“I just don’t get this!” is a cry for help from a student of any age. Here is the first thing about the learning process – if you don’t get it you won’t remember it and you won’t learn it. A student must understand a concept, in their own words, to be able to learn it.
So, the first step to learning something effectively is to understand it and if you don’t understand it then ask your teacher or instructor to explain it another way. You will not be the only person not understanding and it is your teacher’s job to see that you do understand.
Once you think you understand it then write it out in your own words, this will help to put it into short term memory. This is where most students stop and then wonder why they can’t remember material. Short term is good for a few minutes, hours or days, after that it is gone. You must take the next step to move it into long term memory.
Recitation (saying something repeatedly) has been proved to be the most effective way of placing information into long term memory. And by long term I am talking about a lifetime. Reading something quietly repeatedly to yourself or writing it down several times is not as effective as reading the material, in your own words, repeatedly ALOUD.
By Peter Kenyon: Tutor
One kid called Danoah was all alone in a mysterious dark place. He saw zombies roaming towards him and the sound was like this: brrrrr. He ran as fast as he could, and then he saw a warrior and the warrior saved Danoah by chasing away the zombies with his enchanted diamond sword. Danoah went on his way and climbed the ladder to heaven and asked the Shining Spirit, “Why did you make all the zombies?” The Shining One said “you must not take the mysterious dark path again.
On Christmas eve in the foyer of a hotel there was a Christmas tree and in the tree, there was a koala. She had a baby, and nobody knew they were there, but they didn’t know where they were. The mummy koala tried to find where she was, but she nearly got stood on by a girl in black pants and high heels. She finally made it out of the hotel foyer and she ran back to the forest where there were lots of trees. She wished the hotel with the Christmas tree was further away from her forest.
Ryan the Rhino had one mission in life and that was to become an undercover member of Charlie’s Angels. The problem was he couldn’t shoot a gun, he was too big and he was not agile on his feet at all. At the Charlie’s Angels course, the gun slipped from his hand and when he bent down, a huge crack meant he had a tear in his pants and the whole class cracked up. His cheeks flamed bright red and he stomped out of the room, which showed the Angels that he was not light on his feet. A trainer said to him, “Ryan, I’m sorry but you can’t be an angel”, but Ryan never gave up his dream of joining Charlie.
One day, an extremely brave bilby determinedly dug a burrow in front of a fox. The black and brown bilby kept digging and digging and so did the fox but the bilby was too hard to catch. After two hours, the bilby’s burrow suddenly reached the end and, although the bilby didn’t know it, he had reached the edge of the earth. He made a quick move and covered his head with his ears and then he flew off into space. That day the brave bilby was the first astronaut bilby in the world.
When the sun was just setting, Evad, the horsefly felt a tingling in his wings because it happened every sunset. Within seconds, he turned into a magical, black horse with red eyes and wings. Every night Evad flew over the city looking for a boy called Adam who was trapped in a nasty orphanage. As he was about to land, he spotted the orphanage and he flew down to it and there was Adam, sleeping on a dirty old blanket as Evad peeked through the window. Evad gently taped on the window and Adam woke up and the boy leapt on the horse’s back and Evad felt a tingle on his back as the sun began to rise and they rose into the sunrise.
Jack was happily in his secret basement on Monday morning. Jack’s superhero name was Night Fighter and he was cooking breakfast until … beep! beep! Beep! … “Oh No!” the city was in trouble. Night Fighter suited up and flew to the city to see his old enemy called Death Shot had escaped. Night Fighter put his knockout darts in his gun and waited until he saw the T-Rex looking straight at him. Suddenly he wished he had stayed at home in his secret basement.
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