HOW TO LEARN A SUBJECT OR LESSON

  • Quick reading of the subject to see what it is about.
  • Slow reading, outlining key ideas (un-linking the essential parts from the extra parts).
  • Diagram or summary of the most important ideas, relating them to each other, forming conceptual networks and determining their causes, consequences and conclusions.
  • Content learning (diagrams or summary), whether it is by reading them several times, saying them aloud as if they were being explained to someone else, reviewing them in a different order or using extravagant images.

Mnemonic rules.

 

These resources can be really useful to help you remember, and they can be interesting when:

 

– You can’t establish logical relationships, for example: lists of words, numbers, dates, etc.

 

– In high-anxiety situations, if you get too nervous and feel blocked.

 

– If you’re short of time (but this last thing shouldn’t happen if you do a good planning)

 

► Examples.

 

  1. Acrostics: they consist on constructing words from initial letters or syllables in a list of words you want to learn. You can also use the first syllable in every word of the list.

 

Ex.: learn this list of names: Bartolomé Díaz, Vasco de Gama, Colón, Ponce de León, Magallanes, Elcano.

You could remember it with the following acrostic: BARVASCOPONMAEL.

 

  1. Comic strips: it consists on creating a comic strip with the information to memorize.

 

  1. 3. Rhyme, verses: it consists on looking for a rhyme for the information you have to remember, because this will make it easier.