Many students have questions about the best methods for reviewing, memorizing, and learning. Is just rereading an effective method for revising? How to avoid cramming? How to memorize for the long term? How to learn while having fun? How can we find ways to tell the brain that the information we read, write, consult, and learn is important, that it has value, that it is of long-term interest… and that it therefore deserves to be retained?
1. Tell someone else about the information
One way to signal important information to the brain is to talk about it, to play the teacher yourself. It can also consist of asking (oneself) questions about the subject to delve deeper into it. It is possible to learn to ask (oneself) questions to learn. We learn all the better when we know how to answer questions especially when we know how to invent our questions.
2. Flashcards
Flash cards are cards with two related pieces of information on the front and back, often the question and the answer (e.g., 7×9 on the front and 63 on the back, a picture and its translation into a foreign language). Making flashcards yourself to test yourself reinforces the learning process.
3. Creating mental images and stories
Associating a word or phrase with an image helps you remember it better. The ideal is even to invent a story from a list of words to memorize. In her book Objectif Mémoire, Hélène Weber tells a story to remember the names of the planets in order:
A beautiful SUN has a small MERCURY thermometer next to it. The sun is so hot that the thermometer bursts and the little balls of liquid metal roll in front of you.
Curious and amused, a little young woman whom you imagine to be beautiful, voluptuous, and giving off a sweet perfume comes towards you. And what is the name of this pretty goddess? VENUS!
Venus plays and has fun with the mercury balls. She takes shape in front of you and finally throws one of the mercury balls far away which lands with a resounding “boom” in the middle of your garden: on EARTH.
But the ball is light and bounces from your garden into your neighbor’s. Your neighbor is short, angry, and spiteful. And who is the god of war? MARS.
Mars is ready to pounce on you to knock you down. But he is stopped in his tracks by a giant so big and powerful that he makes the whole earth tremble around you. You look up at this giant who is also your best friend: a lock of his hair slides down his forehead, forming the “J” of JUPITER: the king of the gods.
On Jupiter’s t-shirt, you can see the word SUN, which forms the beginning of the names of the next three planets: SATURN, URANUS, and NEPTUNE.
Jupiter laughs heartily. Walt Disney’s little dog, PLUTO(N), runs to his feet.
Mathieu Protin has created a method to remember multiplication tables based on imagination and humorous little stories. I invite you to read this article to understand the principle: Multimalin: 56 cards to memorize multiplication tables for a long time
.4. Illustrate with concrete examples, pictograms, or diagrams
Information that is understood is more easily memorized since it can be explained in one’s own words. But to understand information, one must be able to illustrate it, whether with example sentences, pictograms, or diagrams.
Example sentences
The 5th-grade girl I was helping had to memorize a list of 5 words by heart, including “cacique”. She was able to recite the definition to me more or less by heart, but I could tell she didn’t understand its meaning. So I asked her for an example of how to use this word and after a long moment of hesitation, she answered: “expired ham is caduque.” So I went over the definition with her, gave her an example I was thinking of (the Minitel) without forcing her to find another one, and she finally said: “But actually, caduque means out of fashion.” Bingo, it clicked!
Illustrative pictograms
There is a village near my home that has a zoo known for its emblem: a gorilla that was raised almost as a child by the owners. I met a person who lived in that village and, to remind myself of where she lived, I drew her next to her written name… and every time I think of that person, I imagine a little gorilla in my head.
A picture is worth a thousand words.
Still with my 5th grade student, we were working on the concept of global warming. However, I noticed that she was having trouble learning the definition of greenhouse gases. So I asked her about the course and what the teacher had said about it. Answer: “Nothing, she just told us to copy the definition from the book.” To start from her mental representations, I asked her to express in a diagram what greenhouse gases were for her. From this diagram (which nevertheless represented a nuclear power plant as the only source of global warming…), we went through the major floods in New York and New Orleans, the Fukushima tsunami, the possible disappearance of the Seychelles, and electric cars before arriving at a correct diagram.
The sketch note
I invite you to read this article to understand how to integrate pictograms and diagrams when taking notes in class or when memorizing lessons: 7 steps to learn sketchnoting (visual note-taking)
Teachers can introduce Sketchnote in the classroom as a tool for presenting a lesson and/or as a note-taking tool for students.
The lap book
The lap book is one method for revising effectively and actively. It is a decorated and personalized booklet that includes elements related to a studied concept in the form of drawings, tables, writings, images, collages, and graphics of all kinds.
The goal is to summarize and organize information on a subject with mobile means: flaps, pockets, wheels, pull tabs, flaps, envelopes, post-its, etc. Each shape and each mobile corresponds to a concept.
Lapbooks are colored for a more pleasant rendering to consult and a better organization of the elements.
5. Transform the lesson into a mind map
Rereading a lesson does not mean “just” rereading it but also transforming it in a personal way to integrate and understand it. Passing a lesson in the form of a mind map is an effective way of rereading because it requires selecting the important information, thinking about the arrangement of the branches of the mind map, synthesizing the information in the form of keywords, and thinking about illustrative pictograms.
6. The watering technique to increase the effectiveness of revision methods
What is more effective for watering a lawn? Watering it for 90 minutes once a week or three times for 30 minutes? The same goes for learning: it is better to favor short, spaced sessions than long, intensive sessions. The brain’s energy is then so mobilized to stay focused that there is no longer enough energy left for the memorization process.
7. Wait two or three days before returning to the information.
Among the methods for revising, it is more effective to return to a lesson several days after the first mention in class. We could therefore do without this famous assertion: “Reread your lessons that same evening!” and wait two or three days.
8. Associate words to be learned by heart with noises, places, or movements
Contextual clues can help with memorization. Spatialization (or loci technique) uses the memory of places and allows you to learn with your body and your head:
- the information is deposited somewhere spatially,
- we mentally associate the word with the place,
- each piece of information (or each verse of a poem for example) is placed in a room of the house or attached to an object: the child sets himself in motion to place the information,
- with each recitation or memorization, the learner goes through the path in order, mentally reviewing the word associated with each place and saying it out loud,
- At the time of restitution, the child can mentally visualize the room or object and its movements.
9. Ideal intervals for revision according to the time remaining before the assessment
In a 2008 study of 1,300 students at the University of California, scientists determined the optimal intervals for learning information. If the test is a week away, it’s best to schedule two work sessions spaced one or two days apart. For example, for a test on Friday, studying on Monday and reviewing on Thursday would be best.
10. The role of sleep in revision methods
The brain processes and structures information during the night. Neuroscientists emphasize the role played by sleep in this phase of repetition and consolidation. They affirm that after a period of learning, a period of sleep, even short, improves
- memory
- generalization
- the discovery of regularities
Improving sleep can be a very effective intervention to address learning problems, especially if a plan for the future is being formulated. Thus, it is important, before starting work, to evoke the situation in which the information evoked and memorized will have to be reproduced (for example, by imagining reciting a poem in front of the class before beginning to learn it and then, once the memorization work is done, “acting out” the scene by reciting the poem as if it were in front of the class).