NY Times: To Really Learn, Quit Studying and Take a Test

[reinhard]

This is interesting. I've just started taking courses again last semester and it jives with a method I came up with for self-study (take notes straight to index cards for self-testing).

From:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/21/scien ... ef=general

Taking a test is not just a passive mechanism for assessing how much people know, according to new research. It actually helps people learn, and it works better than a number of other studying techniques.

[ericb]

My first reaction was "no way" - even with the evidence right there. I've mind mapped in some form since early high school (before concept maps had been introduced as a standard) and it helps me quite a bit in collecting as I go. I consider it a good filtering mechanism, but when I started thinking about it I don't really consider it a good retrieval mechanism.

However, I think about my most successful classes in college and I didn't just do that. I lived with a roommate in the same major and we would go back to our apartment and grill one another over what we just learned to see if either of us missed anything. Then we mounted melamine on a wall of our apartment to grill one another. It was a 8' x 12' white board - we'd start from scratch on either a metabolic process (example from nutrition and exercise) or some point that was random (build out the complicating factors associated with exercise noncompliance). No notes for the person at the board. You'd get dinged if you had to ask - each request for help was a check on the side of the board. One who got the least dings cooked supper.

For training at work - even the short ones, I use the same model we have to do for our continuing education certification for external training - comprehension questions every x minutes. I do a test at the end as well - applied example to see how they did. When the people in the group know this is coming they pay attention - I've always assumed it was the threat of embarrassment that lead them to remember more from those sessions. This makes me think otherwise - and also gives me a good idea of how to make it stick by asking for a repeat a short time later.

Thanks for the link!

[Over43]

I took the most Gott awful course last year (anthropology) and had a year to finish it.

After 11 months, and not much progress reading the even more awful text, I wrote all of the words from the glossary on index cards. I had my aide quiz me for a week. I went in and took the mid term, and a week later took the final and did well on both.

[reinhard]

An everyday systems tool I came up with (a while ago) for putting this into practice:

http://www.everydaysystems.com/blankful/

[Blithe Morning]

Applying what you learn, even in the form of a test, is so key to mastering material.

Educators know this. It's just really, really hard to implement in our schools.

[germanherman]

This really tingles my german-sense.

It is a very common concept: Learning with an measureable amount of feedback.

Since our memory works with a connection-system it simply means that i connect as many stimuli as possible for one simple fact.

example: I read a simple text stating that the german word for "green" is "grün".

My memory connects the facts with a vast collection of pictures since most of our memory primary uses pictures to store facts.

But if i'am asked: What does "grün" mean?

Now there a more stimuli i can connect to the fact than "simple pictures"

- The sound of the word spoken by someone else
- The emotions i feel through knowing or not knowing the answer
- The reaction of the asking person.

And this stimuli i connect with my process of "recollecting" my pictures.


Damn i should really try to improve my english-skills.