While in Britain last month I stayed with my good friend Sarah and her husband Nick from university days. It was so good to see them, we talked long into the night reminiscing, and howling with laughter about our long-gone student days.
Long-gone that was until the next morning when Sarah calmly dispatched her two children for school and then got her own student bag ready. She had just started on another degree, biomedicine this time. The course had started the previous week, and off she went on her bike to uni. It was a serious case of deja vu. A much more polished and sophisticated student than in our heyday, more Grazia than grunge. I was bowled over with total admiration.
"How the hell can you remember anything? Are they not all running rings around you with their laptops and blue tooth whatnots and tablets and, let's face it, their youth?! I can barely remember to buy milk some days without the use of a Post-it note. How are you going to remember a whole new degree?"
Sarah's answer surprised me. Her fellow students are low-tech learning - in the lecture halls with note pad and pen, old school style. Apparently in a "how to learn" seminar the previous week they had been told that the best way to absorb and actually commit study to memory was to write it down longhand. Studies had shown those who were typing notes into a tablet or laptop had far lower retention. There is something critical in the connection between hand and brain that significantly improves memory and ease of recall. So for success, the strategy is out with the tablets and back in with the humble pen.
So that's my first tip for you this week. Go old-school learning. Park the PC and make notes longhand. You have an increased likelihood of recalling the right facts if you do.
