{"id":9104,"date":"2010-09-07T12:27:50","date_gmt":"2010-09-07T16:27:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/danielschristian.com\/learning-ecosystems\/?p=9104"},"modified":"2010-09-07T12:30:05","modified_gmt":"2010-09-07T16:30:05","slug":"forget-what-you-know-about-good-study-habits","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/danielschristian.com\/learning-ecosystems\/2010\/09\/07\/forget-what-you-know-about-good-study-habits\/","title":{"rendered":"Forget what you know about good study habits"},"content":{"rendered":"

Forget what you know about good study habits <\/strong><\/a>— from the NY Times by Benedict Carey<\/p>\n

Take the notion that children have specific learning styles, that some are \u201cvisual learners\u201d and others are auditory; some are \u201cleft-brain\u201d students, others \u201cright-brain.\u201d In a recent review of the relevant research, published in the journal Psychological Science in the Public Interest, a team of psychologists found almost zero support for such ideas. \u201cThe contrast between the enormous popularity of the learning-styles approach within education and the lack of credible evidence for its utility is, in our opinion, striking and disturbing,\u201d the researchers concluded.<\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

Cognitive scientists do not deny that honest-to-goodness cramming can lead to a better grade on a given exam. But hurriedly jam-packing a brain is akin to speed-packing a cheap suitcase, as most students quickly learn \u2014 it holds its new load for a while, then most everything falls out.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith many students, it\u2019s not like they can\u2019t remember the material\u201d when they move to a more advanced class, said Henry L. Roediger III, a psychologist at Washington University in St. Louis. \u201cIt\u2019s like they\u2019ve never seen it before.\u201d<\/p>\n

When the neural suitcase is packed carefully and gradually, it holds its contents for far, far longer. An hour of study tonight, an hour on the weekend, another session a week from now: such so-called spacing improves later recall, without requiring students to put in more overall study effort or pay more attention, dozens of studies have found.<\/p>\n

No one knows for sure why. It may be that the brain, when it revisits material at a later time, has to relearn some of what it has absorbed before adding new stuff \u2014 and that that process is itself self-reinforcing.<\/p>\n

From DSC:<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Re: research on learning styles…I would really like to know if these students were interviewed\/reviewed in terms of which methods they preferred <\/em>to learn by…which methods made learning more interestin<\/em>g…more fun..more efficient. <\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

I’ll bet you “good students” can learn in spite of a variety of obstacles, issues, and\/or teaching methods…they’ll learn what they need to in order to get the grade.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/strong><\/p>\n