Learning is the key to growth and development. From acquiring new language skills to picking up coding, being able to drive or embracing new thoughts, ideas and programmes that could help advance a career, having the capacity to learn quickly is essential. If you don’t feel like you’re a particularly effective learner right now these tips could help to improve the speed at which you’re able to do this.
Time your learning sessions.
We all learn differently but the one thing we have in common is the length of time that tends to be effective for learning. A 30-minute burst is often too short to really get to grips with a subject but anything after 50 minutes and our brains tend to switch off.
Take on a teaching role.
Research has found that we engage with subject matter in a different way when we’re preparing to teach it than if we’re just learning to pass a test. If you have to teach content to someone else then you’re likely to engage with it much more fully, create your own cohesive structure for it and be quick to identify the key points.<
Use a pen and paper
If you’re taking notes then it can be tempting to do it with a phone or laptop or even just to record the session. However, a study by researchers at Princeton University and UCLA identified that taking notes by hand encouraged more active listening and meant more engagement with the topic. Devices not only mean that you can switch off but also provide more potential for distraction, such as emails or games.
Space out your learning – and repeat it.
Rather than learning for 120 minutes once a week, schedule your learning for three sessions of 40 minutes. It’s also been found to be beneficial to go back over what you’ve learned so that it really embeds in your brain. Review the information one or two days after studying it, as repeating information like this sends a strong signal to the brain that this is information that should be retained.
Use different techniques in your learning
For example, if your goal is to learn a new motor skill then practising that skill in different ways can give you an advantage when it comes to learning it more quickly. Studies have found that those who used an original learning technique followed by a modified learning technique picked skills up faster than those who just stuck with the same technique throughout.
Get enough rest.
We need to be in good physical condition to be able to learn effectively, especially when it comes to rest and sleep. In fact, one study established that slotting in sleep in between learning sessions (e.g. learning one morning, sleeping that night and then continuing learning the next day) created a twofold advantage in terms of relearning and long term retention.
Being able to learn quickly is a skill that can benefit all of us and these are some of the simplest ways to enhance your current approach.
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