Learning habits, learning styles: The most recent findings

For an excel­lent review of the most recent find­ings on learn­ing habits, check out The New York Times recent arti­cle: For­get What You Know About Good Study Habits. Tons of unex­pect­ed and fas­ci­nat­ing results!

The find­ings can help any­one, from a fourth grad­er doing long divi­sion to a retiree tak­ing on a new lan­guage. But they direct­ly con­tra­dict much of the com­mon wis­dom about good study habits, and they have not caught on. For instance, instead of stick­ing to one study loca­tion, sim­ply alter­nat­ing the room where a per­son stud­ies improves retention.

Take the notion that chil­dren have spe­cif­ic learn­ing styles, that some are “visu­al learn­ers” and oth­ers are audi­to­ry; some are “left-brain” stu­dents, oth­ers “right-brain.” In a recent review of the rel­e­vant research, pub­lished in the jour­nal Psy­cho­log­i­cal Sci­ence in the Pub­lic Inter­est, a team of psy­chol­o­gists found almost zero sup­port for such ideas.

Com­ment: The way we learn mat­ters for two rea­sons: a) we need to effi­cient­ly retain some infor­ma­tion for the var­i­ous tasks we have to per­form every day, but also b) learn­ing induces neu­ro­plas­tic changes in the brain, which  in turn may increase our brain reserve and brain health (see our pri­or arti­cle on Brain Plas­tic­ity: How learn­ing changes your brain).

1 Comment

  1. ajish kumar on September 21, 2010 at 12:08

    Yes, it is true. One needs to adopt appro­pri­ate learn­ing and try to change to get the max­i­mum effect of brain.



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SHARPBRAINS is an independent think-tank and consulting firm providing services at the frontier of applied neuroscience, health, leadership and innovation.
SHARPBRAINS es un think-tank y consultoría independiente proporcionando servicios para la neurociencia aplicada, salud, liderazgo e innovación.

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