EPALE - Electronic Platform for Adult Learning in Europe

Study smarter, not harder, they say. As a student and when teaching your students, you might have heard people say (or told) that many times, but the bitter truth is that studying smarter is a difficult task, and it’s not something you can simply do – it requires planning, commitment, consistency, and meticulous organization. To study smarter and improve study skills, your students need to alter their mindset, change their daily habits, and make the most of online and face-to-face learning.

They also need to find your source of motivation and somehow stay passionate about their studies no matter what life throws your way. This is easier said than done, simply because life can throw us a curveball at any moment. But that shouldn’t deter them from pursuing the goal of becoming a better student.

After all, the better their study skills, the faster they’ll learn and the more time they’ll have for other activities. With that in mind, here are the five tips that will help their study smarter and maximize their time spent studying. 
Please feel free to share these tips with them.

Stop reading and start internalizing

There are many ways to consume learning material nowadays, but for the most part, we do it by either listening to a live or a recorded lecture, or by reading from a textbook or a set of notes. Whether you’re listening or reading, the thing to remember is that this doesn’t mean you’re actually learning. Why? Because your goal should be to internalize knowledge in order to truly understand what you have learned, and to do that, you have to do more than simply re-read a section in your textbook.

Remember, re-reading leads to quick forgetting. Reading should be a part of your pre-studying process – getting yourself acquainted with the material. For the actual study sessions, you want to:

• Create your own study guide by topic, difficulty, priority, etc.
• Become your own teacher by explaining to yourself what you have learned.
• Look for more examples to solidify the theory in your mind.
• Explain the material in depth by creating concept maps.
• Study by posing a question, looking at the evidence, and drawing conclusions.

Make a study plan for the difficult subjects

Studying can be hard no matter the field you’re in or the subjects you’re taking. Classes differ between technical and non-technical, and they can vary greatly in terms of the amount and the complexity of the material you need to go through. Regardless of what you’re currently studying, though, you need to make it as easy as possible to internalize knowledge by making a study plan for the most difficult subjects.

For example, if your dream is to build a career in science and technology, you will find yourself facing some pretty grueling classes and curriculums. When you’re studying difficult subjects, you need to space things out instead of trying to cram everything into one or two study sessions. Start studying well in advance, and don’t think about the exam, think about how much you can learn and enrich your academic life throughout the year. When you take that approach, acing a test will seem like a menial task.

Supplement your studying with reliable notes

Of course, in order to become the best student you can be and achieve your academic and career goals, you need to use the right study materials. Textbooks and recorded lectures are great, but a good student knows that efficient and effective studying comes from detailed and reliable study notes. Nowadays, you can use comprehensive study notes from online directories, to avoid making your own mistakes when noting stuff down.

This is a big trend in Australia’s education system nowadays, as students looking to get a Higher School Certificate, for example, will often use online HSC study notes to get the right information and detailed study materials that have been verified as accurate and reliable. No matter where you’re from, though, use this example to find good study notes from reputable online directories that will supplement your study sessions and help you internalize new information quickly. 

Use study tech to your advantage

Technology is revolutionizing modern education across the globe, and students should use tech to become lifelong learners but also make studying far more engaging, rewarding, and time-efficient. There are many online learning platforms out there right now that can help you solve various learning problems and overcome various obstacles through video tutorials, explainer guides and videos, live sessions, pre-recorded lectures, study notes and quizzes, and many more.

Be sure to use these digital learning aids to make the things you learn stick, but also to motivate yourself to learn more and expand your horizons. 

Don’t practice more, practice smarter

You’ve probably been hearing all your life that practice makes perfect, and there is some truth to that. However, practice without reflection and continuous improvement is nothing more than mindless repetition that may or may not deliver results. 

A much smarter way to practice is with a structured approach and a detailed plan. When you’re practicing and repeating what you have learned, you want to try to do it better, in less time, more coherently and consistently, and you want to give yourself new problems to solve that revolve around the same topic. 

Over to you

Improving your study skills is not just something you can achieve out of the blue. No, this takes time and commitment, so don’t get discouraged if, at first, you don’t succeed. Becoming a better student and learning more efficiently and effectively is a journey, and these tips will definitely help you achieve your academic goals and even become a passionate lifelong learner