August 24, 2025 • 40 mins
First broadcast as Episode 154, we're revisiting this epic interview with giant of the "science of effective study" world, the great Professor John Dunlosky.
In today's must-listen episode, we discover:
- Why learning should be challenging
- A taxonomy for thinking about 10 popular study strategies - which work best, and for what?
- How to master "successive re-learning"
- Plus an expert's take on whether to use digital flashcards, dual coding, watching online video and more!
Featured today:
- John's book "Study Like A Champ": https://geni.us/dunlosky
- John's original paper: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1529100612453266
- Episode 45 with Learning Scientists cofounder Jude Weinstein Jones https://examstudyexpert.com/yana-weinstein-jones/
Hosted by William Wadsworth, memory psychologist, independent researcher and study skills specialist. I help ambitious students to study smarter, not harder, so they can ace their exams with less work and less stress.
Get more from your host and the world of Exam Study Expert at:
- Six Pillars of Exam Success Cheat Sheet: https://examstudyexpert.com/Pillars
- [FOR SCHOOLS] retrieval practice lesson resource pack https://examstudyexpert.com/retrieval-lesson
- [FOR SCHOOLS] Revision Census research https://examstudyexpert.com/Revision-Census
- [FOR SCHOOLS] student workshops / staff CPD keynotes https://examstudyexpert.com/workshops
*
* As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases on suggested books.
Podcast edited by Kerri Edinburgh.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello, my friends, and welcome back to the Exam
Study Experts podcast thissummer, and today I've got a
little replay episode for you.
We're going to be revisitingone of my all-time favourite
interviews, which first aired alittle over a year ago a year
sort of 18 months ago with thegreat John Dunlosky.
This is a real jewel in ourcrown, in my view, and if you've
(00:24):
already heard it, it's going tobe well worth a revisit today.
If you haven't caught it yet,then you're in for a treat else
in the world.
He's the kind of academicresearcher who is the kind of
original source, together withhis team and his colleagues and
(00:51):
collaborators kind of theoriginal source of many of the
core principles that are centralto the exam study expert's way
of doing things and learningmore effectively, saving you
time when preparing for yourtests and exams.
Just before we dive in today,it's been a big season of
results, for example, here in myhome country, the UK, with with
the big GCSE and A-level schoolresults days this week just
(01:11):
gone in the previous week.
Many congratulations to many ofthe students I've been
supporting this year.
I've been hearing somewonderful things about how
you've been all getting on andsome fantastic sets of results.
You should all be really,really proud.
So really well done.
And to those of you who arelooking ahead to things to come,
I know many of you starting to,particularly in the us, for
example, starting to get backinto the new term or semester,
(01:33):
and for some of my professionalsthat I work with, you've got
your big exams looming inoctober, november, the board,
specialist exams and so forth.
Very best of of luck withgetting into the sharp end of
the prep.
With that, my thoughts, withyou all, whatever stage you're
at with your academic journey.
And what better time than, withthat backdrop of new beginnings
(01:55):
and for some of you comingtowards the sharp end of things,
to revisit some of the coreprinciples that are going to
help us prepare for exams in themost time efficient way how to
apply the science of learning toscore as highly as possible in
our tests and exams with theleast possible work and stress.
Without further ado, then, letme welcome John Dunlosky back to
(02:18):
the podcast.
I really hope you enjoy thisreplay episode first broadcast
in 2024.
Enjoy, john.
A very warm welcome to the ExamStudy Expert podcast.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
It's my pleasure to be here talking with you and all
your listeners.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
Wonderful to have you with us.
I wondered if we could maybestart by just painting us a
little bit of a vision or arainbow of kind of you know why
this stuff matters so much.
So I guess, both from your kindof experience in helping
students with study habits, andmaybe a little bit from the kind
of evidence as well, like whatis the win for getting our study
habits, our approach tolearning good, what does it feel
like when we can learn well?
(02:58):
What does it mean in terms ofour performance?
Yeah, I wonder if we just sortof inspire people with the
promise and the power of some ofthis stuff.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
Well, there's a lot of power with this stuff and the
win eventually is big.
But to get to the win you kindof have to understand some of
the inherent losses that occuron the way, right?
So I think one of the biggeststruggles that really holds
students back is some of themget the notion that learning is
easy or should be easy.
And let me just disabuse allyour listeners.
(03:25):
Learning of any sort that'simportant is difficult.
Whether it's developing a newknowledge base, learning how to
solve problems, learning a newskill, it's just difficult.
So anyone telling you it's easyand they have something to sell
you that's going to make iteasy you can pretty much ignore
them, right?
So those are the losses on theway to win.
And really what got me excitedabout learning strategies was
(03:46):
early experiences with students.
They'd come to my office kindof down in the mouth because
they did poorly on the firstexam.
And when I was a youngassistant professor, when they
would tell me I really struggled, I worked really hard but yet I
did poorly, my first thoughtwas inappropriate.
And that's what?
Well, you really didn't workhard.
And my thought was totallyinaccurate because these
(04:07):
students really did work hard.
That's why they're sofrustrated, and what I came to
realize over the years is that,yeah, they're working hard, but
they're doing the wrong things,so they're making something
difficult even more difficultand frustrating by not using
effective strategies.
Note and this is very importantthe effective strategies don't
necessarily make learning easier, but they make your learning
(04:28):
successful.
So you're going to havestruggles on the way.
If you're not struggling, I'dsay there's probably something
going wrong.
There's going to be struggleson the way, but the effective
strategies will finally get youto that successful learning
point that we're all searchingfor, and that itself is the own
intrinsic reward.
But just too many students aregoing about studying in the
wrong ways, which are going tolead to again making learning
(04:51):
more difficult and, quitefrankly, a lot more frustrating,
giving students a sense thatthey can't do it.
They can't get it done, when Iknow that's incorrect.
Any student can excel.
If they use the rightstrategies and they approach
learning with the right attitude, it can be a lot of fun
actually.
Speaker 1 (05:07):
Really interesting that point about it should feel
a little bit challenging orstretching.
It shouldn't feel like acomplete walk in the park, and I
think people have a really goodintuition about this.
When it comes to training thebody, if you're going out on a
run or hitting the gym andlifting some weights, you
wouldn't expect it to be as easyas possible.
You would expect it to be a bitchallenging and to stretch
yourself, and that's sort of whyit works, and I just don't
(05:29):
think we have the sameintuitions, naturally, about
training the mind, and so weneed to teach ourselves that
that's what we're aiming for.
Speaker 2 (05:36):
Agreed with you 100%, absolutely, because if it's
easy, that means probably youcan already do it, you already
know it, you're already there,which is wonderful.
Now it's time to take on a newchallenge.
You know, add a little extraweights to that, barbell.
Speaker 1 (05:48):
And when we can do that then.
So I guess maybe some of thestudents you've taught over the
years what are some of thethings they say or that you kind
of hear from them when it doesstart to fall into place you
know, maybe they hadn't beenstudying particularly
effectively before Like whatdoes it feel like for them when
they start to get competent withthese tools?
Speaker 2 (06:05):
I love that.
So, with respect to feelinggetting comfortable and
competent with these tools andsome of them that I really talk
a lot about because they're kindof all-purpose general tools to
help students out, you know,when students embrace the tools
something we can talk aboutsuccess of relearning and
retrieval practice first they'llnotice that they're struggling
more.
They're using a tool that kindof they already know about
(06:26):
flashcards.
But using this tool for moredifficult content basically
produces some struggles andbarriers, right.
What I get from students whofinally embrace this are
feedback like I can't believe Ican learn so well, I can't
believe how much I can retain, Iwish someone had told me about
these strategies earlier, so onand so forth.
(06:47):
So you get these students whoare excited beyond just the
class that I'm discussing thesestrategies in, but they start
then to use it in other classes.
But I think really what'srequired to get this epiphany is
, again, students trying thisstuff out on their own and doing
it correctly.
So occasionally I will hear froma student well, I'm doing
exactly what you're telling meto, but it's not working.
(07:08):
And then we sit down and we talkabout well, let me hear what
you're doing, and inevitably thestudents are doing kind of a
half-baked version of thestrategy, so they're not using
it as it was intended to be andhence it's going to fail on them
, so it's even more frustrating.
So the idea is that thestrategies that we really are
suggesting students should beusing.
(07:29):
These all-purpose strategieswork for everyone if you use
them right.
So the thing is trying to getstudents to embrace them for the
first time, to use them withfidelity over a couple months so
they can get that excitementand that, potentially for one of
the first times in their lives,like wow, I overcame a learning
obstacle that I didn't think Icould, and look at me, I've
(07:50):
mastered it.
I've not only overcome it, butnow I've mastered this content
that I thought was reallydifficult and that for me as an
instructor and as someone whoreally cares about student
learning, it is so good to seeand it's so exciting to see
students really have thatepiphany and start embracing
their studies.
Yeah it's a pretty cool moment.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
So I'd love to dive into sort of talking about some
of the strategies that you teachand research in a moment.
I'd just love to maybe do alittle bit of history first,
because I'm sitting across thevirtual table, so to speak, with
the lead author on one of the,if not the seminal papers in
this field the 2013 paper youauthored with a fairly starry
team of fellow co-authors calledImproving Students' Learning
(08:29):
with Effective LearningTechniques Promising Directions
from Cognitive and EducationalPsychology, which, for those
that aren't familiar with it,was essentially a review of I
believe it's sort of over 400individual scientific studies,
and you were trying to figureout well, okay, from all this
evidence we've got now, what arethe strategies that are going
to serve us best when we'repreparing for our tests and
exams?
(08:49):
I looked on Google Scholarearlier today and it's been
cited 4,108 times to date, sothat easily places it among the
most influential papers in thisfield.
Those that don't know howacademia works when you write a
new paper, you often referenceprevious work that's been done,
that you're building on in yournew paper, and that's what we
(09:15):
mean by a citation.
There's over 4,000 other papersthat have cited this as some of
the origins of their own ideasfor what they're doing, their
next bit of research on, soincredibly influential, to that
title of the paper.
I think we've probably gone wellbeyond the promising directions
a strapline you gave it backthen and this stuff's kind of
now at least from what I can seeincreasingly mainstream, as it
should be, in terms of at leastbeing sort of talked about, if
(09:38):
not always perfectly practiced.
But we can talk about that.
I guess my question was yeah,looking back over the last
decade, did you know at the timethis was going to have its
impact?
What's your feeling on theimpact and where we've come over
the last decade with this?
Speaker 2 (09:52):
Well, of course, I feel really great that all the
effort that was put into thatmonograph by not only myself but
my wonderful group ofco-authors has had such a
positive impact and, my goodness, I wish I could capture that in
a bottle and like deal it outagain, right, so we can keep
having such an impact.
You know, I'm really not sureexactly why this particular
(10:14):
paper resonated with folks inthe education land, except for
maybe that our message, I hope,was relatively clear about what
strategies we think work bestand which strategies don't work
best.
And I think part of theeye-opener maybe that was a
head-turning is that many of thestrategies that we evaluated
were the strategies that we knowstudents use, right, the
(10:35):
strategies that I use.
Quite frankly, things like Ihave my favorite highlighters
that I highlight textbooks upwith.
I go back and reread content agreat deal, two strategies that
students say they rely on quitea bit.
And when we started perusingthe literature on all of the
various strategies that studentsappear to use or strategies
that some cognitivepsychologists said were
(10:56):
relatively effective, whatreally impressed us was that
some of the strategies thatstudents used really weren't
that effective.
But let me make a veryimportant caveat here, and I'll
do it with just one examplebecause I think it'll make most
sense Take your favoritehighlighters.
So almost everybody highlights.
It's a very natural thing to do.
(11:18):
I think it helps my attentionwhen I'm reading and it turns
out research done onhighlighting.
One relatively straightforwardexample would be you have some
students highlight while they'rereading okay, and you just have
other students read the contentand then you test them on the
material.
It turns out that highlightingthat material the students who
highlighted, tend not to do thatmuch better or any better on
(11:40):
that upcoming test than studentswho didn't highlight.
So hence it really doesn't adda lot of benefit to just reading
.
Now here's the critical aspectsof this research.
First, highlighting or justreading don't really improve
learning that much anyway.
So everyone's performingrelatively poorly on these exams
(12:00):
, right?
The bottom line here is, yeah,highlighting doesn't improve
your learning that much, but Iwould never take a highlighter
away from a student.
So you think about a highlighteras a very specific technique
and it's meant for the beginningof the learning journey, when
you're just identifying what youneed to go back to learn really
well.
And then the idea you use thishighlighter, which really
(12:21):
doesn't add much bang to yourbuck with respect to that first
study session and then you goback and engage in the material
that you highlighted in a waythat is really effective.
That's not only going to boostyour learning a little bit but
that's going to actually get youto those levels of retention,
memory comprehension right.
That's going to help you excelon an exam and help you retain
(12:43):
that material for a long periodof time.
It just turns out that somekind of techniques like just
going back and rereading thathighlighted material over and
over again really doesn't have alot of cachet.
It's not going to boost yourmemory that much.
You need to use more effective,more engaging strategies when
you go.
So I think some of the outcomesof our review of the literature
weren't so surprising to us.
(13:03):
I didn't think highlightingwould actually benefit memory
that much because it's not thatengaging.
Nevertheless, I think it wassurprising to folks who aren't
cognitive psychologists right,who don't have their head in the
game and in particular, whatdoes work well.
I think many cognitivepsychologists knew about this,
but many educators didn't right.
Or they understood that sometechniques were good but they
(13:25):
didn't understand why they weregood and I think the monograph
kind of helped highlight whysome of these strategies are
good and when you should usethem.
So I think that was kind of along-winded answer to your
question, but I hope I touchedon it.
Speaker 1 (13:35):
That's great and certainly what I sort of see
here in the UK, particularly inthe last well, really, the sort
of 10 years since that came out,you know, there's just been an
explosion of at least awarenessand we can maybe get on to
implementation, you know,certainly among teachers, and
then that sort of filters downto students in turn.
And when I was at school in theearly 2000s there was very
(13:57):
little, if at all, being talkedabout.
You know, I attended universityin 2008.
We had a lecture and it wastouching on some of these new
ideas about kind of cognitivepsychology, of learning and
retrieval practice.
I was very excited by the ideasback then but they were still
kind of just, you know, in thelab or in the literature and
they hadn't yet filtered outinto the world.
And it's really exciting to seethe extent to which that has
(14:20):
now filtered out into the world.
Speaker 2 (14:21):
Absolutely.
When I was an undergrad.
Actually, I was sat in aone-day course before I started
and they told us two techniquesto use to study for classes.
I had no idea how to preparefor classes.
I was just a normal high schoolstudent.
I knew I was woefullyunderprepared to be a college
student.
Both of the techniques theytold us to use I used
(14:41):
religiously for the first yearof my college experience.
I had really good grades usingthem and I thought well, I'll
just continue to use these.
It turns out one of thestrategies that I was using I
wasn't even aware of at the time, but I was doing investigations
on that strategy with my mentoras an undergrad, professor
Harry Baric, and then, after Ileft undergrad to go on to grad
(15:05):
school, I totally forgot aboutthese strategies until 20 years
later when I wrote the monographand realized one of the
strategies that we wereevaluating was what I used as an
undergrad.
And then the light bulbs reallywent off for me.
It's like, oh my goodness, whydidn't I just base my career
initially on these strategiesinstead of forgetting about them
for 20 years and coming back?
(15:26):
So at least when I starteddoing this review, at least with
my own reflection I realized,wow, some of these strategies
must work well, because theyworked well for me as an
undergrad.
But then when I started lookingat the evidence, it's like, wow
, they do work well and thankyou.
Whoever told me to use thesestrategies?
Thank you, thank you.
Thank you because they helpedme a great deal, to give me kind
(15:49):
of confidence that I could passany class as an undergrad,
believe it or not.
It was how to take notes, in away to allow me to use retrieval
practice to memorize the notes.
So after I was finished youknow my several study sessions
for each group of notes I knewthem cold, could walk into any
exam and just easy, breezy, passit, because you know as
(16:11):
challenging as learning is,passing college courses is not
as challenging as one mightexpect.
So it's you use the rightstrategies, you stay diligent,
you keep at it and you willsucceed.
Right, some of the content thatstudents want to learn.
They don't want to learn itjust to get a good grade in
class.
They want to learn it, tomaster it, so they can use it
(16:33):
subsequently.
And these strategies arecritical for long-term retention
and use.
So, not to be totally flipabout this, but these strategies
are really great well beyondcollege when you're just
preparing for all thecircumstances that occur in the
work life and in preparing foryour job.
So these are all purposestrategies that just work well.
Speaker 1 (16:52):
I mean, many of our listeners are professionals and
they're taking exams as part oftheir careers in finance and
medicine.
Yeah, I mean, people have thisidea that we finish college and
then we're done with exams andsort of no, no, no, no, no For
many career paths, you're onlyjust getting started.
Speaker 2 (17:08):
Well, yeah, not only many career paths but many hobby
paths.
I mean, we'll pick up newhobbies and say, well, I can't
do this, I'm not capable of this.
Well, sure you are.
It's just something you need tolearn how to do and embrace and
realize that life is long andthere's plenty of time to master
anything, if you just take yourtime and use the right
strategies to excel.
Speaker 1 (17:29):
So we've been teasing a few of the sort of strategies
along the way, but I wonder ifwe could just take a moment to
sort of step back and give a bitof a bird's eye view of the 10
big ones you talked about in theoriginal 2013 paper and perhaps
I noted in your new book, studyLike a Champ, you grouped them
effectively into four categories.
So you've got a whole chapterdedicated to spacing, a whole
(17:51):
chapter dedicated to retrievalpractice.
You've got another chapterwhich is a kind of group of
problem-based strategies sointerleaving, self-explanation
works, examples and then thefourth chapter on the strategies
is the other ones that mightnot work so well but could have
a role, as you were describingearlier, for highlighting.
So that's highlighting, asyou've said, rereading,
summarising and imagery.
(18:12):
So I wonder if, without goinginto loads of detail on each one
, maybe just talk us throughthose four main chapters
effectively and why you decidedto group them that way, and if
anyone listening to this is newto the idea of sort of what
works, what doesn't, maybe justgive us a little bit of a flavor
for the kind of headlinefindings Perfect.
Speaker 2 (18:31):
Well, I've kind of already foreshadowed some of
this with my discussion ofhighlighting, and one
misconstrual which is probablymy fault from the monograph is
that some of these strategiesthat we reviewed don't work.
They all work for somethingokay, but they're just not all
general purpose tools.
So let's take another oneimagery.
Imagery is when you havecontent that is concrete, that
(18:52):
is something that you couldimagine like, come up with a
visual representation in yourmind, and it turns out coming up
with visual representations canbe really good for memory okay,
and long-term retention, so ina way, it is an effective
strategy.
In that monograph, though and Iwant to make this very clear
what we were doing wasevaluating strategies on not
only are they effective, but arethey generally effective, that
(19:15):
is, are they going to be goodfor any kind of student, are
they going to be good for anykind of content, and really
that's where the dividing linehappens.
So let's go back to imagery.
Imagery can be pretty effective.
However, it won't work foranyone who's incapable of
developing mental images, andthere are people who claim and
report appropriately they cannotdevelop mental images.
(19:35):
So it's not going to helpeverybody, and mental imagery is
only going to help students forcontent that you can actually
come up with visualrepresentations for.
So it can be a very effectivestrategy in the very specific
times it's useful.
So things like imagery,highlighting, rereading, which
play a role in learning, are alittle bit more constrained.
(19:56):
They can't help you witheverything.
So those were kind of the lastend of the chapters like use
these specialty strategies justat the right moment when they're
most effective, like if you'resomeone who can image and enjoys
imaging for content that can beapproached by using visual
images.
There were these general thoughstrategies that appeared to be
useful for any kind of contentthat worked for any students,
(20:21):
and these turn out to be allpurpose strategies spacing,
retrieval practice, a specialcombination of the both called
successive relearning, which wereally think is an important
strategy to use.
So these strategies are allpurpose because, again, they can
work for any kind of contentand for any student.
So let me just, if you don'tmind, let me go dig deep very
(20:41):
briefly into one of these, whichis the combination of space
practice and retrieval practice.
Space practice is simplystudying something on one day,
so you read content that youwant to learn on one day and
come back to the same content onanother day.
That is your space and yourlearning.
Retrieval practice is just whenyou try to retrieve content
from memory without looking.
Both of these strategies we'veknown for 100 years are really
(21:05):
really good, and when youcombine them both, it's called
successive relearning, as longas when you're using retrieval
practice, you continue to use ituntil you get it right.
So the best way to explain thestrategy is just through the use
of flashcards.
You're going through it.
Everyone knows how to useflashcards, right, except
imagine now you're using thiswith very difficult content,
(21:25):
like difficult definitions.
You're recalling thedefinitions from the memory, but
you're failing Well on thatfirst session.
You keep going, fail to recallsomething.
Study it again, try again lateruntil you can recall the
meaning of all those definitionscorrectly, okay.
Then you come back on anotherday with the same definitions
and you do the same thing, thatis, you successively relearn
(21:46):
them across trials.
This success of relearningprovides a major boost in
students' memory comprehensioncontent right, because you're
combining these effectivestrategies.
Despite its power, it alsorequires one other skill that
many students don't work on alot, which is time management,
because in order to successfullyrelearn or to use space
(22:09):
practice, you need to come backto the same content multiple
times across time, right beforeyou're eventually tested on this
.
So students have to kind of beready to use this right from day
one, because they need tomanage their time and develop
study sessions across time sothey can keep coming back to the
content over and over again.
In our book Study Like a Champ,we provide examples on how to
(22:31):
manage your time to do this well, but the idea is, what we're
begging students not to do is tosimply just cram for exams for
those classes that you reallywant to excel at.
So am I telling students neverto cram?
No, everybody crams probablyreduces anxiety.
I don't want students spendingthe entire night before an exam
(22:52):
studying because you should geta good night's sleep before that
exam.
And I'm not telling you not tostudy the night before, but
really, for effective learnersbegin several weeks before the
exam so they can space theirpractice in an effective way.
In fact, students, non-studentseverybody has something they do
really well typically, andalmost every student can tell me
(23:12):
something they do well, likewhether it's playing
first-person action, shootergames, playing an instrument,
doing blah, blah, blah, and youstart asking people well, how
did you get good at that?
And what they'll explain to youis success of relearning.
So what people use naturally tomaster things outside of
education, they just need tobring into education and know
(23:33):
they can use it here.
It does take time, so thisstrategy is time-consuming.
So I recommend to students onlyto use it on those classes they
really want to excel in or tomaterial that they need to
retain for a long period of time, unless, of course, the
students pretty much have allday to study, in which case they
can use it on every class.
Right, it just depends how muchtime they're using on
(23:54):
extracurricular activities likehaving fun, having a job and all
that kind of stuff.
So there was kind of a ramblybabbly version of those
strategies some that are generalpurpose that we really highly
recommend people use, likespacing, retrieval practice, and
some that are kind of veryspecific strategies that you
only use at times and they'rereally necessary.
(24:15):
I rarely use those specificstrategies when I study.
I just stick to the biggies.
Successive relearning for meall the way.
Speaker 1 (24:23):
I'm with you.
I'm with you.
I mean, regular listeners tothe show will probably recognize
successive relearning as whatwe more commonly call spaced
retrieval practice justcombining the two terms itself.
But I think we're talking aboutthe same principle, aren't we?
It's the idea of taking theretrieval practice, doing the
testing, trying to remember whatyou know.
Speaker 2 (24:46):
Flashcards is one good way to do that and then
spacing out that practice,repeating it at time intervals.
You know it is almost identical, except for one big difference,
and that's for a successiverelearning.
On that retrieval practicesession you need to keep coming
back until you get it right,because the real juice in this
learning is eventuallyretrieving that content from
memory.
So you keep going until you getit, which during the first
session it could take a whileright?
(25:06):
You just don't practiceretrieval fail and then stop you
practice retrieval, realize ohI don't have it, I need to come
back to this one again.
Right, and I totally think thatflashcards are a great way to
implement success of relearning.
But the major concern then ismany students only use
flashcards for the most mundane,simplest material, when in fact
(25:27):
success of relearning can beused for any kind of content
very complicated, very long,lengthy.
With that kind of contentlengthy content, long content,
difficult you probably don'twant to spend all the time
making flashcards.
You want to use proxy cards,stuff that can act like
flashcards, but you don't spendall that extra time making them
right, you just kind offabricate them out of other
(25:50):
things.
And again we have examples inStudy Like a Champ, how to do
that too, like turning yourtextbook into a flashcard
program.
It's pretty easy to do withsome sticky notes and creativity
pretty easy to do with somesticky notes and creativity.
Speaker 1 (26:03):
Yeah, I love that picture.
I was going to mention that asan example putting sticky notes
on your textbook, and so it actsalmost like a lift the flap.
Oh, can I remember about what'sunderneath this bit?
That was a really nice trick.
Another shortcut that oftencomes up is I'll ask you about
digital tools in a second, butjust in terms of using, I guess,
ready-made flashcards.
You can get ready-made sets ofcards on a lot of digital tools
Quizlet, brainscape, anki.
(26:24):
You can get the paperequivalents in a lot of
stationers.
So for a big standardized testor big public exam, you go into
your local bookstore orstationers and you can buy
ready-made stacks of cards forthat exam.
Speaker 2 (26:35):
I love it.
Yeah, I highly recommend those.
Speaker 1 (26:37):
Or you mentioned an example of collaborating with
friends.
So if ready-made cards aren'tavailable for your course, then
divide and conquer betweenfriends.
This is a question I hear quitea bit.
Is it okay to use ready-madecards or should I be making my
own?
Speaker 2 (26:50):
I can see the value in making one's own.
If you really like to do thatthings, I would recommend
ready-made cards.
If they're not available, gettogether with a study group,
make them for each other, so youkind of spread the work around.
The only one caveat I wouldhave, though some of not all of,
but some of the onlineflashcard programs which did a
(27:11):
review of a while ago.
They're not all set up well toallow students to evaluate how
well they're learning, that is,some of them can produce an
illusion of knowing right Togive a student a sense oh God, I
have this down really well.
In fact, they kind of force youinto thinking you know it well
when you haven't learned it wellyet.
And I don't want to call outany particular program at this
(27:33):
point because I don't want toaccidentally mess them up in my
memory.
But a really nice paper withAbby O'Brien, graduate student
at Kent State, where we justreview, I think, about 13 of the
available flashcard programsand we consider the degree to
which they can be used toimplement success of relearning,
and at least at that time thisis done.
Three or four years ago.
We talk about how much theycost.
(27:54):
Are they freeware?
We are very positive aboutreducing the time it takes to
learn content.
We care a lot about efficiency,so one thing we reviewed is to
what degree can you shareFlashGuard programs with each
other, with friends, throughthese?
So if you're interested inusing the online services, go
check out our paper and wereview some.
There are others available nowthat we've learned about that
(28:16):
are really good.
So absolutely you don't have toinvent all of this stuff on
your own.
There are a lot of greatresources out there just ready
to be used.
You just have to use them inthe right way.
Speaker 1 (28:26):
Even flash cards can be used in the wrong way, for
sure, for sure one of yourearlier comments was yeah,
everyone knows how to make flashcards, but, um, I think it's
not always the case.
I mean, everyone thinks theyknow how to make flash cards but
, you know, I think you put yourfinger on it when you say we
have good intuitions about howto make them basic terminology
or definitions or vocab orformulas but when it comes to
more in the weeds of conceptsand figuring out how to turn
(28:51):
this into flashcards, I thinkthat is a little bit of an art
and that is something you canpractice and get better at.
That's how I learned all myvast amount of factual knowledge
I needed to know for myundergraduate exams at Cambridge
.
Yeah, it was flashcards all theway, and it certainly wasn't
all just like what is thedefinition of?
You know, some of the conceptswere quite much more nuanced and
sophisticated.
Speaker 2 (29:12):
You know absolutely and you can get what is the
definition of, and strugglerecalling the meaning of a
definition because you don'tunderstand it, and that's when
you need a different tool ormore help.
So using flashcards in amindless way isn't useful either
.
Yet you're struggling to learnsome more difficult content.
That's the time to talk to afriend to make sure you
understand it.
(29:32):
That's the time to actually usea resource called your
instructor to go talk to themabout, like why you don't
understand the concept or thatyou're struggling to learn it,
Because sometimes memory can'tdo everything.
(29:54):
Comprehension processes need tobe turned on and at times,
that's why we have mentors andinstructors.
When we struggle and reallyaren't learning something well,
we need a little help, a littleboost, and the boost we get from
friends that already understandthe content, or instructors or
many of the resources that areavailable online, right.
So none of the strategies thatwe discuss, including success of
(30:18):
relearning, are a panacea forall learning right?
It's not like you'll take thisone strategy and now be able to
become an expert or excel inanything.
It requires a variety ofdifferent strategies and
resources to really excel,especially when the content is
difficult.
I mean, if anyone could sitdown and learn physics on their
own, we'd all be physicists.
(30:38):
It takes instructors, mentors,people who were there before us
to help us along.
However, anybody can become aphysicist if you work at it
right and have the rightmentorship.
So if you're out there wantingto do something and you're
concerned that you may not beable to do it, have efficacy,
find the right people.
You can master anything.
Speaker 1 (30:56):
I think that's great advice and I wish it's advice
I'd known when I was in my firstyear taking a physics class
that I was struggling with a lot.
Speaker 2 (31:02):
Well, it's more like pep talk than advice.
Good pep talk then.
Speaker 1 (31:06):
But no, it's a bright kid.
I'd done well at school andhere I was sort of floundering
around in first year physics andI just kind of got a few things
in my head about, you know, theimportance of asking for help,
maybe persevering a bit longer,being a bit more patient in that
phase of being stuck.
I've had a very differentexperience of that, I think.
Speaker 2 (31:24):
Yeah, a little bit.
That concerns me about thiswith some students and this is
just unfortunate.
You'll have those struggles anddecide you know, I just don't
like this or I can't do this,and then that becomes a
self-fulfilling prophecy,because you put in less effort,
do you think?
Speaker 1 (31:36):
what's the point?
Speaker 2 (31:36):
Absolutely, and I'm telling all my students that
I've worked with.
It's like please don't saysomeone else is talented because
that someone else just workedhard for it, and don't say you
can't do something because youcan Simply say you don't want to
do something.
Make a decision, but when youdecide you want something, you
go after it.
Find the tools that arerequired to excel and persevere
(31:59):
until you get there.
And it's going to be a struggle, because things that are worth
working for often are a struggle, but using the right tools to
get there are critical too.
Speaker 1 (32:08):
And when it comes to physics, see chapter six of
Study Like a Champ.
Speaker 2 (32:13):
There you go and see your instructor too, right?
Speaker 1 (32:16):
Yes.
So this is great.
We got a little bit of mindsetsort of attitude, pep talk as
well thrown in, which iswonderful.
I think that's great, greatadvice.
There are a few potentiallyquite quick fire little things I
wanted to put to you, john.
So these are things that I hearstudents asking, I see students
using.
Some of them might have aslight more of a kind of a UK
bent than a US bent, so they maybe a little bit less familiar,
(32:38):
but you know, they're thingsthat I hear people talking about
all the time and they're not inyour list of 10.
So I wanted to sort of put themto you and just get a kind of
quick reaction on something weshould be doing, something we
need to be a bit careful of,where it kind of falls or jurors
still out.
Yet that could be an option too.
So the first one on the list iswatching videos.
Youtube's hugely popular.
Is it something we should bedoing as part of our learning
strategy?
Speaker 2 (32:58):
Why not?
Why not?
Okay, the difficulty with that?
It's almost like reading Sure,you should read, but reading or
watching a video doesn't meanlearning the content of the
video.
So if you're watching somethingjust to initially get intrigued
, engaged, excited, and thenyou're going to go off and do
more, awesome Right.
But if it's that video has thecontent that a student needs to
(33:19):
learn, then the concern is thatthey watch a video because it
was engaging, feel like, well, Iknow that content and then
never come back to it, right.
So if the content really is inthat video, then really watching
a video is just like watching alecture.
You need to take appropriatenotes, go back to those notes
and study them Again.
The one caveat there when weinterview lots of students,
(33:41):
college students about how theyinteract with online videos,
they tend to say they don't takenotes and they don't go back to
watch them again.
So, absolutely, let's usevideos anything that can help
you bolster your comprehension,your understanding, your
excitement, but don't do thatexclusively.
If that's what you need tolearn, you still have to take
(34:02):
notes and go back and reallymaster the content.
Speaker 1 (34:04):
Test yourself on those notes and make sure you
can remember the key points,yeah, great.
So my last one was going to bedual coding.
And just to give a little bitof a context to this, I don't
know if you've come across thethe learning scientists project,
the podcast and the blog, andcertainly here in the uk that's.
That's been quite influentialin schools and they present six
evidence-based learningstrategies.
That was sort of their originalthing, the six strategies.
And to be fair to them, youknow they'd be the first to say,
(34:27):
well, it's not like there'ssort of six strategies and like
they're all born equal.
They'd probably say quite asimilar thing to yourself in
that, you know, if you're goingto start somewhere, start with
retrieval practice and spacing.
They're not six equallyimportant, equally good study
strategies.
There are two that form sort ofthe main backbone.
Those are space practice andretrieval practice.
(34:50):
Ah, I knew it.
That was Jude Weinstein-Jonesthere, one of the co-founders of
the Learning Scientist Projects, in a clip from when she was on
the podcast back in episode 45,if you're interested in
catching up with the rest ofthat interview with her, forgive
me sliding that littleinterjection in.
I just thought it added areally nice bit of relevant
colour to what we were justsaying there.
(35:10):
Okay, back to my question forJohn.
So there's quite a lot ofoverlap between their six and
and your 10, particularly thebetter half of the 10.
But one thing I noticed kind ofit isn't there and I've always
been a little bit unsure myselfon my own views on this one is
is the idea of dual coding?
So for for listeners, you know,this is the idea that when you
see a picture or graphicalrepresentation and see a
(35:32):
description in words at the sametime, that helps you learn.
That's the duality that dualcoding is referring to words and
some kind of pictorialgraphical representation.
What's your view on where dualcoding fits into the world?
Speaker 2 (35:45):
well, dual quoting definitely can have a positive
impact.
I mean, it's similar to anytimeyou have multiple
representations of somethingyou're trying to learn.
Now you have internallymultiple representations that
you can then use to reconstructyour understanding of something.
So if you have a pictorialrepresentation, a verbal
representation stored in memory,then you have two routes to
(36:07):
success, so to speak.
So, that said, as you know,getting that dual coding is the
difficult part, right?
So if you're someone, forinstance, as we mentioned
earlier, that doesn't generateinternal images, that well, it's
going to right.
There's only one code for you.
There's not a dual code, so tospeak.
And sometimes it's not clearwhat kinds of mental
(36:27):
representations to develop.
Right, that is exactly what Ishould be generating when I'm
doing this.
Note also that textbooks thatstudents interact with
occasionally have that pictorialrepresentation is not meant to
help their understanding, but ismeant to help them be
interested in the topic.
(36:47):
It's called a seductive detail.
It's not really for the content.
Those can be distracting.
It gives you a sense of a dualcoding, because I have a visual
representation and I have someverbal, but in this case the
verbal representation couldactually undermine students'
understanding.
So that dual coding, they kindof need.
None of these strategies arefoolproof.
Not one strategy will alwayslead to success.
(37:21):
So it's kind of a combinationof all of them that students
will need to rely on as they'reworking themselves toward
getting the grades they want inschool and to learn the content
they care.
And no, not getting straightA's the grades they want,
because I really want studentsto be motivated to achieve their
own goals that they developright, that they're managing
(37:42):
their time to obtain.
That's how we develop a reallymotivated and good student.
Speaker 1 (37:47):
I love how, for so many of our questions, you
answer the question and go on.
Then there's some otherwonderful point to make, and
it's all great.
Speaker 2 (37:54):
Do you mean I just go on babbling?
William, I mean great.
Speaker 1 (37:56):
No, no, no, not at all.
I get a two for one everyquestion I ask.
There's another great piece ofadvice that I hadn't even asked
for, which is wonderful.
I love it.
I love it, john, thank you somuch.
You've been incredibly generousand I'm so grateful for you
sharing a generous taste of yourimmense wisdom and expertise on
this topic.
Tell us where do we go to findout more?
So, if we want to go and readthe book or learn more about
(38:18):
sort of your work, where wouldyou point people to?
Speaker 2 (38:21):
Well, first, thanks for having me on board today.
This has just been a blast,Quite frankly.
I think really this forstudents out there, either
students in college, high schoolstudents, folks who are
lifelong learners, I like to sayit.
But I'd pick up the book that Ico-authored with Regan Garung
called Study Like a Champ.
It's really inexpensive.
It gets right to the point.
We talk right to students.
(38:41):
Each chapter is about to do onething.
We don't hit you with a hundreddifferent strategies, we just
talk about a couple things thatreally work well.
So I'd pick that up, peruse itand, you know, go from there.
Speaker 1 (38:53):
Great book and we'll drop the link to that in the
show notes.
John, thank you so much onceagain for coming on.
This has been so much fun andwishing you all the best.
Glad I was here.
Well, thanks again, john.
We're really glad you were heretoo.
If you've enjoyed today'sepisode, please share it with
your friends, colleagues or yourown students, if you are an
educator yourself.
Just before I sign off, hereare a couple of ways you can get
(39:16):
more from the world of ExamStudy Expert to help you study
smarter.
Firstly, if you yourself havegot exams coming up, you can
download my little cheat sheetwith some of my favourite ideas
for learning smarter the sixpillars of exam success.
You'll find that atexamstudyexpertcom forward slash
pillars.
That's a great starting pointor checklist of top ideas to
(39:38):
help you get ready for the exam.
That's at examstudyexpertscomforward slash pillars.
Alternatively, if you are ateacher or educator listening
today and want to help get yourstudents studying smarter,
there's a couple of things I canoffer for you too.
Firstly, you can download afree lesson resource pack to
teach your students all aboutretrieval practice and how to
(39:59):
use it well.
That's at examstudyexpertscomforward slash retrieval hyphen
lesson.
Secondly, if you'd like tomeasure the effectiveness of
study strategy at your school,you can head to
examstudyexpertscom forwardslash, revision, hyphen, census
and to learn more about how totake part in our research
project that surveyed over50,000 students on their study
(40:24):
strategy.
You get some nice insights andrecommendations, and it's even
free to participate in For now.
Thank you so much for listeningtoday.
It's been such a pleasure tohave your company for such a
great episode today too.
I just want to wish you everysuccess, as always, in your
exams.
Speaker 3 (40:41):
Wasn't that wonderful .
If you're feeling inspired, whynot leave us a rating and a
review in your podcast app?
It would make our day.
Thanks again for listening andsee you soon.
Hello, my friends, and welcome back to the Exam
Study Experts podcast thissummer, and today I've got a
little replay episode for you.
We're going to be revisitingone of my all-time favourite
interviews, which first aired alittle over a year ago a year
sort of 18 months ago with thegreat John Dunlosky.
This is a real jewel in ourcrown, in my view, and if you've
(00:24):
already heard it, it's going tobe well worth a revisit today.
If you haven't caught it yet,then you're in for a treat else
in the world.
He's the kind of academicresearcher who is the kind of
original source, together withhis team and his colleagues and
(00:51):
collaborators kind of theoriginal source of many of the
core principles that are centralto the exam study expert's way
of doing things and learningmore effectively, saving you
time when preparing for yourtests and exams.
Just before we dive in today,it's been a big season of
results, for example, here in myhome country, the UK, with with
the big GCSE and A-level schoolresults days this week just
(01:11):
gone in the previous week.
Many congratulations to many ofthe students I've been
supporting this year.
I've been hearing somewonderful things about how
you've been all getting on andsome fantastic sets of results.
You should all be really,really proud.
So really well done.
And to those of you who arelooking ahead to things to come,
I know many of you starting to,particularly in the us, for
example, starting to get backinto the new term or semester,
(01:33):
and for some of my professionalsthat I work with, you've got
your big exams looming inoctober, november, the board,
specialist exams and so forth.
Very best of of luck withgetting into the sharp end of
the prep.
With that, my thoughts, withyou all, whatever stage you're
at with your academic journey.
And what better time than, withthat backdrop of new beginnings
(01:55):
and for some of you comingtowards the sharp end of things,
to revisit some of the coreprinciples that are going to
help us prepare for exams in themost time efficient way how to
apply the science of learning toscore as highly as possible in
our tests and exams with theleast possible work and stress.
Without further ado, then, letme welcome John Dunlosky back to
(02:18):
the podcast.
I really hope you enjoy thisreplay episode first broadcast
in 2024.
Enjoy, john.
A very warm welcome to the ExamStudy Expert podcast.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
It's my pleasure to be here talking with you and all
your listeners.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
Wonderful to have you with us.
I wondered if we could maybestart by just painting us a
little bit of a vision or arainbow of kind of you know why
this stuff matters so much.
So I guess, both from your kindof experience in helping
students with study habits, andmaybe a little bit from the kind
of evidence as well, like whatis the win for getting our study
habits, our approach tolearning good, what does it feel
like when we can learn well?
(02:58):
What does it mean in terms ofour performance?
Yeah, I wonder if we just sortof inspire people with the
promise and the power of some ofthis stuff.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
Well, there's a lot of power with this stuff and the
win eventually is big.
But to get to the win you kindof have to understand some of
the inherent losses that occuron the way, right?
So I think one of the biggeststruggles that really holds
students back is some of themget the notion that learning is
easy or should be easy.
And let me just disabuse allyour listeners.
(03:25):
Learning of any sort that'simportant is difficult.
Whether it's developing a newknowledge base, learning how to
solve problems, learning a newskill, it's just difficult.
So anyone telling you it's easyand they have something to sell
you that's going to make iteasy you can pretty much ignore
them, right?
So those are the losses on theway to win.
And really what got me excitedabout learning strategies was
(03:46):
early experiences with students.
They'd come to my office kindof down in the mouth because
they did poorly on the firstexam.
And when I was a youngassistant professor, when they
would tell me I really struggled, I worked really hard but yet I
did poorly, my first thoughtwas inappropriate.
And that's what?
Well, you really didn't workhard.
And my thought was totallyinaccurate because these
(04:07):
students really did work hard.
That's why they're sofrustrated, and what I came to
realize over the years is that,yeah, they're working hard, but
they're doing the wrong things,so they're making something
difficult even more difficultand frustrating by not using
effective strategies.
Note and this is very importantthe effective strategies don't
necessarily make learning easier, but they make your learning
(04:28):
successful.
So you're going to havestruggles on the way.
If you're not struggling, I'dsay there's probably something
going wrong.
There's going to be struggleson the way, but the effective
strategies will finally get youto that successful learning
point that we're all searchingfor, and that itself is the own
intrinsic reward.
But just too many students aregoing about studying in the
wrong ways, which are going tolead to again making learning
(04:51):
more difficult and, quitefrankly, a lot more frustrating,
giving students a sense thatthey can't do it.
They can't get it done, when Iknow that's incorrect.
Any student can excel.
If they use the rightstrategies and they approach
learning with the right attitude, it can be a lot of fun
actually.
Speaker 1 (05:07):
Really interesting that point about it should feel
a little bit challenging orstretching.
It shouldn't feel like acomplete walk in the park, and I
think people have a really goodintuition about this.
When it comes to training thebody, if you're going out on a
run or hitting the gym andlifting some weights, you
wouldn't expect it to be as easyas possible.
You would expect it to be a bitchallenging and to stretch
yourself, and that's sort of whyit works, and I just don't
(05:29):
think we have the sameintuitions, naturally, about
training the mind, and so weneed to teach ourselves that
that's what we're aiming for.
Speaker 2 (05:36):
Agreed with you 100%, absolutely, because if it's
easy, that means probably youcan already do it, you already
know it, you're already there,which is wonderful.
Now it's time to take on a newchallenge.
You know, add a little extraweights to that, barbell.
Speaker 1 (05:48):
And when we can do that then.
So I guess maybe some of thestudents you've taught over the
years what are some of thethings they say or that you kind
of hear from them when it doesstart to fall into place you
know, maybe they hadn't beenstudying particularly
effectively before Like whatdoes it feel like for them when
they start to get competent withthese tools?
Speaker 2 (06:05):
I love that.
So, with respect to feelinggetting comfortable and
competent with these tools andsome of them that I really talk
a lot about because they're kindof all-purpose general tools to
help students out, you know,when students embrace the tools
something we can talk aboutsuccess of relearning and
retrieval practice first they'llnotice that they're struggling
more.
They're using a tool that kindof they already know about
(06:26):
flashcards.
But using this tool for moredifficult content basically
produces some struggles andbarriers, right.
What I get from students whofinally embrace this are
feedback like I can't believe Ican learn so well, I can't
believe how much I can retain, Iwish someone had told me about
these strategies earlier, so onand so forth.
(06:47):
So you get these students whoare excited beyond just the
class that I'm discussing thesestrategies in, but they start
then to use it in other classes.
But I think really what'srequired to get this epiphany is
, again, students trying thisstuff out on their own and doing
it correctly.
So occasionally I will hear froma student well, I'm doing
exactly what you're telling meto, but it's not working.
(07:08):
And then we sit down and we talkabout well, let me hear what
you're doing, and inevitably thestudents are doing kind of a
half-baked version of thestrategy, so they're not using
it as it was intended to be andhence it's going to fail on them
, so it's even more frustrating.
So the idea is that thestrategies that we really are
suggesting students should beusing.
(07:29):
These all-purpose strategieswork for everyone if you use
them right.
So the thing is trying to getstudents to embrace them for the
first time, to use them withfidelity over a couple months so
they can get that excitementand that, potentially for one of
the first times in their lives,like wow, I overcame a learning
obstacle that I didn't think Icould, and look at me, I've
(07:50):
mastered it.
I've not only overcome it, butnow I've mastered this content
that I thought was reallydifficult and that for me as an
instructor and as someone whoreally cares about student
learning, it is so good to seeand it's so exciting to see
students really have thatepiphany and start embracing
their studies.
Yeah it's a pretty cool moment.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
So I'd love to dive into sort of talking about some
of the strategies that you teachand research in a moment.
I'd just love to maybe do alittle bit of history first,
because I'm sitting across thevirtual table, so to speak, with
the lead author on one of the,if not the seminal papers in
this field the 2013 paper youauthored with a fairly starry
team of fellow co-authors calledImproving Students' Learning
(08:29):
with Effective LearningTechniques Promising Directions
from Cognitive and EducationalPsychology, which, for those
that aren't familiar with it,was essentially a review of I
believe it's sort of over 400individual scientific studies,
and you were trying to figureout well, okay, from all this
evidence we've got now, what arethe strategies that are going
to serve us best when we'repreparing for our tests and
exams?
(08:49):
I looked on Google Scholarearlier today and it's been
cited 4,108 times to date, sothat easily places it among the
most influential papers in thisfield.
Those that don't know howacademia works when you write a
new paper, you often referenceprevious work that's been done,
that you're building on in yournew paper, and that's what we
(09:15):
mean by a citation.
There's over 4,000 other papersthat have cited this as some of
the origins of their own ideasfor what they're doing, their
next bit of research on, soincredibly influential, to that
title of the paper.
I think we've probably gone wellbeyond the promising directions
a strapline you gave it backthen and this stuff's kind of
now at least from what I can seeincreasingly mainstream, as it
should be, in terms of at leastbeing sort of talked about, if
(09:38):
not always perfectly practiced.
But we can talk about that.
I guess my question was yeah,looking back over the last
decade, did you know at the timethis was going to have its
impact?
What's your feeling on theimpact and where we've come over
the last decade with this?
Speaker 2 (09:52):
Well, of course, I feel really great that all the
effort that was put into thatmonograph by not only myself but
my wonderful group ofco-authors has had such a
positive impact and, my goodness, I wish I could capture that in
a bottle and like deal it outagain, right, so we can keep
having such an impact.
You know, I'm really not sureexactly why this particular
(10:14):
paper resonated with folks inthe education land, except for
maybe that our message, I hope,was relatively clear about what
strategies we think work bestand which strategies don't work
best.
And I think part of theeye-opener maybe that was a
head-turning is that many of thestrategies that we evaluated
were the strategies that we knowstudents use, right, the
(10:35):
strategies that I use.
Quite frankly, things like Ihave my favorite highlighters
that I highlight textbooks upwith.
I go back and reread content agreat deal, two strategies that
students say they rely on quitea bit.
And when we started perusingthe literature on all of the
various strategies that studentsappear to use or strategies
that some cognitivepsychologists said were
(10:56):
relatively effective, whatreally impressed us was that
some of the strategies thatstudents used really weren't
that effective.
But let me make a veryimportant caveat here, and I'll
do it with just one examplebecause I think it'll make most
sense Take your favoritehighlighters.
So almost everybody highlights.
It's a very natural thing to do.
(11:18):
I think it helps my attentionwhen I'm reading and it turns
out research done onhighlighting.
One relatively straightforwardexample would be you have some
students highlight while they'rereading okay, and you just have
other students read the contentand then you test them on the
material.
It turns out that highlightingthat material the students who
highlighted, tend not to do thatmuch better or any better on
(11:40):
that upcoming test than studentswho didn't highlight.
So hence it really doesn't adda lot of benefit to just reading
.
Now here's the critical aspectsof this research.
First, highlighting or justreading don't really improve
learning that much anyway.
So everyone's performingrelatively poorly on these exams
(12:00):
, right?
The bottom line here is, yeah,highlighting doesn't improve
your learning that much, but Iwould never take a highlighter
away from a student.
So you think about a highlighteras a very specific technique
and it's meant for the beginningof the learning journey, when
you're just identifying what youneed to go back to learn really
well.
And then the idea you use thishighlighter, which really
(12:21):
doesn't add much bang to yourbuck with respect to that first
study session and then you goback and engage in the material
that you highlighted in a waythat is really effective.
That's not only going to boostyour learning a little bit but
that's going to actually get youto those levels of retention,
memory comprehension right.
That's going to help you excelon an exam and help you retain
(12:43):
that material for a long periodof time.
It just turns out that somekind of techniques like just
going back and rereading thathighlighted material over and
over again really doesn't have alot of cachet.
It's not going to boost yourmemory that much.
You need to use more effective,more engaging strategies when
you go.
So I think some of the outcomesof our review of the literature
weren't so surprising to us.
(13:03):
I didn't think highlightingwould actually benefit memory
that much because it's not thatengaging.
Nevertheless, I think it wassurprising to folks who aren't
cognitive psychologists right,who don't have their head in the
game and in particular, whatdoes work well.
I think many cognitivepsychologists knew about this,
but many educators didn't right.
Or they understood that sometechniques were good but they
(13:25):
didn't understand why they weregood and I think the monograph
kind of helped highlight whysome of these strategies are
good and when you should usethem.
So I think that was kind of along-winded answer to your
question, but I hope I touchedon it.
Speaker 1 (13:35):
That's great and certainly what I sort of see
here in the UK, particularly inthe last well, really, the sort
of 10 years since that came out,you know, there's just been an
explosion of at least awarenessand we can maybe get on to
implementation, you know,certainly among teachers, and
then that sort of filters downto students in turn.
And when I was at school in theearly 2000s there was very
(13:57):
little, if at all, being talkedabout.
You know, I attended universityin 2008.
We had a lecture and it wastouching on some of these new
ideas about kind of cognitivepsychology, of learning and
retrieval practice.
I was very excited by the ideasback then but they were still
kind of just, you know, in thelab or in the literature and
they hadn't yet filtered outinto the world.
And it's really exciting to seethe extent to which that has
(14:20):
now filtered out into the world.
Speaker 2 (14:21):
Absolutely.
When I was an undergrad.
Actually, I was sat in aone-day course before I started
and they told us two techniquesto use to study for classes.
I had no idea how to preparefor classes.
I was just a normal high schoolstudent.
I knew I was woefullyunderprepared to be a college
student.
Both of the techniques theytold us to use I used
(14:41):
religiously for the first yearof my college experience.
I had really good grades usingthem and I thought well, I'll
just continue to use these.
It turns out one of thestrategies that I was using I
wasn't even aware of at the time, but I was doing investigations
on that strategy with my mentoras an undergrad, professor
Harry Baric, and then, after Ileft undergrad to go on to grad
(15:05):
school, I totally forgot aboutthese strategies until 20 years
later when I wrote the monographand realized one of the
strategies that we wereevaluating was what I used as an
undergrad.
And then the light bulbs reallywent off for me.
It's like, oh my goodness, whydidn't I just base my career
initially on these strategiesinstead of forgetting about them
for 20 years and coming back?
(15:26):
So at least when I starteddoing this review, at least with
my own reflection I realized,wow, some of these strategies
must work well, because theyworked well for me as an
undergrad.
But then when I started lookingat the evidence, it's like, wow
, they do work well and thankyou.
Whoever told me to use thesestrategies?
Thank you, thank you.
Thank you because they helpedme a great deal, to give me kind
(15:49):
of confidence that I could passany class as an undergrad,
believe it or not.
It was how to take notes, in away to allow me to use retrieval
practice to memorize the notes.
So after I was finished youknow my several study sessions
for each group of notes I knewthem cold, could walk into any
exam and just easy, breezy, passit, because you know as
(16:11):
challenging as learning is,passing college courses is not
as challenging as one mightexpect.
So it's you use the rightstrategies, you stay diligent,
you keep at it and you willsucceed.
Right, some of the content thatstudents want to learn.
They don't want to learn itjust to get a good grade in
class.
They want to learn it, tomaster it, so they can use it
(16:33):
subsequently.
And these strategies arecritical for long-term retention
and use.
So, not to be totally flipabout this, but these strategies
are really great well beyondcollege when you're just
preparing for all thecircumstances that occur in the
work life and in preparing foryour job.
So these are all purposestrategies that just work well.
Speaker 1 (16:52):
I mean, many of our listeners are professionals and
they're taking exams as part oftheir careers in finance and
medicine.
Yeah, I mean, people have thisidea that we finish college and
then we're done with exams andsort of no, no, no, no, no For
many career paths, you're onlyjust getting started.
Speaker 2 (17:08):
Well, yeah, not only many career paths but many hobby
paths.
I mean, we'll pick up newhobbies and say, well, I can't
do this, I'm not capable of this.
Well, sure you are.
It's just something you need tolearn how to do and embrace and
realize that life is long andthere's plenty of time to master
anything, if you just take yourtime and use the right
strategies to excel.
Speaker 1 (17:29):
So we've been teasing a few of the sort of strategies
along the way, but I wonder ifwe could just take a moment to
sort of step back and give a bitof a bird's eye view of the 10
big ones you talked about in theoriginal 2013 paper and perhaps
I noted in your new book, studyLike a Champ, you grouped them
effectively into four categories.
So you've got a whole chapterdedicated to spacing, a whole
(17:51):
chapter dedicated to retrievalpractice.
You've got another chapterwhich is a kind of group of
problem-based strategies sointerleaving, self-explanation
works, examples and then thefourth chapter on the strategies
is the other ones that mightnot work so well but could have
a role, as you were describingearlier, for highlighting.
So that's highlighting, asyou've said, rereading,
summarising and imagery.
(18:12):
So I wonder if, without goinginto loads of detail on each one
, maybe just talk us throughthose four main chapters
effectively and why you decidedto group them that way, and if
anyone listening to this is newto the idea of sort of what
works, what doesn't, maybe justgive us a little bit of a flavor
for the kind of headlinefindings Perfect.
Speaker 2 (18:31):
Well, I've kind of already foreshadowed some of
this with my discussion ofhighlighting, and one
misconstrual which is probablymy fault from the monograph is
that some of these strategiesthat we reviewed don't work.
They all work for somethingokay, but they're just not all
general purpose tools.
So let's take another oneimagery.
Imagery is when you havecontent that is concrete, that
(18:52):
is something that you couldimagine like, come up with a
visual representation in yourmind, and it turns out coming up
with visual representations canbe really good for memory okay,
and long-term retention, so ina way, it is an effective
strategy.
In that monograph, though and Iwant to make this very clear
what we were doing wasevaluating strategies on not
only are they effective, but arethey generally effective, that
(19:15):
is, are they going to be goodfor any kind of student, are
they going to be good for anykind of content, and really
that's where the dividing linehappens.
So let's go back to imagery.
Imagery can be pretty effective.
However, it won't work foranyone who's incapable of
developing mental images, andthere are people who claim and
report appropriately they cannotdevelop mental images.
(19:35):
So it's not going to helpeverybody, and mental imagery is
only going to help students forcontent that you can actually
come up with visualrepresentations for.
So it can be a very effectivestrategy in the very specific
times it's useful.
So things like imagery,highlighting, rereading, which
play a role in learning, are alittle bit more constrained.
(19:56):
They can't help you witheverything.
So those were kind of the lastend of the chapters like use
these specialty strategies justat the right moment when they're
most effective, like if you'resomeone who can image and enjoys
imaging for content that can beapproached by using visual
images.
There were these general thoughstrategies that appeared to be
useful for any kind of contentthat worked for any students,
(20:21):
and these turn out to be allpurpose strategies spacing,
retrieval practice, a specialcombination of the both called
successive relearning, which wereally think is an important
strategy to use.
So these strategies are allpurpose because, again, they can
work for any kind of contentand for any student.
So let me just, if you don'tmind, let me go dig deep very
(20:41):
briefly into one of these, whichis the combination of space
practice and retrieval practice.
Space practice is simplystudying something on one day,
so you read content that youwant to learn on one day and
come back to the same content onanother day.
That is your space and yourlearning.
Retrieval practice is just whenyou try to retrieve content
from memory without looking.
Both of these strategies we'veknown for 100 years are really
(21:05):
really good, and when youcombine them both, it's called
successive relearning, as longas when you're using retrieval
practice, you continue to use ituntil you get it right.
So the best way to explain thestrategy is just through the use
of flashcards.
You're going through it.
Everyone knows how to useflashcards, right, except
imagine now you're using thiswith very difficult content,
(21:25):
like difficult definitions.
You're recalling thedefinitions from the memory, but
you're failing Well on thatfirst session.
You keep going, fail to recallsomething.
Study it again, try again lateruntil you can recall the
meaning of all those definitionscorrectly, okay.
Then you come back on anotherday with the same definitions
and you do the same thing, thatis, you successively relearn
(21:46):
them across trials.
This success of relearningprovides a major boost in
students' memory comprehensioncontent right, because you're
combining these effectivestrategies.
Despite its power, it alsorequires one other skill that
many students don't work on alot, which is time management,
because in order to successfullyrelearn or to use space
(22:09):
practice, you need to come backto the same content multiple
times across time, right beforeyou're eventually tested on this
.
So students have to kind of beready to use this right from day
one, because they need tomanage their time and develop
study sessions across time sothey can keep coming back to the
content over and over again.
In our book Study Like a Champ,we provide examples on how to
(22:31):
manage your time to do this well, but the idea is, what we're
begging students not to do is tosimply just cram for exams for
those classes that you reallywant to excel at.
So am I telling students neverto cram?
No, everybody crams probablyreduces anxiety.
I don't want students spendingthe entire night before an exam
(22:52):
studying because you should geta good night's sleep before that
exam.
And I'm not telling you not tostudy the night before, but
really, for effective learnersbegin several weeks before the
exam so they can space theirpractice in an effective way.
In fact, students, non-studentseverybody has something they do
really well typically, andalmost every student can tell me
(23:12):
something they do well, likewhether it's playing
first-person action, shootergames, playing an instrument,
doing blah, blah, blah, and youstart asking people well, how
did you get good at that?
And what they'll explain to youis success of relearning.
So what people use naturally tomaster things outside of
education, they just need tobring into education and know
(23:33):
they can use it here.
It does take time, so thisstrategy is time-consuming.
So I recommend to students onlyto use it on those classes they
really want to excel in or tomaterial that they need to
retain for a long period of time, unless, of course, the
students pretty much have allday to study, in which case they
can use it on every class.
Right, it just depends how muchtime they're using on
(23:54):
extracurricular activities likehaving fun, having a job and all
that kind of stuff.
So there was kind of a ramblybabbly version of those
strategies some that are generalpurpose that we really highly
recommend people use, likespacing, retrieval practice, and
some that are kind of veryspecific strategies that you
only use at times and they'rereally necessary.
(24:15):
I rarely use those specificstrategies when I study.
I just stick to the biggies.
Successive relearning for meall the way.
Speaker 1 (24:23):
I'm with you.
I'm with you.
I mean, regular listeners tothe show will probably recognize
successive relearning as whatwe more commonly call spaced
retrieval practice justcombining the two terms itself.
But I think we're talking aboutthe same principle, aren't we?
It's the idea of taking theretrieval practice, doing the
testing, trying to remember whatyou know.
Speaker 2 (24:46):
Flashcards is one good way to do that and then
spacing out that practice,repeating it at time intervals.
You know it is almost identical, except for one big difference,
and that's for a successiverelearning.
On that retrieval practicesession you need to keep coming
back until you get it right,because the real juice in this
learning is eventuallyretrieving that content from
memory.
So you keep going until you getit, which during the first
session it could take a whileright?
(25:06):
You just don't practiceretrieval fail and then stop you
practice retrieval, realize ohI don't have it, I need to come
back to this one again.
Right, and I totally think thatflashcards are a great way to
implement success of relearning.
But the major concern then ismany students only use
flashcards for the most mundane,simplest material, when in fact
(25:27):
success of relearning can beused for any kind of content
very complicated, very long,lengthy.
With that kind of contentlengthy content, long content,
difficult you probably don'twant to spend all the time
making flashcards.
You want to use proxy cards,stuff that can act like
flashcards, but you don't spendall that extra time making them
right, you just kind offabricate them out of other
(25:50):
things.
And again we have examples inStudy Like a Champ, how to do
that too, like turning yourtextbook into a flashcard
program.
It's pretty easy to do withsome sticky notes and creativity
pretty easy to do with somesticky notes and creativity.
Speaker 1 (26:03):
Yeah, I love that picture.
I was going to mention that asan example putting sticky notes
on your textbook, and so it actsalmost like a lift the flap.
Oh, can I remember about what'sunderneath this bit?
That was a really nice trick.
Another shortcut that oftencomes up is I'll ask you about
digital tools in a second, butjust in terms of using, I guess,
ready-made flashcards.
You can get ready-made sets ofcards on a lot of digital tools
Quizlet, brainscape, anki.
(26:24):
You can get the paperequivalents in a lot of
stationers.
So for a big standardized testor big public exam, you go into
your local bookstore orstationers and you can buy
ready-made stacks of cards forthat exam.
Speaker 2 (26:35):
I love it.
Yeah, I highly recommend those.
Speaker 1 (26:37):
Or you mentioned an example of collaborating with
friends.
So if ready-made cards aren'tavailable for your course, then
divide and conquer betweenfriends.
This is a question I hear quitea bit.
Is it okay to use ready-madecards or should I be making my
own?
Speaker 2 (26:50):
I can see the value in making one's own.
If you really like to do thatthings, I would recommend
ready-made cards.
If they're not available, gettogether with a study group,
make them for each other, so youkind of spread the work around.
The only one caveat I wouldhave, though some of not all of,
but some of the onlineflashcard programs which did a
(27:11):
review of a while ago.
They're not all set up well toallow students to evaluate how
well they're learning, that is,some of them can produce an
illusion of knowing right Togive a student a sense oh God, I
have this down really well.
In fact, they kind of force youinto thinking you know it well
when you haven't learned it wellyet.
And I don't want to call outany particular program at this
(27:33):
point because I don't want toaccidentally mess them up in my
memory.
But a really nice paper withAbby O'Brien, graduate student
at Kent State, where we justreview, I think, about 13 of the
available flashcard programsand we consider the degree to
which they can be used toimplement success of relearning,
and at least at that time thisis done.
Three or four years ago.
We talk about how much theycost.
(27:54):
Are they freeware?
We are very positive aboutreducing the time it takes to
learn content.
We care a lot about efficiency,so one thing we reviewed is to
what degree can you shareFlashGuard programs with each
other, with friends, throughthese?
So if you're interested inusing the online services, go
check out our paper and wereview some.
There are others available nowthat we've learned about that
(28:16):
are really good.
So absolutely you don't have toinvent all of this stuff on
your own.
There are a lot of greatresources out there just ready
to be used.
You just have to use them inthe right way.
Speaker 1 (28:26):
Even flash cards can be used in the wrong way, for
sure, for sure one of yourearlier comments was yeah,
everyone knows how to make flashcards, but, um, I think it's
not always the case.
I mean, everyone thinks theyknow how to make flash cards but
, you know, I think you put yourfinger on it when you say we
have good intuitions about howto make them basic terminology
or definitions or vocab orformulas but when it comes to
more in the weeds of conceptsand figuring out how to turn
(28:51):
this into flashcards, I thinkthat is a little bit of an art
and that is something you canpractice and get better at.
That's how I learned all myvast amount of factual knowledge
I needed to know for myundergraduate exams at Cambridge
.
Yeah, it was flashcards all theway, and it certainly wasn't
all just like what is thedefinition of?
You know, some of the conceptswere quite much more nuanced and
sophisticated.
Speaker 2 (29:12):
You know absolutely and you can get what is the
definition of, and strugglerecalling the meaning of a
definition because you don'tunderstand it, and that's when
you need a different tool ormore help.
So using flashcards in amindless way isn't useful either
.
Yet you're struggling to learnsome more difficult content.
That's the time to talk to afriend to make sure you
understand it.
(29:32):
That's the time to actually usea resource called your
instructor to go talk to themabout, like why you don't
understand the concept or thatyou're struggling to learn it,
Because sometimes memory can'tdo everything.
(29:54):
Comprehension processes need tobe turned on and at times,
that's why we have mentors andinstructors.
When we struggle and reallyaren't learning something well,
we need a little help, a littleboost, and the boost we get from
friends that already understandthe content, or instructors or
many of the resources that areavailable online, right.
So none of the strategies thatwe discuss, including success of
(30:18):
relearning, are a panacea forall learning right?
It's not like you'll take thisone strategy and now be able to
become an expert or excel inanything.
It requires a variety ofdifferent strategies and
resources to really excel,especially when the content is
difficult.
I mean, if anyone could sitdown and learn physics on their
own, we'd all be physicists.
(30:38):
It takes instructors, mentors,people who were there before us
to help us along.
However, anybody can become aphysicist if you work at it
right and have the rightmentorship.
So if you're out there wantingto do something and you're
concerned that you may not beable to do it, have efficacy,
find the right people.
You can master anything.
Speaker 1 (30:56):
I think that's great advice and I wish it's advice
I'd known when I was in my firstyear taking a physics class
that I was struggling with a lot.
Speaker 2 (31:02):
Well, it's more like pep talk than advice.
Good pep talk then.
Speaker 1 (31:06):
But no, it's a bright kid.
I'd done well at school andhere I was sort of floundering
around in first year physics andI just kind of got a few things
in my head about, you know, theimportance of asking for help,
maybe persevering a bit longer,being a bit more patient in that
phase of being stuck.
I've had a very differentexperience of that, I think.
Speaker 2 (31:24):
Yeah, a little bit.
That concerns me about thiswith some students and this is
just unfortunate.
You'll have those struggles anddecide you know, I just don't
like this or I can't do this,and then that becomes a
self-fulfilling prophecy,because you put in less effort,
do you think?
Speaker 1 (31:36):
what's the point?
Speaker 2 (31:36):
Absolutely, and I'm telling all my students that
I've worked with.
It's like please don't saysomeone else is talented because
that someone else just workedhard for it, and don't say you
can't do something because youcan Simply say you don't want to
do something.
Make a decision, but when youdecide you want something, you
go after it.
Find the tools that arerequired to excel and persevere
(31:59):
until you get there.
And it's going to be a struggle, because things that are worth
working for often are a struggle, but using the right tools to
get there are critical too.
Speaker 1 (32:08):
And when it comes to physics, see chapter six of
Study Like a Champ.
Speaker 2 (32:13):
There you go and see your instructor too, right?
Speaker 1 (32:16):
Yes.
So this is great.
We got a little bit of mindsetsort of attitude, pep talk as
well thrown in, which iswonderful.
I think that's great, greatadvice.
There are a few potentiallyquite quick fire little things I
wanted to put to you, john.
So these are things that I hearstudents asking, I see students
using.
Some of them might have aslight more of a kind of a UK
bent than a US bent, so they maybe a little bit less familiar,
(32:38):
but you know, they're thingsthat I hear people talking about
all the time and they're not inyour list of 10.
So I wanted to sort of put themto you and just get a kind of
quick reaction on something weshould be doing, something we
need to be a bit careful of,where it kind of falls or jurors
still out.
Yet that could be an option too.
So the first one on the list iswatching videos.
Youtube's hugely popular.
Is it something we should bedoing as part of our learning
strategy?
Speaker 2 (32:58):
Why not?
Why not?
Okay, the difficulty with that?
It's almost like reading Sure,you should read, but reading or
watching a video doesn't meanlearning the content of the
video.
So if you're watching somethingjust to initially get intrigued
, engaged, excited, and thenyou're going to go off and do
more, awesome Right.
But if it's that video has thecontent that a student needs to
(33:19):
learn, then the concern is thatthey watch a video because it
was engaging, feel like, well, Iknow that content and then
never come back to it, right.
So if the content really is inthat video, then really watching
a video is just like watching alecture.
You need to take appropriatenotes, go back to those notes
and study them Again.
The one caveat there when weinterview lots of students,
(33:41):
college students about how theyinteract with online videos,
they tend to say they don't takenotes and they don't go back to
watch them again.
So, absolutely, let's usevideos anything that can help
you bolster your comprehension,your understanding, your
excitement, but don't do thatexclusively.
If that's what you need tolearn, you still have to take
(34:02):
notes and go back and reallymaster the content.
Speaker 1 (34:04):
Test yourself on those notes and make sure you
can remember the key points,yeah, great.
So my last one was going to bedual coding.
And just to give a little bitof a context to this, I don't
know if you've come across thethe learning scientists project,
the podcast and the blog, andcertainly here in the uk that's.
That's been quite influentialin schools and they present six
evidence-based learningstrategies.
That was sort of their originalthing, the six strategies.
And to be fair to them, youknow they'd be the first to say,
(34:27):
well, it's not like there'ssort of six strategies and like
they're all born equal.
They'd probably say quite asimilar thing to yourself in
that, you know, if you're goingto start somewhere, start with
retrieval practice and spacing.
They're not six equallyimportant, equally good study
strategies.
There are two that form sort ofthe main backbone.
Those are space practice andretrieval practice.
(34:50):
Ah, I knew it.
That was Jude Weinstein-Jonesthere, one of the co-founders of
the Learning Scientist Projects, in a clip from when she was on
the podcast back in episode 45,if you're interested in
catching up with the rest ofthat interview with her, forgive
me sliding that littleinterjection in.
I just thought it added areally nice bit of relevant
colour to what we were justsaying there.
(35:10):
Okay, back to my question forJohn.
So there's quite a lot ofoverlap between their six and
and your 10, particularly thebetter half of the 10.
But one thing I noticed kind ofit isn't there and I've always
been a little bit unsure myselfon my own views on this one is
is the idea of dual coding?
So for for listeners, you know,this is the idea that when you
see a picture or graphicalrepresentation and see a
(35:32):
description in words at the sametime, that helps you learn.
That's the duality that dualcoding is referring to words and
some kind of pictorialgraphical representation.
What's your view on where dualcoding fits into the world?
Speaker 2 (35:45):
well, dual quoting definitely can have a positive
impact.
I mean, it's similar to anytimeyou have multiple
representations of somethingyou're trying to learn.
Now you have internallymultiple representations that
you can then use to reconstructyour understanding of something.
So if you have a pictorialrepresentation, a verbal
representation stored in memory,then you have two routes to
(36:07):
success, so to speak.
So, that said, as you know,getting that dual coding is the
difficult part, right?
So if you're someone, forinstance, as we mentioned
earlier, that doesn't generateinternal images, that well, it's
going to right.
There's only one code for you.
There's not a dual code, so tospeak.
And sometimes it's not clearwhat kinds of mental
(36:27):
representations to develop.
Right, that is exactly what Ishould be generating when I'm
doing this.
Note also that textbooks thatstudents interact with
occasionally have that pictorialrepresentation is not meant to
help their understanding, but ismeant to help them be
interested in the topic.
(36:47):
It's called a seductive detail.
It's not really for the content.
Those can be distracting.
It gives you a sense of a dualcoding, because I have a visual
representation and I have someverbal, but in this case the
verbal representation couldactually undermine students'
understanding.
So that dual coding, they kindof need.
None of these strategies arefoolproof.
Not one strategy will alwayslead to success.
(37:21):
So it's kind of a combinationof all of them that students
will need to rely on as they'reworking themselves toward
getting the grades they want inschool and to learn the content
they care.
And no, not getting straightA's the grades they want,
because I really want studentsto be motivated to achieve their
own goals that they developright, that they're managing
(37:42):
their time to obtain.
That's how we develop a reallymotivated and good student.
Speaker 1 (37:47):
I love how, for so many of our questions, you
answer the question and go on.
Then there's some otherwonderful point to make, and
it's all great.
Speaker 2 (37:54):
Do you mean I just go on babbling?
William, I mean great.
Speaker 1 (37:56):
No, no, no, not at all.
I get a two for one everyquestion I ask.
There's another great piece ofadvice that I hadn't even asked
for, which is wonderful.
I love it.
I love it, john, thank you somuch.
You've been incredibly generousand I'm so grateful for you
sharing a generous taste of yourimmense wisdom and expertise on
this topic.
Tell us where do we go to findout more?
So, if we want to go and readthe book or learn more about
(38:18):
sort of your work, where wouldyou point people to?
Speaker 2 (38:21):
Well, first, thanks for having me on board today.
This has just been a blast,Quite frankly.
I think really this forstudents out there, either
students in college, high schoolstudents, folks who are
lifelong learners, I like to sayit.
But I'd pick up the book that Ico-authored with Regan Garung
called Study Like a Champ.
It's really inexpensive.
It gets right to the point.
We talk right to students.
(38:41):
Each chapter is about to do onething.
We don't hit you with a hundreddifferent strategies, we just
talk about a couple things thatreally work well.
So I'd pick that up, peruse itand, you know, go from there.
Speaker 1 (38:53):
Great book and we'll drop the link to that in the
show notes.
John, thank you so much onceagain for coming on.
This has been so much fun andwishing you all the best.
Glad I was here.
Well, thanks again, john.
We're really glad you were heretoo.
If you've enjoyed today'sepisode, please share it with
your friends, colleagues or yourown students, if you are an
educator yourself.
Just before I sign off, hereare a couple of ways you can get
(39:16):
more from the world of ExamStudy Expert to help you study
smarter.
Firstly, if you yourself havegot exams coming up, you can
download my little cheat sheetwith some of my favourite ideas
for learning smarter the sixpillars of exam success.
You'll find that atexamstudyexpertcom forward slash
pillars.
That's a great starting pointor checklist of top ideas to
(39:38):
help you get ready for the exam.
That's at examstudyexpertscomforward slash pillars.
Alternatively, if you are ateacher or educator listening
today and want to help get yourstudents studying smarter,
there's a couple of things I canoffer for you too.
Firstly, you can download afree lesson resource pack to
teach your students all aboutretrieval practice and how to
(39:59):
use it well.
That's at examstudyexpertscomforward slash retrieval hyphen
lesson.
Secondly, if you'd like tomeasure the effectiveness of
study strategy at your school,you can head to
examstudyexpertscom forwardslash, revision, hyphen, census
and to learn more about how totake part in our research
project that surveyed over50,000 students on their study
(40:24):
strategy.
You get some nice insights andrecommendations, and it's even
free to participate in For now.
Thank you so much for listeningtoday.
It's been such a pleasure tohave your company for such a
great episode today too.
I just want to wish you everysuccess, as always, in your
exams.
Speaker 3 (40:41):
Wasn't that wonderful .
If you're feeling inspired, whynot leave us a rating and a
review in your podcast app?
It would make our day.
Thanks again for listening andsee you soon.
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