It is a joy and delight to be a teacher, but also a serious responsibility. I feel this deeply when I labor in prayer and wrestle over how to choose materials, utilize class time, and design assignments in order to create an experience I hope is profound, relevant, enjoyable, and effective. Yet learning is a two-way street, and students play an essential role as well. Certainly, students know that they should read the textbook, complete assignments, and participate in class. But what about things that aren’t written in the syllabus? Are there other significant practices that enhance learning? In this short article, I’ll mention three.
First, I encourage college students not to wait until the last minute to complete their work. This isn’t just about avoiding procrastination or running out of time. Learning requires connecting new ideas with old ones, linking new information into already established neuronal networks in our brains. To do this well, we need time to roll ideas around and ask good questions.
Two especially valuable kinds of learning are comparison and perspective questions. Comparison involves looking for similarities and differences between topics. When psychology students are learning about neurotransmitters, for example, it’s worth their time to compare neurotransmitters with hormones, noting similarities and differences in location, mechanism, and function. This leads to greater understanding.
Our instincts about how to review and study information are often wrong.
Perspective questions ask us to consider a topic from different angles. If education students are learning a new teaching method, they can ask if any biblical principles apply, how a school child would react, and how it rates from a budgetary perspective.
Certainly, we try to discuss good questions in class, but time spent alone in leisurely contemplation is invaluable. Not only does it help integrate the new, fragile information into larger, more stable networks, but it also helps students to truly sort out, know, and believe the truths that teachers are hoping to get across. Knowledge gained through internal wrestling is more stable knowledge than information that is merely accepted and regurgitated at a surface level.
Another tip for college students is about how to “study” effectively. Our instincts about how to review and study information are often wrong. Cognitive scientists have found that the popular study methods of re-reading material and looking over one’s notes don’t actually lead to enhanced long-term remembering. Instead, learners should test themselves, asking themselves to recall and recount information, only looking back at notes when memory fails. Research shows that self-quizzing (or friends quizzing each other) is one of the most successful study methods. Students can set themselves up for this by taking their notes or making their textbook annotations in the form of questions and answers. Creating flashcards while reading can be more time-efficient than reading first and making up review questions later. It’s also good to space out our self-testing sessions, starting with every couple of days after encountering new material and then gradually increasing the intervals. Self-testing at spaced intervals is one of the best research-backed ways to lock information into long-term memory.
My final tip is one of the most enjoyable yet neglected: get good sleep. It’s obvious that we need sleep in order to feel alert and focused, but the sleep we get after learning is especially crucial. Neuroscientists now understand that what we learn in the day is only lightly and temporarily recorded until it is encoded into stronger neuronal pathways while we sleep. A bad night of sleep blocks optimal memory consolidation, leaving learning more fragile. The importance of sleep cannot be overstated. I am not, however, under the delusion that college students will always go to bed at a decent hour. And many of us often struggle to get good sleep for reasons beyond our control. One helpful practice, though, is building short rest periods into our day. Nothing can replace sleep, but a 10-minute nap, a few minutes of quiet solitude, a walk outdoors—all these can help mitigate some of the detrimental effects that bad sleep has on cognition. Research shows that the brain replays and compresses recent learning into longer-term memory during brain breaks, even while we are awake. One of my students told me he has the habit of taking a short walk in between studying for his different subjects, and this kind of practice is a good example for all of us, regardless of age or learning style.
Completing work early, testing ourselves, and getting good rest are not merely hallmarks of an honorable or virtuous student; they are fundamental strategies for learning more, understanding more, and remembering more.
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