First things first… Have a Dedicated Study Space

Dedicating a space, any space, to be your “work space” boosts productivity and focus! This space can be
anywhere in your house – bedroom, living room, kitchen table, back porch – as long as you can sit down
and focus on your class material.

Next, Remove Items Unrelated to the topic you’re studying

Working in a cluttered space while studying can produce distractions. Let’s take those away! Tuck course
materials and other items in a safe space before beginning to study. These items may include:

Unrelated textbooks
Excess notebook paper and pens
Unused Technology (phone or tablet)

Remember, you can have access to your phone after you’ve mastered the subject matter on the test!

Don’t forget to… Have Relevant Materials Close By

This may take some planning ahead. Ask yourself, “What materials do I have that cover topics on the
test?” Gather those so they easily accessible for making note cards, diagrams, or practice questions.
Relevant materials often include:

Course textbooks
Lecture Notes
Power Points, if available

Now, for some Study Strategies!

Here are 6 Strategies supported by research for Effective Studying. You can use them all, but I would
suggest picking one or two that best fit YOUR style. Consider the following questions:

How does this strategy fit into in my daily routine?
How does this strategy fit with my course content?
- For example, if your course is more numbers based, you may benefit from Spaced
  Practice and using Concrete Examples.
- Or, if your test is more conceptually based, Interleaving and Elaboration may be
  helpful!

Spaced Practice

Spaced Practice means spacing out your studying over time. Repeated exposure to material helps us
encode it in our minds. Repeated exposure over longer periods of time (two weeks versus two days) makes this method even more effective! This means you can also study for shorter periods of time, such
as 30 minutes instead of 3 hours.

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Retrieval Practice

Retrieval Practice is a good beginning, middle, and end study strategy. This strategy requires you to
write, sketch, or otherwise express all the information you remember about a given topic before you
look over your notes. This highlights areas you are confident with and others which may need more
study.

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Elaboration

Elaboration includes explaining and describing ideas with many details. Generating as many details
related to a topic as you can is a good self-test of learning and memory as you study. Choose a method
that works for you! Maybe you draw a diagram or write a bullet point list. The “what” is elaboration. The
“how” is up to you!

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Interleaving

Interleaving is a great way to keep your studying from becoming too boring! Interleaving is switching
between topics in varying orders while you study. For example, first study topics A, B, C. Then, study
them B, C, A, then C, B, A, etc. Studying in this manner, whether with flash cards, practice problems, or
essay prompts, helps your brain make multiple connections between concepts.

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Concrete Examples

Do you feel like the course material is abstract or out of your reach? Using concrete examples is a great
way to build understanding and create unique experiences to help your memory come test day! Your
examples can be silly or serious, as long as they are accurate to the concept at hand.

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Dual Coding

Finally, Dual Coding is an excellent memory tool. Dual Coding using multiple formats of information
presentation to reinforce the memory encoding process. For example, reading about a historical event
in your textbook, then also watching a short YouTube video about the same event. By combining
language (the textbook) and visual (YouTube) your brain recognizes the information in multiple ways,
making it more accessible later.

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Sources

Getting The Most Out Of Your eLearning Course: 10 Study Tips For Online Learners

The Learning Scientists