and revising makes learning easy, and effective for students for the rest of their lives.
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