1. The study cycle

The study cycle strategy is about using a series of different techniques in a particular order, for a particular duration, to maximize learning. The cycle consists of five sequential steps to follow which are preview, attend, review, study, and assess… and then the cycle is repeated.

Preview before class: Students take a look at what they will be doing in class to give themselves a picture of what they are about to study. They can do it at home or come 10 minutes before class; read headings, textbook tasks, etc., and then come up with questions for the teacher.

Attend class: This does not mean sitting in a lecture passively, watching what the teacher or others are doing. Rather, students should be as focused and active as possible: addressing, answering questions, and taking meaningful notes.

Review after class: As soon as possible after class, students should examine their notes, recalling what happened in class and explaining it to themselves.

Do intense study sessions: These can take up to 60 minutes where students go over concepts, definitions, problems, or ideas, reinforcing their understanding. This is through setting their goals, working on tasks, taking a break, and then reviewing what they have just studied.

Assess: During this final step in the study cycle students assess how well they have learned the material they studied. They also check how well their learning strategies and techniques are working. So, they answer quizzes, involved in peer assessments, fill in reflective worksheets, etc.

2. Retrieval practice

Retrieval practice is one of the best ways to increase students’ memory and retention. This active skill can help take knowledge out of your brain and put it to use. So, this strategy is about recalling facts, concepts, or events from memory to enhance learning.

In fact, retrieval practice is effective, since learning is more about taking what’s been added to our knowledge and putting it into practice at a later time.

An example of a retrieval practice is using flashcards that contain what students have already learned (at the back) and an image or depiction to prompt recall. So, students see the prompt, answer it in their head, and then, recall and say the answer aloud. After they flip the card over to see the answer.

This strategy can be used in any subject to learn concepts, language rules, processes, etc.

Students can create flashcards with concepts on one side and definitions on the other. After they have finished this task, they create another set of cards with “instructions” on how to reprocess the concept for a creative or real-life situation.

Practising retrieval practice can also be done by addressing questions. After answering them, students can check out their lessons and self-correct.

Further, peer teaching is also useful for this strategy. In pairs, students can prepare quizzes or use the teacher’s questions and ask each to test knowledge and understanding.

3. Spaced repetition

Spaced repetition or reviewing material at systematic intervals is one of the most useful learning strategies. Our memories need time to be encoded and stick in the brain.

We are likely to remember something much better if we study it for one hour per day rather than twenty hours on one weekend. So, this strategy can help students avoid forgetting.

Indeed, research has shown that seeing something twenty times in one day is far less effective than seeing something ten times for seven days.

So, students should avoid cramming or studying at the last minute, and use spaced repetition instead.

When they use this strategy, they need to focus on increasing the frequency of reviewing, not necessarily the duration. For instance, they can study a lesson at 9 a.m., then review it at noon 5:00 p.m., and 10 p.m.

During the repetition process, they can use active recall, study their notes in different contexts, focus on the concepts they are learning, and use questioning to unveil what they don’t remember or still need to cover.

Even when students are struggling with time and test approaches, they can use spaced repetition.

Yet, spreading their learning and memorization over a longer period of time, and returning to the same material frequently, are necessary. Students need to create their study schedule and stick to it.

4. Elaboration strategies

These learning strategies help retention by linking new information to information already in your long-term memory. This is through adding detail, summarizing, drawing inferences, and creating examples, and analogies. When students elaborate, they create additional ways of recalling the information.

So, elaboration strategies can be used to recall names, categories, sequences, or groups of items. Here are some examples of elaboration strategies

• For each lesson, students read their notes and develop them into details. They can also address questions from their notes to check for understanding.
• Students write down the details of how the examples are used in a text/by the instructor to illustrate concepts. Then, look for common steps or characteristics. Add their own examples and if possible check them with the teacher.
• They can use analogies that promote connections between new ideas and existing student knowledge.

5. Interleaved practice

Interleaving involves mixing the practice of several related skills throughout the study session. Unlike block learning, in interleaved practice, a student can work on different skills at the same time.

However, interleaving isn’t the same as multitasking, studying different subjects at the same time. In this active learning strategy, a student can move, in a single study session, between four or five related topics (within the same or from different subjects).

For instance, he studies different types of math problems, works on two related topics in biology and chemistry, and two questions of one (or different) type of problem to prepare for an exam, reads different text genres, etc.

This means that interleaved practice is like retrieval practice. It brings our knowledge out of our concept banks and encourages active thinking about where they fit.

Research has shown that interleaved practice can help improve the brain’s ability to discriminate between concepts, and encourage connections among different tasks and responses, which improves learning and retention.

6. Organisational strategies

Learning is facilitated when the information is organised, and connections and interrelationships are made.  Indeed, research evidence proves that if you learn ways to organise material, you will be able to learn and retrieve the information more effectively.

Organisational strategies include:

Grouping: This means organizing concepts in terms of their relationships to other concepts. For instance, students can group similar words to make it easier to make connections among them and identify examples and non-examples.

Outlining: A strategy where major and minor ideas are written in abbreviated form using important words and phrases. For instance, students pull out the text headings and put them in outline format.

Representation: A process of drawing a diagram to picture how ideas are connected. To recognize relationships among key concepts, students can draw a concept map that shows what is connected with what and how, use a comparative organiser to contrast assumptions, ideas, evidence, etc.

How to help students develop these learning strategies?

Developing effective learning strategies is a goal that merits attention regardless of students’ learning needs and concerns. Therefore, these learning strategies should be presented, practised, and made explicit throughout instruction.

For instance, to encourage students’ retrieval practice you can address questions, use quizzes or exit ticket journals at the end of your lesson.

Also, to help students develop these strategies encourage them to combine them. When doing retrieval practice, students can interleave between different concepts, categorize and explain them more.

So, our students need to develop effective learning strategies since learning should not stop when they walk out of the classroom.