EFFECTIVE LEARNING

You may like it or not, the fact is that in order to be successful, one have to study – at least up to some level. Even if you ultimately decide to avoid studies by joining some vocational/professional course, you are required to study at least some minimum. And yes (if your objective is to become a doctor, an engineer, professor, scientist or administrative officer or a manager, you have to study and study very hard.

It is easy to sit down and look at the book. Real study, however, is a concentrated attack on the book or other resources of information until (a) you understand it (b) you have learned as much the information as you wish to learn. Many students despite being intelligent, may find that the hardest part of the study is settling down to it - - i.e. the beginning. Very often a student decides to become serious about his studies from the next morning. And when the alarm rings he gently presses the button (of the alarm) and honestly re-decides to work in the evening and so on. And the process continues. If you happen to be one of such students – Don’t worry. Follow some tips to start studying and learning the subjects efficiently.

Work out a schedule for yourself. It acts as a challenge and as a guide. It is better to begin with a general schedule which is flexible. After following it for a few days, you will know which subjects require the greatest allotment of time and then you adjust your schedule accordingly. Try to spread out your time allocation in a rational way. With more and more experience you will be your best judge: you may then re-schedule your timing, depending on your weakness or strength in various subjects.

If your study is interrupted every ten minutes to attend to something for your comfort, you will loose concentration, break the threads of argument and waste a great deal of energy. Therefore before settling to the spell of hard study, adjust the window to you liking, get a drink if you are thirsty, keep a bottle of water with you, and attend to any other small physical matter that may otherwise distract you later. At the same time never try to be over comfortable: don't study on the beds using pillows, always use a table and chair and keep your back upright. Try to use natural day light rather than artificial.

Learning is an active effortful process. Just to read the words passively is ineffective. You must have interest in the matter and should get involved in the task actively. Retention of the subject matter will be better if reading is supplemented by self-recitation. If a psychological research it was found that when the students devoted all their time to reading, recall (memory) of the five biographies averaged 16% after four hours. However, when 3/5th to 4/5th of the learning time was devoted to self-recitation, recall after four hours was nearly twice as great. The advantage of recitation over passive reading is that the student is forced to react to the subject matter rather than merely trying to absorb it.