STUDYING TIPS FOR MEDICAL STUDENTS

 

Studying has never been easy for anyone especially in this modern world where we all have smart phones and the internet. It isn’t easy to stay focused when we know we could be doing something more fun. Today we are going to give you study tips that have been very effective in saving millions of educational careers.

 So lets dive into it.

The first technique is preparation

Preparation means, you don’t start studying without a plan, most people  spend hours trying to organize the study material, wasting much need time and  energy and attention, that could have been used for a  productive study session.

 So before you start studying, earlier on prepare what you going to study, know the pages, set a goal  keep the reading materials on your desk so that once you sit down,   you start studying without distractions. Without the need to stand up for anything.

 put a glass of water on your table, so that you don’t have the need to stand up for anything, once you put yourself in study mood and don’t let anything break that concentration. Resist the need to take breaks because this could be  a distraction, a planned  5 minutes break can turn to a 15 minutes break and a 15 minutes to a 50 minutes adventure . so get yourself in study mood and avoid things that would be distracting.

Number two

Is getting rid of your phone, completely, this is very important because, the most tempting product eve conceived is the smart phone, it has taken over our mind, we are more than addicted, every buzz and ring brings us and irresistible need to touch it, you go from instagram to facebook to snapchat to checking messages on whatsapp and you doing this, unconsciously, this could very distracting. So what I do is, I put my phone on flight mode and keep it right in front me so that I don’t feel, there is something special going on when I put it far away.

Number three

Set targets, not time limits.

Donbt look at the time, the mistake most people do is set time limits for their study sessions, this could be very good and effective in other situations but when it comes to getting work done, your limit should be getting work done. So if you are to read two textbooks, even if it takes you a year to finish it, sit down there. If it takes you two minutes, finish it and then leave.

The last tip I want to share is

Active recall.

Active Recall Theory and Evidence

 

Active recall involves retrieving information from memory through, essentially, testing yourself at every stage of the revision process. The very act of retrieving information and data from our brains not only strengthens our ability to retain information but also improves connections in our brains between different concepts.

Research from 2013 which analysed hundreds of separate studies about effective revision techniques, concluded that testing, or active recall, is a technique that has ‘high utility’ and can be implemented effectively with minimal training.

“On the basis of the evidence…we rate practice testing as having high utility. Testing effects have been demonstrated across an impressive range of practice-test formats, kinds of material, learner ages, outcome measures, and retention intervals. Thus, practice testing has broad applicability”.

These studies from 1939 and 2010 provide valuable verification of the effectiveness of active recall but it was a study from 2011 that I found particularly convincing.

In that study, the researchers split students into 4 groups with each student tasked with learning the same material before being tested on what they learnt. However, each group was given different instructions and parameters for learning the content.

- The first group would read the material only once.

- The second group would read the material four times.

- The third group would read the material then were told to make a mind map.

- The fourth group would read the material once, then recall as much as possible.

In both the verbatim test – when asked to recall facts – as well as the inference test – when asked to recall concepts – the active recall group significantly outperformed the other groups.

This study shows that testing yourself just once is more effective than rereading a chapter four times. I'm sure we’ve all used rereading at some point but simply through testing yourself once you could drastically improve the efficacy and efficiency of your studies. This is such a simple technique but has such substantial, obvious benefits that we would be foolish to not use it!

Perhaps the reason we don't like to use active recall is that it's more difficult and mentally taxing than rereading. But the key point is revision should be cognitively demanding! It’s useful to think about this in terms of going to the gym – if you’re lifting weights that are light, you’re not going to make much progress but if you’re lifting weights that test your strength, you’re more likely to develop muscle faster. It’s the same with developing the ‘muscle’ of your brain - the harder we have to work to retrieve information, the more effective our brains will become in storing and recalling that information in the future.

 

The strategies

The first one ofcourse is closed book

This basically means you first read a book and then closed it and then try to write eeverthing you recall from what you read, that is way better then, writing as form of study. When you are just passively studying.

This helps  you to understand the areas you didn’t understand  and you pay more attention to it, when  you are rereading for the second time.

Asking yourself questions while gets you’re your brain actively involved and its better than passive reading.

 

 

The second strategy, is getting  study group

      Study groups are the best or worst thing that could happen to your school life, if you find yourself a group of people that focused and you discuss the topic as a group, you would end up not just learning but also sending your short term knowledge to your long term memory.

      Finding a friend to argue with is also an added advantage, you never forget your arguments do you, this would really really help you to recall some concepts that are difficult to memories.

 

 

The last strategy is coffee

Where would science be without coffee,

take coffee to help stay alert and focussed, don’t abuse it, and don’t  b fall reliant on this energy booster.

So guys, that is it for today’s video, if you loved this video,  please subscribe and if you are interest in any of the above study tips, please comment  and we would make a better video on that. Please subscribe. And see you next time.