The first two years of college were filled with experimentation as I tried various combinations of evidence-based methods that I discovered while reading books and scientific publications.
I understood it would take time for me to optimize a system that would work for all the various subjects in biomedical engineering that were not necessarily covered in the readings.
However, the end of day review method was one that I immediately adopted after learning about Ebbinghaus's forgetting curve and till this day remains a vital component of my learning system.
This application is a lot more intuitive than the others and does not require a learning curve to implement, so I would highly suggest you integrate this method right away.
I understand the feeling of wanting to shut down your computer, close your textbook, and put away all your notes after covering the last topic. However, I strongly encourage you to take advantage of the spacing effect by dedicating another 20 minutes before going to bed to practice retrieving all the newly learned information.
The forgetting curve demonstrates that up to 70% of information can be forgotten within 24 hours. However, based on my own experience, I‘ve found that dedicating 27
just a little additional time to review at the end of the day can significantly reduce that percentage.
At this point, you should have a list of topics and questions, therefore treat them as you would in the blurting method and look to recall any related information.
The goal here isn't necessarily to answer all the questions correctly. It's about leveraaina the spacing effect and ensuring that the information vou do recall is encoded more deeplv into vour lone-term memorv.
By putting in just an extra 20 minutes, you can reap important benefits later by significantly reducing the amount of revision needed in subsequent study sessions.
3. Prospective revision timetable
Revision timetables, also known as study schedules, can be implemented in two ways.
The first one we will cover is the more popular “prospective” method, which involves creating a revision plan prior to any studying, usually at least 6 weeks before an exam.
To execute this effectively, get out either a paper or digital spreadsheet and in the first column include the dates you have available for studying.
Then in the subsequent column you will fill in topics based on your class's syllabus with a common spacing method being to double the days between sessions.
For example, if we were looking at my Mechanics of Biological Systems class I would schedule the first day of studying for 3-D Hooke's Law and then revisit it on the second day, fourth day, eighth day, 16th day, and so forth leading up to the exam.
This method is excellent for providing a structured framework that helps you manage your time effectively and ensures balanced coverage of the topics utilizing spaced repetition.
Moreover, students often find themselves procrastinating because they are unsure about what to study each day. This method helps alleviate hesitation by pre-determining the topics to be covered, providing a clear direction for their study sessions.
For those that need additional help with procrastination, it may be beneficial to further break down the days into hours. This would require you to make headers for both the rows and columns labeling them times and days respectively. Look below for an example.
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B
C
D
E
F
G
H
1
19-Jun
20-Jun
21-Jun
22-Jun
23-Jun
24-Jun
25-Jun
2
6:00
3
7•00
4
9:00