Practical Study Guidelines

Finding the best and result-oriented way of studying can be very difficult especially if you’re not wholly accessed your capabilities and competence level. Most students, therefore, struggle to develop an effective homework approach that best suits them.

Thankfully, there are some workable solutions and principles you can employ to make the learning process as effective as possible. Here are some 10 practical study guidelines you can adopt or modify to match your study needs.

  1. Actively engage with your course materials

Your success or failure in your study field starts from the day of admission and receiving materials. Being proactive matters a lot if you want to build and sustain a retentive memory from what you learn. The only practical way to achieve this is to engage with your study materials in a quality and sustainable manner. Some students just read their books passively i.e. they don’t take time to decode and understand the content you are consuming. Doing that creates only temporal retention. The best way to do your homework effectively is to engage with the materials. Make sure you understand whatever you are reading and by so doing, you build long-term memory.

  1. Create notes yourself

During lectures, write down all important points stated by your tutor. Also, take note of whatever he writes on the board. After class, create a note for the lesson using the points you wrote. Through this, you build a deeper understanding of the topic and as you write in your own words, information retention is higher.

  1. Take your notes by hand, rather than typing

This is very important because of the different rates of absorption each provides. People type faster than writers. As writing by hand takes a bit longer, you are able to absorb and decode the information at a slower pace making knowledge retention easier. Also, handwriting is an active way of learning compared to typing on a computer where you can just be cutting and pasting.

  1. Create a study timetable by including test schedules

After receiving your school’s lesson table, create your own homework timetable taking into consideration that of the school. A well-designed study timetable should have minutes of break periods where you can relax small after long periods of tackling assignments. Also, you should have test schedules in between. For example, after a week of studies, test yourself to see if you are on track. Through the test, you can analyze your strength and weakness, and work on them. You can, therefore, allocate more time and attention to areas you fall short.

  1. Do away with distractions

In knowledge acquisition, any form of distraction becomes an enemy of the process. Anything that could sway you from concentrating on your studies shouldn’t be entertained. You need to switch off your phone or put it on silent. There is no time for social media posting and commenting when learning. There is an unending debate about whatever listening to music can distract you from learning or not. But everyone has what works for them. If you can study while listening to music, go for it.

  1. Make an extempore presentation

Aside from setting yourself questions and solving them, you can also try making an extempore presentation of what you’re learning to someone or in front of a mirror. Doing this a way of assessing the depth of your knowledge on a topic. The confidence level you exhibit in this unplanned presentation will be what would manifest if you were to make a presentation in front of an audience. Also is eases anxiety and examination stress.

  1. Visualize concepts you find difficult to understand

Sometimes some concepts become very difficult to understand or retain. In said cases, create a visual effect of it. It could be certain steps or pattern you can use to easily remember the subject matter.

  1. Space out your learning schedules

Always choose quality over quantity. The amount of information you would absorb in an hour is not important as the one you can retain. Instead of studying for long hours only to forget within a short period, absorb the little information you can easily remember. You can also decide to space out your timetable to avoid overstuffing the brain.

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