How to Study For Long-Term Memory

There’s a big test this week and you stayed up all night last night cramming all the information that you need to remember to ace the test.

Now it’s a week later and you’re wondering what happened to all those facts, figures, and dates that you spent so much energy studying? You did great on the test, but now that some time has passed you barely remember what class you were studying for.

All those eleventh hour study-a-thons and the eventual and inevitable forgetting should be giving credence to what you suspected all along—that when it comes to studying and long-term recall, cramming doesn’t work.

Developing top-notch study skills is one way of combating the so-called forgetting curve. Skills such as starting early, paraphrasing, and active learning can help you avoid a last minute cram-a-thons and hopefully help you remember what you’ve studied for longer than one week.

Planning, organizing, time management, taking notes—Man, studying is a lot of work! Wouldn’t it be great if a computer could tell you when to study so that you never forgot? According to Wired Magazine such a program exists.

The program was developed in response to decades of research into memory and optimal learning. What researchers found was that there is an ideal moment to review material that you have learned so that you don’t forget it. It’s called the spacing effect and it’s the best-known way to remember what you have learnt so that you never forget.

You don’t need a computer to master this skill (although a computer program can help). The trick is to be able to recognize the moment when you are about to forget something and review at that moment so that you don’t spend too long studying something that you might only forget later. If you wait too long to review, then you’ve forgotten the material. Too soon and there’s no point.

Practice the spacing effect and improve your study skills. Here’s how:

• Look up a word that you’ve never heard of
• Write down the word and the definition on a piece of paper
• Wait a day or so and try to see if you can remember
• If yes, choose another word and wait longer
• If no, choose another word and shorten the length of time
• Keep track of how much time passes before you begin to forget

The theory is that if you study at the moment that you are about to forget, you will remember better and for longer periods of time.

You just found out that your child has big project… and it’s due tomorrow!

Before you start yelling about procrastination and bad work ethics take a minute to look at the reasons why kids procrastinate in the first place.

Why do students put off a big project until the last minute? It’s not because they don’t want to do the work, or because they aren’t performing in school. Procrastination is nothing more than not understanding the steps involved in a project… it exists simply because kids don’t know where to start and because put more value on what is happening today than what will happen tomorrow.

Kids often procrastinate when it comes to homework because they don’t see how the project is relevant or important to them. When you boil it down, procrastination is a motivation, confidence, and impulsiveness issue.

When it comes to projects and assignments, kids need to understand two things in order to be motivated to get the job done:

1. Kids need to understand how to do the project. To do this they need to use equal parts of project management and time management skills. Big projects can be overwhelming at the outset. Children need to break the project down into manageable parts such as research, writing and editing—so that they can follow step by step until the project is done in a reasonable time frame.
2. Kids need to understand why the project is meaningful to them. Kids look for instant gratification—it’s their nature. Long-term results like getting into a good college are essentially meaningless to kids. Finding ways to make a project meaningful and relevant for them gives them motivation to get the job done today!

Helping students develop motivation for their work and a better understanding of the steps involved are the keys to helping students complete homework on time, finish projects well ahead of the due date, and put an end to procrastination for good.

Has homework reached critical mass in Toronto?

Families across the greater Toronto Area will be on the edge of their seats in the upcoming weeks as they wait to hear whether or not Toronto District School Board trustees will make the groundbreaking decision to ban or restrict homework.

The fact that homework could be on the legislative chopping block at all is not that much of a surprise. Homework has been a thorn in the collective sides of parents for some time now as the sheer amount of homework that children face each night has been wrecking havoc in otherwise happy households.

Kids are stressed by the volume of homework they face every night, and parents aren’t too happy about it either.

Homework amounts seem to increase in direct relation to teacher cutbacks and classroom sizes. School boards are expected to do more with fewer resources and classroom sizes are rapidly expanding giving teachers less time to teach materials during class, which means that in order to meet grade standards, more and more homework is assigned to the student. Unable to teach the curriculum in class, teachers send it home as homework. Now legislators want to eliminate homework entirely.

Something’s gotta give.

No single set amount of time for homework will work either because kids still need some measure of individualized attention. They still need to learn how to prioritize tasks, how to be organized, and how to make sense of the work that they’ve been assigned.

How do you feel about the potential homework ban?