Forget those all-night cramming sessions because they’re actually working against your brain’s natural learning patterns. The spacing effect, discovered by German psychologist Hermann Ebbinghaus over a century ago, shows that we retain information better when we spread our learning sessions over time rather than cramming everything into one intense session.
When you review material at spaced intervals—say, today, then in three days, then a week later—you’re essentially strengthening the neural pathways each time you revisit the information.
Try this: Instead of studying a topic for four hours straight, break it into four one-hour sessions spread across different days. Research shows this can improve long-term retention by up to 200 percent.
Active Recall:
Reading your notes over and over is one of the least effective ways to study. Active recall is the practice of testing yourself on material without looking at your notes. When you force your brain to retrieve information from memory, you’re not just checking what you know; you’re actually strengthening the memory itself.
This explains why flashcards have stood the test of time, but you don’t need fancy apps or physical cards. Simply close your textbook and try to explain a concept out loud, or write down everything you remember about a topic before checking your accuracy. The struggle to remember is actually the point—it’s your brain building stronger neural connections.
The Feynman Technique:
Named after Nobel Prize-winning physicist Richard Feynman, this technique is beautifully simple: if you can’t explain something in simple terms, you don’t really understand it. The Feynman Technique involves explaining concepts as if you’re teaching them to someone with no background knowledge.
This approach forces you to identify gaps in your understanding and makes you organize information in a logical, memorable way. Plus, when you can explain something simply, you know you’ve truly grasped it rather than just memorized it.
Interleaving:
Your instinct might tell you to study one topic until you’ve mastered it, then move on to the next. But research suggests that interleaving, which is mixing different topics or types of problems within a single study session actually improves learning and retention.
This technique works because it forces your brain to continuously retrieve and apply different strategies, making your knowledge more flexible and robust. It’s like cross-training for your brain. Athletes don’t just practice one skill repeatedly; they mix different drills to improve overall performance.
The Testing Effect:
Pop quiz: What’s better for learning? Re-reading your notes or taking practice tests? If you guessed testing, you’re catching on to how counterintuitive effective learning can be. The testing effect shows that the act of retrieving information from memory during a test strengthens that memory far more than passive review.
This doesn’t mean you need formal exams. Self-testing through practice problems, quiz apps, or even making up your own questions works just as well. The key is making your brain work to recall information rather than simply recognizing it when you see it again.
Elaborative Interrogation:
This fancy term describes a simple but powerful technique: asking yourself “why” and “how” questions about the material you’re studying. Instead of just accepting facts, dig deeper into the reasoning behind them. Why does this process work this way? How does this concept connect to what I already know?
This approach helps you build rich, interconnected networks of knowledge rather than isolated facts floating around in your head. When information is connected to other knowledge and reasoning, it becomes much more memorable and useful.
