3 Active Studying Strategies to Help Students Take Ownership of Their Learning
When it comes to middle school, high school, and college, it’s so important for kids to begin the process of taking ownership of their study sessions. Passive studying (like reviewing notes) is not sufficient for most learners. Instead, it’s critical that students learn strategies to actively engage with the material they’re trying to learn so they can truly master it. Active learning involves using the material and applying it rather than simply rote memorization or review.
But My Child Says They Don’t Need to Know This Subject
Many students see certain subjects as “pointless” if they don’t directly apply to the career path they want to follow. While having this background knowledge is so important for many fields, it’s also ok to tell them that they’re right.
Yes, you’ll have Google for the rest of your life to help you remember the periodic table if you ever have a need. But you’ll also have a job or responsibilities that require you to learn new skills, manage time, and master content.
School is preparation for learning in real life (when you don’t have the luxury of do-overs or test retakes). So whether it’s biology or your company’s policy handbook, you need to know how to study and learn efficiently to set yourself up for success. School is a practice ground for finding the ways that you can manage your time and responsibilities, and sometimes that looks like studying things you wouldn’t need to know otherwise.
Here are 3 Active Studying Strategies to Try With Any Subject:
Mind Mapping
This is the process of creating a visual “map” of the content around a central point. You can do this on paper (but it can get messy as you add more details), so we recommend using an online system like this to help it stay clean and organized.
The goal here is to create a visual dumping ground where you can organize and collect ideas. A helpful plan of attack would be to:
- Preview the material before class and build a rough starting point for your map (central idea and 2-4 sub-topics)
- During class, take notes based on these sub-topics and notice how things fit together or where you need to change your structure
- Following class, add to your mindmap based on your notes
- Add in any other important details from readings, assignments, or projects completed on the topic
Your goal is that you should be able to accurately recreate the mind map before a test—without looking at it! Many online systems will also allow you to print your mind map with blanks for easy studying and review.
Teaching & Creating a Test
Being able to teach content shows true mastery. Have your student prepare to teach you (or a sibling or friend or classmate, etc.) about a particular topic they’re about to be tested on. Be a tough student and ask lots of questions to see if they truly understand and can apply the concepts (and write down any questions they can’t answer for them to research later).
After their “lesson,” let them give you a test. Having them write a test with a variety of different types of questions can help them apply and manipulate the content in a way that just passive reviewing of materials would not.
If you have friends or neighbors in your student’s class, this is a great thing for them to work on together to collaboratively build confidence with materials.
Just Do It!
For subjects like math and foreign languages, using the material is the best way to study it. Don’t just “look over” math problems ahead of a test—do them! Assembling a “practice set” of certain types of problems or questions to complete weekly and also right before a test can give you an easy way to prepare and master the content.
Don’t just “review your notes” before a Spanish exam. Have a conversation or use tools like this one to give you active practice opportunities.
Studying Struggles Point to Cognitive Weaknesses
If your child struggles to manage time, follow through on studying, or remember what they’ve learned, it could be because they have cognitive skill weaknesses holding them back. Struggles with executive functions like working memory, self-control, and time management are a piece of the puzzle. But even beyond those are skills like attention, processing speed, logic, and more that could make it more difficult for your child to engage with materials and successfully master them on their own.
At LearningRx, we offer a Study Skills training program that takes these cognitive factors into consideration to help build your child’s brain capacity for learning while giving practical strategies to become a successful independent learner.
