The rules for posting and commenting, besides the rules defined here for lemmy.world, are as follows:
Rule 1- All posts must begin with YSK.
All posts must begin with YSK. If you're a Mastodon user, then include YSK after @youshouldknow. This is a community to share tips and tricks that will help you improve your life.
Rule 2- Your post body text must include the reason "Why" YSK:
**In your post's text body, you must include the reason "Why" YSK: It’s helpful for readability, and informs readers about the importance of the content. **
Rule 3- Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here.
Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here. Breaking this rule will not get you or your post removed, but it will put you at risk, and possibly in danger.
Rule 4- No self promotion or upvote-farming of any kind.
That's it.
Rule 5- No baiting or sealioning or promoting an agenda.
Posts and comments which, instead of being of an innocuous nature, are specifically intended (based on reports and in the opinion of our crack moderation team) to bait users into ideological wars on charged political topics will be removed and the authors warned - or banned - depending on severity.
Rule 6- Regarding non-YSK posts.
Provided it is about the community itself, you may post non-YSK posts using the [META] tag on your post title.
Rule 7- You can't harass or disturb other members.
If you harass or discriminate against any individual member, you will be removed.
If you are a member, sympathizer or a resemblant of a movement that is known to largely hate, mock, discriminate against, and/or want to take lives of a group of people and you were provably vocal about your hate, then you will be banned on sight.
For further explanation, clarification and feedback about this rule, you may follow this link.
Rule 8- All comments should try to stay relevant to their parent content.
Rule 9- Reposts from other platforms are not allowed.
Let everyone have their own content.
Rule 10- The majority of bots aren't allowed to participate here.
Unless included in our Whitelist for Bots, your bot will not be allowed to participate in this community. To have your bot whitelisted, please contact the moderators for a short review.
Rule 11- Posts must actually be true: Disiniformation, trolling, and being misleading will not be tolerated. Repeated or egregious attempts will earn you a ban. This also applies to filing reports: If you continually file false reports YOU WILL BE BANNED! We can see who reports what, and shenanigans will not be tolerated. We are not here to ban people who said something you don't like.
If you file a report, include what specific rule is being violated and how.
You can view our partnered communities list by following this link. To partner with our community and be included, you are free to message the moderators or comment on a pinned post.
For inquiry on becoming a moderator of this community, you may comment on the pinned post of the time, or simply shoot a message to the current moderators.
Our icon(masterpiece) was made by @clen15!
ive found this actually just exhausts me to the point that I don't end up learning anything and just become a tad upset. i respond far better to brute repetition with minimal other busy work, like pre-made flash cards or studying with someone else. I also like rereading articles/study materials until I can imperfectly recite them comfortably :)
i know this wasn't necessarily an invitation to anecdotes but i just wanted to make it known that this is NOT universal
Very similar to what my middle school geography teacher told us. It takes consuming knowledge 7 different ways to really cement it into memory.
Sounds like a good excuse to get some good food.
I'm seeing this post a bit late, but I feel like I have to weigh in slightly, though it's not my research area.
Note that my information extends more to academic studying, don't know if it's quite as true for learning more physical skills.
The main concept for learning is deeper learning. Which basically just means actually using your brain to think about the material. Things like connecting it to other ideas, pondering different implications, that sort of thing.
The reason flashcards work is because you think about what questions you could ask about the material. The reason you write by hand vs type is because it's slower and you have to think about what's more important or how you'd summarise the information.
I believe reading aloud typically works because it forces you to be slower and more deliberate, giving you time to actually process what you're reading.
That said what you've written is helpful and mostly correct, I'm just not so certain about the framing. It could mislead some people into just rewriting notes while reading them out, for example, which is inefficient and not very helpful for learning.
A very easy-to-read source with practical tips:
Also as a final tip, my favourite exam prep technique: do a past paper without having looked at any notes or done any prep. Answer as much as you can just thinking about what you remember. Then go through with notes. It primes your brain for processing and storing the information.
Also, do the assignments, and start them the day they're assigned so you're working with the information that's still fresh in your short-term memory. If the prof is working through an example, work through it yourself at the same time.
If the prof gives homework that's not graded, work through as much of it as you have time to the same day. I don't know how many times fellow students struggled with assignments or had to cram for tests because they didn't do the homework right away and the lessons faded from their short-term memory, so they basically forgot everything.
There's a bit of a counterpoint to that: spaced/distributed learning contributes to long term memory encoding. Revisit something a week or two later and a year down the line you'll remember it more than if you did it the next day.
So depends on your goals a bit. That said, if you can, don't leave stuff last minute because stress is definitely not good for memory if nothing else.
In the context of school structured learning, that's often baked-in. Concepts are either continually expanded on, or re-visited throughout the course.
Which I guess leads to a corollary suggestion: If you want to learn something and have the means... Take a Course! One that's well-made is structured to have reinforcing points, and scheduled by someone who knows the material, so can plan the lessons to be cohesive and additive in a way that a newbie wouldn't necessarily think to do.
I work in kitchens, and so I have to learn new techniques every so often. One thing that I've found that works REALLY well for me is to have an imaginary student that I'm teaching as I'm learning it myself. It forces me to repeat the things I've learned, but also put them in my own words. I can catch on to techniques much more quickly when I'm doing that.
I’ve mentored people before, and I learned more during that process than during any conferences or seminars.
For years, I bounce things off my cat. She’s learned a lot.
it's rubber duck programming, just applied to other disciplines.
I do this too, not even intentionally, but when something finally clicks I find myself explaining it to myself in my head, in my own words
I think there's a name for this, but I'm tired and will rely on Cunningham's whatever.
You should've made a flash card and read it out loud after highlighting it
That last paragraph makes this post seem kind of hypocritical doesn't it? Lol
Maybe? Sorry, I undid my edit, and I probably shouldn’t have. After rereading it, I didn’t think it added anything – are you referring to the personal anecdote from that temp edit, or my original comment?
No need to apologize, I'm only teasing 😛 This is the part I was referring to: "I think there’s a name for this, but I’m tired and will rely on Cunningham’s whatever."
I just thought it was kind of funny you were saying to put more effort into doing things, so to speak, but abruptly ended your post because you were tired.
Don't just read the paper, smell & lick it too :)))
But in all seriousness, I'll give it a try. It makes sense to activate more of your brain.
You could chew different flavored sweets too
In all seriousness, this could actually help. Smell and taste are known to be strong memory triggers.
I wonder if having a certain flavoured/scented lozenge whilst studying a topic (one you don’t normally use), and then using it during a test, would maybe help with recall?
I’ve never heard of a study in this, but it could be interesting to see if it helps at all?
No no, disengage entirely. Let chat bots do everything for you. Don't do research, don't try to understand, just copy and paste. Best put your brain in a jar and set it on the nightstand. /s obviously.
What if we used 100% of the brain?
Scarlett Johansson did that once and all that happens is you become a USB hard drive.
But when you become a living USB stick, you get to talk to dolphins.
If only we used 100% of our hearts
Sources?
Kinda my own arse?
I raised a full-blown adult, and this is how we did things. He did very well, and played a lot of video games.
I don’t know, but this feels like something so obvious I’d think studies likely show this. If not, I’ll retract. But I’ve seen it work a lot in a bunch of different environments. That’s why I think there should be a name for this. It’s practically a given, but a lot of people don’t seem to know. So YSK.
Kinda my own arse?
Correct.
this feels like something so obvious I’d think studies likely show this
Surprisingly unscientific attitude from a scifi author.
I never claimed anything else. Also, the fi in my scifi is there on purpose. :)
I raised a full-blown adult
You don't look old enough!
Thanks. :)
I have Ehlers Danlos, which is mostly a curse, but has the benefit of looking really young.
Yup. I horrible memory, but when I do something that engages more senses when i need to remember something, it's more likely to stick.
I do this for certification exams. Some of the ones I take are open book tests, so I create an index as I read along with the books. By the time I’m done, I basically compiled multiple books into a <30 page document and at the same time internalized what I’ve read. By the time I take the exam, I barely need to open any of the books and just use my index as reference.
Yeah, that’s a good strategy.
Back in the day, open book was really rare, so being able to do closed book exams was crucial.
Your method means it doesn’t matter if it’s closed or open, and you can go above and beyond easily with open book. That’s really cool and what I’d want, too.
One of my best highschool teachers taught us this ~25 years ago, basing it on some research his academic wife had done.
The way i heard it was everyone remembers better if they see, hear and speak the information. The whole "i'm a visual learner" thing has no evidence behind it.
Everyone remembers more the more senses they engage.
Yes exactly. I did this with my son when he was young (90s).
This is why I think there’s a name for this – it seems obvious enough for sociologists and psychologists to have looked into it.
Great advice. I would suggest as you're reading through whatever material you're trying to understand, there are parts that you don't quite "get it". Try to formulate answerable, isolated questions that would help you "get it" or solidify your understanding and try to answer them by re-reading, finding the relevant parts or doing a bit independent research. In general, creating questions to strengthen your understanding is a great way to make learning more like a game and it prevents your mind from feeling frustrated as it wants to understand everything all at once. You just need to answer that one question and for the most part your brain will handle the rest when it comes down to the bigger picture.
Obviously, you need to strike a balance here.
If you’re assigned something to read, read it aloud to yourself.
This will make me not remember it all when I would have remembered everything just reading
How do I do this when learning piano?
Play the piano. Don't just read the music. If youre already playing and reading music, sing. If you're already singing, squeeze your buttocks in time to the music.
Kegels. You can master rhythm, be better at sex, and prevent incontinence as you age. Best of all worlds.
Clap some cheeks to the music. Got it
Completely unrelated answer, but my way of reading better is writing and drawing on the score, specially the parts that are harder to remember or play.
I see many people reading scores from tablets and that won't work for me.
Slightly related to the topic, do an improv or make up harmony for what you're playing. Because that's stimulating your creative brain, which doesn't get a big work out if you're just playing what's written. Btw in baroque times it was standard to play harpsichord and have a proper time for improv/solo. Classical and romantic music killed that trend.
More related to the topic, shake/headbang or the closest thing to moving/dancing you can do while playing. It's going to be challenging next time you play flight of the bumblebee.
This is great advice, thanks!
Read sheet music while playing (every time, even if you've memorized it), sing or hum the melody aloud, tap the rhythm out with your non-sostenuto foot.