http://www.spring.org.uk/2016/03/the-very-best-learning-method-is-not-taught-to-students-or-teachers.php
The one learning technique which works best is the one that students use the least.
So-called ‘distributed practice’ means breaking up learning into short sessions.
People learn better when they learn in these short sessions spread over a long period of time.
The reverse — cramming in a short space of time — doesn’t work that well.
Despite this, distributed practice is very infrequently used by students and may not be highlighted as a top strategy to them by teachers.
Instead, students tend to use highly inefficient methods such as highlighting, summarising, underlining and re-reading.
One technique that is effective — which students do sometimes use — is testing.
“I was shocked that some strategies that students use a lot — such as rereading and highlighting — seem to provide minimal benefits to their learning and performance.Professor Dunlosky continued:
By just replacing rereading with delayed retrieval practice, students would benefit.”
“These strategies are largely overlooked in the educational psychology textbooks that beginning teachers read, so they don’t get a good introduction to them or how to use them while teaching.”The frightening thing is that we have known about the power of distributed practice for over a hundred years, and yet people continue to study by cramming.
The study was published in the journal Psychological Science in the Public Interest (Dunlosky et al., 2013).
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