Learning successfully

In auditory learning, you listen to the learning material – for example, from lectures or presentations – again with audio recordings. It helps to have a quiet workspace so that you won’t be disturbed.

Study tips:

• Read the texts to be studied to yourself out loud.
• Talk to yourself while studying. Ask yourself questions.
   

Verbal formulation and discussion of the study material are helpful in communicative learning. The study content is processed in exchange with others, when explaining, discussing, asking questions. Linguistic discussions stimulate thinking and help you to memorise facts.

Study tips:

• Form a study group.
• Conduct a question-answer game in pairs.
   

Reading and visualising the study material is central to visual learning. This is well absorbed if you record it for yourself in writing or pictorially in a suitable form, e.g. with pictures, graphs or tables.

Study tips:

• Structure the reading text with different colours.
• Work with mind maps.
• Use Post-it notes.
• Study using flashcards.
   

Mind mapping is a structuring and visualisation technique Since it corresponds to the organisation of our memory, it can provide excellent support for the individual learning process. It has different functions depending on the phase of study in which the mind mapping method is used:

• Structuring, ordering and reducing information.
• Making connections visible.
• Enriching and consolidating information.
• Retrieving and revising information.
• Shaping a manuscript for a presentation

In the case of complex content, it can be useful to first write a summary in the form of a flow text and then, in a second step, to create a mind map from it.

This is how you proceed when creating a learning mind map:

• Choose a sufficiently large sheet of paper.
• Write the topic in the middle.
• Record the most important learning content in key words by letting them emerge as branches from the main topic. Write on the branches.
• Now you can develop secondary branches under the respective headwords that are thematically subordinate to the first headwords.
• Also use different colours, symbols and pictures.
   

Flashcards can be used individually, depending on the subject matter and the needs of the learner. Flashcards are also suitable for repeating terms or definitions. The learning material is thus divided into small, clearly formulated learning units. Studying with flashcards is very effective from the point of view of memory psychology, so the effort of writing on flashcards pays off!

This is how you proceed when studying with flashcards:

• Write down a question about your learning material on the front of the card.
• Write the answer on the back of the card.

When studying, read the question, think about an answer, possibly formulate it aloud and then check the answer.

• If the answer is correct, the card goes into the second compartment of the card box.
• If the answer is wrong or incomplete, it stays in the first tray.
• Cards in the first tray should be repeated daily if possible, during the final revision.
• Cards in the second tray can be repeated every two to three days.
• Correctly answered questions from the second tray go into the third, wrong ones back into the first.
• The questions in the third tray are included as random samples in the studying process.
• Photos and pictures remain in the memory particularly well. Make use of this opportunity!
   

Kinaesthetic learning works when you are in motion or doing something with your hands, such as building models or conducting experiments. You may be able to memorise the learning material better when you are standing than when you are sitting.

Study tips:

• When you want to revise, go for a walk.
• Set up «learning paths» for yourself.

Learning paths are created by associating your learning material with specific places. For example, you can hang a poster. or a mind map related to a specific learning topic on each door and then change rooms and places as you study. In this way, you associate the learning content with the location and thus create two access routes to the stored information.
 

First of all, familiarise yourself with your learning material. What does the script or textbook look like? What is the overall impression it makes on you? The point is to get a general idea of the form, scope and content of your material and thus arouse your technical curiosity.

• Read headings.
• Look at the structure of the text (sections, chapters).
• Pay attention to language cues.
• Look at markers, pictures and graphics.
   

This learning phase is about making decisions and setting priorities.

What is the main message of the text? What is important for you to know? What information will you need to memorise?

• Read selectively (guided by questions).
• Underline, mark.
• Formulate and record key words.
• Write short summaries.
• Create diagrams, tables, mind maps.
• Add content to slides.
   

This learning phase is the decisive one. Now you have the possibility of linking your well-prepared and structured learning material in your memory in such a way that you can recall it when needed. Your stored specialist knowledge on the one hand and your everyday experiences on the other can help you to anchor the new information in your memory.

• Look for images and analogies that match the content.
• Formulate, discuss, explain, practise, look for examples.
• Link the content to your own experiences.
• Prepare memory aids (mnemonic devices).
   

In the last phase of the learning process, constant repetition of the learning material is called for. By linking and deepening your learning material in the previous phase, you are basically already in the middle of revision.

The amount of material can be reduced again during the final revision. Because you have already taught yourself a lot in the previous learning phases and anchored it in your memory using certain methods, all you need now is a keyword or a single question to be able to recall the stored knowledge.

• Formulate, present.
• Prepare questions and answers.
• Work with flashcards.
• Record knowledge on mind maps and add to it.
  
  

• Put what you have learned into your own words.
• Ask yourself (exam) questions.
• Explain the learning content to other people.

You can retain learning content better if you actively reproduce it and not just passively absorb it.
 

• What do I already know about the topic?
• How does the new content relate to my previous knowledge?
• What is the use of knowing it?
• Do I know examples or analogies to it from everyday life?

Such questions help to better understand the learning content and to link it to content I already know. This helps to anchor learning content in the memory.
 

• Divide the learning workload into manageable portions
• Study regularly and spread out over longer periods of time.
• Take breaks between learning units.

Regular learning spread over longer periods of time is more effective in the long run than rushed learning just before an exam.
 

• Use as many different forms of learning as possible, e.g. make notes, sketches or mind maps, solve tasks, explain contexts to yourself, form learning groups, use flashcards and much more.
• Use different situations for learning, e.g. alone, in learning groups with others or in class.

Don't always follow the same pattern because variety has a lasting positive effect on learning.
 

• Repeat the learning material regularly.
• Apply what you have learned, e.g. by solving tasks or transferring the learning content to examples from your everyday life.
• Use interaction with other people as a training ground.

Repetition is so important because one-time processing of learning content is usually not sufficient to anchor the material in the memory in the long term.