Revise intelligently

There are many of you out there who are unable to come out of their stress and depression, having failed either their 10th Board exam or their 2nd PU.  Many young people will register to retake the exams, but in my opinion they are likely to repeat their failure because of their inability to cope with exam anxiety, stress and a planned approach to revision. The last minute cramming for exams is the worst thing you can do.  It adds to stress and you are unlikely to receive good marks because you will not be able to remember much of what you crammed; it takes planning and self-discipline, not burning the midnight oil, to avoid cold sweats and poor grades.  It makes much more sense to start the revision in plenty of time. When revising for exams, you firstly need to be aware of your learning style when you revise.  Are you a visual learner? Visual learners need to make Mind Maps – and rewrite their notes and key points in such a format.  The use of colour sketch pens, or coloured ink pens enables visual learners to create high quality Mind Maps which stick in the mind. They need to draw sketches and diagrams to enable them to internalise facts. For visual learners, just reading the text book does not work! If you are an auditory leaner, you need to read your notes out loud.  Listen to your own voice.  Record yourself on cassette or CD and make yourself read the key points of your notes. Then play back and listen to the notes. Play them over and over again.  Then see if you can make written notes without the aid of the tape. Auditory learners benefit from revision with another student and discussing the key points.  Sing a rap song of the main points or link them to a tune which is simple to follow. Some students are readers and writers. They need to write and feel themselves kinaesthetically using the writing movement, plus reading it at the same time; combined with re-reading and editing. If you fall into this category – copy out the notes, read the notes silently, rewrite the key points, then rewrite the key points using different words and finally cover up the notes and write down the key points from memory. Some students are hyperactive. They need to be active whilst learning. They would benefit from walking around a room reading their notes, writing down lists and then revising the lists when doing physical activity, mentally reviewing what they have been revising whilst swimming or jogging.

Learning Styles: The Cognitive Side of Content Johnny Holland ...

From 5 senses to 3 modalities

We experience the world through our senses. While we know from grade school that there are 5 senses, psychologists have distilled these into 3 “sensory modalities” relevant to learning: verbal, visual, and kinesthetic. Though everyone learns through all three modes, we each favor one over the others, resulting in three different styles of learning:

Verbal learners enjoy hands-on activities involving movement (think dancing, pottery, woodwork). While kinesthetic learning is minimally involved in desktop computing, it plays a much more significant role in gestural and mobile interfaces, a discussion best saved for another article. Dual Coding Theory

While our sensory modes courier outside stimuli into our brains, their role is much more pervasive than simple conduits. Once we acquire new knowledge, our brains encode that information onto our long-term memory in the vernacular of our sensory modes. In other words, our brains use two different formats for text and images, just like a computer.

But because verbal and visual concepts are stored separately, translating a semantic idea into a visual concept is a taxing, though ubiquitous process. When someone tells you driving directions, for instance, you probably construct a simple visual map in your mind. If you’re putting together a bookshelf using Ikea’s pictogram instructions, on the other hand, your mind works to decode those images into verbal steps of what to do next.

Dual Coding Theory , developed by Allan Paivio in the 1970s, unearthed an important discovery: people learn best when information is presented in two modalities at the same time. That is, providing a verbal and a visual explanation in parallel enables the mind to encode information in both modes as well as to build referential links (similar to hyperlinks on the web) between the two representations. Paivio’s research has profound implications upon designing websites that maximize learning.

Creating content for verbal and visual learners

Long-form articles are back in vogue. UXers love advocating calmer reading experiences while services like Instapaper and Readability help us compile and consume our own digital magazines. But as you read these words on your Kindle from the comfort of your favorite chair, millions of people around the world are frantically looking for information at this very instant, and they want it now! Learning styles and dual coding theory deliver a resounding message: pithy content is more important than ever before.