What are some good learning strategies that have proven, in multiple studies, to be effective and promoting learning?
Two educational psychologists, Logan Fiorella and Richard Mayer, did a study of dozens of peer-reviewed scientific studies of learning, and compiled this list of eight strategies that have been proven to be effective.
- Learning by summarizing: writing a summary, in your own words, of what you think are the most important points from the material you’ve just read or heard.
- Learning by mapping: drawing a “concept map” (a particular kind of diagram) showing the relationships between/among key concepts from what you’ve just read or heard.
- Learning by drawing: drawing a picture (any picture) that helps you organize the infor mation you’ve just read or heard
- Learning by imagining: similar to learning by drawing, but here you just “imagine” the picture in your mind. (may be used when you don’t have drawing materials handy.)
- Learning by self-testing: taking a quiz about the material you’ve just read or heard; e ither a quiz devised by the instructor, of your own making, or from a fellow student.
- Learning by self-explaining: explaining the concepts to yourself out loud just have you’ve read or heard them.
- Learning by teaching: explaining the concepts to another student just have you’ve read or heard them.
- Learning by enacting: acting out the ideas you’ve just read or heard with some kind of movement, skit, or dialogue