Found this on AE quite awhile ago.
Source:
http://www.accesseducation.com.au/News.aspx
Memory Enhancing Strategies and good study habits 1) In order for information to be effectively encoded and stored in your memory you need to attend to it. Listen carefully in class, sitting up the front so you are an involved and active learner. Passively reading texts late in the night while comfortably lying on your bed with the heater on high and the window closed is unlikely to encourage full attention to the subject matter.
2) Ask questions about the material and make notes in class. Try to continually find connections with the memories already stored in your LTM. Comments such as ‘Is that like..?” demonstrate you are doing this.
3) Research has shown that if you don’t recall, review or work with what you’ve learned on a given day within 24 hours, you will forget 50-80% of it.
4) Deliberately arrange or adapt information so that it’s structured and yet stands out as odd, distinct, different or more interesting-so that it grabs your attention. Consider creating mind maps and posters to present the information.
5) Research has found that the brain processes only one sound at a time through its ‘gate’. This is called the ‘limited capacity model’ of attention (Broadbent, 1957). Work in a quiet environment without interruptions or interferences such as the TV or music as the brain cannot work best when it has divided attention.
6) Increase the capacity of STM by using the method of ‘chunking’. Instead of trying to remember a long list of single items, group the information into categories or headings. We do this automatically when trying to recall a mobile phone number or the numbers on a credit card. Grouping facts into logical categories, such as the circulatory and respiratory systems is an ordered and logical way of tackling information.
7) When recalling information, we often remember the items at the beginning and end of a list more than those in the middle. This is known as the ‘serial position effect’. Therefore, when writing out lists of terms etc. change the order each time you write them. Also change the order of subjects or topics when you are studying for exams so a particular subject is not always in the middle of your study session.
In order for information to be retained in STM to be moved to LTM we need to repeat and rehearse it (maintenance rehearsal). We use repetition to learn the alphabet, times tables, phone numbers, passwords, poetry, quotes, maths formulae, and the lines of a part in a play.
Without repetition, most people can only recall about 20% of selected material after a 24 hour period. By simply reviewing material once after class to clarify and confirm what you have heard, and once again later that day or evening, that figure improves significantly.
However, frequent rehearsal of the facts is ideal. You may choose to write them over and over (to utilise visual memory), say them aloud (auditory memory) or walk around the room as you say them (kinesthetic memory).
9) Elaborative rehearsal is much more effective than repetition. This is where we add meaning to the new information to put it into context and link it to memories already stored in our LTM.
Think of examples to further explain concepts so you can process the information at a deeper level. If the examples have personal relevance then you are more likely to understand and therefore remember the information.
10) Study for about 45 minutes then take a short 5-10 minute break. Your memory needs about 30 minutes to consolidate or ‘set’ in LTM so study new material for half an hour then review it for 15 minutes. This process of review or relearning is the most effective way to learn.
11) If possible, go to sleep straight after your study session. This minimises interference and further consolidates the information you are studying.
12) Interference of information can occur when we study two similar subjects consecutively. Therefore don’t study two English texts back to back as you may get characters etc. confused. Choose two totally different subjects for your study session.
13) Learn in the mood you expect to be for the exam. The state of mind a person is in when learning occurs, is important in the recall of that learned information.
For example, if you cannot eat, drink coffee or listen to music in the exam situation, you should not eat, drink coffee or listen to music while trying to learn the material. When you study, try to visualise the exam situation and create the same atmosphere when studying. You might like to study using the same stationary you will be using in the exam. This is called state-dependent retrieval.
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14)Use
MNEMONICS to aid the retrieval of memories.
have been used over the centuries. They work by giving meaning to the new information to be learnt by associating it with existing memories i.e. elaborative rehearsal. Here are some mnemonics you may wish to try:
Narrative chaining Is a useful way to remember information such as a list of words. A story is created around the words to be remembered, linking the words in a specific order. For example if you needed to remember the following list;
cat, baby, chair, book, fire, clock, cupboard, bed
you might create a story like this.
There was a cat and a baby sitting on a chair reading a book in front of the fire. The clock on the cupboard said time for bed.
Method of loci This is an ancient memory aid which involves choosing a location you know extremely well, such as your home. You then take a mental walk through the location to choose various resting points along the way, for example the stove and the stereo. You then associate a segment of information to be remembered with a resting point. To recall the information, you take a mental walk through the various locations where each location or resting point acts as a retrieval cue.
Peg word method Also uses imagery or visualisation to recall information. Information to be remembered is hung on mental ‘pegs’. They are;
One is a bun
Two is a shoe
Three is a tree
Four is a door
Five is a hive
Six is sticks
Seven is heaven
Eight is a gate
Nine is a line
Ten is a henYou then associate the items to be remembered with the pegs. For example, if you needed to remember the words cat, cup and fish you might imagine a cat eating a bun, a shoe sitting in a cup and a fish hanging from a branch of a tree.
Acrostics Are phrases, rhymes or poems in which the first letter of each word is a cue to retrieve another word which begins with the same letter. For example, an acrostic to remember the planets in their correct order is My Very Evil Mother Just Sliced Up
Nine People Niggersaurus (Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune,
Pluto).
Acronyms - Forming an acronym is a good strategy to use to remember information in any order that can be remembered. An acronym is a word that is formed from the first letter of each fact to be remembered. It can be a real word or a nonsense word you are able to pronounce. For example, ANZAC for Australian and New Zealand Army Corp.
v Here is how to form an acronym.
§ Write the facts you need to remember.
§ Underline the first letter of each fact. If there is more than on word in a fact, underline the first letter of only the first word in the fact.
§ Arrange the underlined letters to form an acronym that is a real word or a nonsense word you can pronounce.
Rhymes Are a verbal mnemonic that helps us remember information. You probably use rhymes all the time without realising. At the end of a month, many people can be heard humming the rhyme ‘thirty days hath September, April, June and November…’ in order to work out how many days in that month. It would be very difficult to remember the length of each month without such a rhyme. Rhymes are old and useful tricks to remember information more effectively.
*Edited acrostic.
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