hello old friend welcome back to the channel now there are plenty of learning techniques out there and i'm sure over the course of your life you've experienced this when you're trying to learn something the odds are that the only thing you do is read and re-read your textbook till you feel like you've memorized all of the information that you need or you incessantly take notes because you think that when you write stuff in your own language you're more likely to remember it and sure this can work to a certain extent but there's only one study
technique that i've used from high school all the way to grad school because i believe that it's the most bulletproof way to absorb information and store it into your brain and it's called active recall before we get into this extraordinary technique don't forget to leave me a thumbs up for the youtube algorithm and subscribe if you're new i'd love to keep sharing cool stuff like this with you every single week all right let's get to it active recall takes advantage of the psychological testing effect and is extremely effective in incorporating long-term memory into your learning
in fact there's been plenty of research conducted that has shown this technique to be the most effective and efficient way to study for any factual or problem solving test neurologically the active recall technique even takes advantage of our neocortex's ability to use information to build new memories the reason i love this so much is because it doesn't require any kind of training or skill and all you have to do is slightly adjust your study process simply put active recall incorporates active learning where in order to truly learn a new piece of information you need to
somehow trick your brain into working on it activating new neural pathways and building new connections so how does this whole thing work the first step is to review your materials you can't recall something you don't know so take the time to learn and understand whatever it is that you're studying the second step is you guessed it to recall the information that you learned now here's where this is unique you're solely drawing on your memory to remember the information that means no referring to your notes or your textbook this will be a bit of a struggle
because we don't often practice how to actually commit information to our memory this is the point where many people tend to give in to the struggle and refer back to their notes because your brain can't handle it but you need to remember that this is simply part of the training process your brain needs to know how to tap into its own memory stores stick around to the end of the video because i'll be telling you how to access your memory stores while studying by using a few practical approaches active recall takes the focus off of
ingesting the information and instead emphasizes revision and constant testing at every stage of your study process this works so much better than something like rereading a textbook or notes because constantly glancing at a study material gives you the illusion that you know the information because it's all laid out there for you it's this false sense of confidence that ends up getting you in trouble because you don't actually remember anything during a test that's why this is called passive learning if you aren't actively asking your brain to recall this information and testing yourself then you don't
actually know it at all active recall also helps us hack what's known as the forgetting curve which is essentially a curve that shows us how information in our brain is lost over time when we aren't actively seeking to retrieve it now there are a few key ways to tap into your brain's memory reserves when you're learning and revising and these are some of my favorites the first is through repeated testing this is when you repeatedly ask yourself questions about the material that you've studied and challenge your brain to retrieve information that it has stored this
practice essentially helps you move that information from your short-term memory because you just learned it and store it as long-term memory which you will remember the second is one that i've previously advocated for and that's the feynman technique which has an emphasis on simplifying information and recalling it by explaining it in the most simple way possible if you haven't seen my video for that i'll leave a card up top and leave a link right down below the like button as well the third and one of the more popular recall approaches is the use of flashcards
this is a great way to quiz yourself by memorizing facts or entire paragraphs of information it utilizes both the principles of active recall as well as a space repetition technique which i'll discuss further in another video so don't forget to subscribe so you don't miss that video down the line even though you might feel this is a fairly obvious and straightforward way to approach study a majority of people don't approach learning in this way and prefer to read and re-read their stuff because you know testing yourself and recalling information can be exhausting but that's the
whole point during a revision you're supposed to be asking your brain to repurpose that information even if it's demanding because it'll be trained to do so by the time you have your exam or test so even though you might often feel like you're well versed with a subject because you've read it a hundred times underline things and even made notes in your own language make no mistake that unless you're consciously seeking to retrieve that information and test yourself you may not be approaching learning and study in the most effective way possible that's it hope this
was helpful let me know in the comments below if you'd like me to make similar videos to this in the future feel free to check out another great video on learning right here or check out this playlist right here thanks for watching catch you next time peace
