Local Professor Has Tips for Improved Learning Habits
Students go back to school with the latest calculators and the hottest styles but they don't get armed with the latest research into how best to learn.
Scientists have studied how the brain works and KYW's Pat Loeb reports they can offer students good advice for making the most of the school year.
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Sleep -- it's not just so your rested and ready to learn. Drexel psychology professor John Kounios (photo) explains your memory is very busy when you sleep -- moving information from your short term to your long-term memory.
He says it's important to sleep well before you learn something new, so your short term memory has plenty of room to take in. But it's critical after you learn something new:
"If you don't sleep enough that night, a lot of your studying that day is wasted. You can't make it up in sleep the next night so you've spent a lot of time studying and not gotten a lot out of it."
Kounios says it's also better to study in more, shorter blocks of time than one long session. And the best way to learn from a book is not to study it over and over but to read it once and test yourself on it until you're getting the answers right.
