Teachers teach, but only the learner (schoolboy, high school student or student) can learn. Teaching and learning are not synonymous and learning is necessarily personal. So how can you be sure that you know and master a course well? The more we multiply the ways of learning, the more we memorize easily. Checking understanding and memorization of a lesson or course can involve:
Recite without the notebook in front of you
When a learner keeps his lesson in view while reciting, even if it is just to look at a word from time to time, then this learner does not really check that he has learned well. Indeed, these few words play the role of contextual clues for memory: the problem is that these clues will not be present on the day of the test and the learner risks realizing during know a course? the evaluation that he had impression of knowing… but that he does not know in reality. Practicing to transcribe ideas in personal words ensures that a concept is sufficiently mastered to be able to explain it in a coherent, understandable and exhaustive way.
Reciting can be done in written or oral form, by heart or with one’s own words according to the teacher’s requirements. Another way to check if you have forgotten something is to write down the keywords, the formulas, the definitions to know or the dates to know by heart. A confrontation with the course will verify what is misunderstood or forgotten.
Use memory in a variety of ways
The memory is all the more powerful when it is made to work in a varied way, in particular by associating images and text . For example: reading a book and creating a diagram or mind map , watching a documentary and taking notes while watching.
It can be useful to give an order to the ideas (for example by taking up the titles and subtitles of the course). To progress, you have to reorganize the ideas present in the lessons and not just present them as they were arranged by the teacher. Appropriating the content of the course, remodeling it, acting on the form makes it possible to ensure that you understand it deeply.
You can also train from an example to learn a rule, then do the opposite: state the rule and find another example in order to multiply the examples.
Create links between each piece of information
It is effective to create the maximum number of associations between different courses. For example, linking a French course on the great authors of the Enlightenment, and history courses on the French Revolution. It is important to force yourself to make connections between information that is sometimes far from each other, whether it is from one chapter to another in the same subject, from one subject to another or even outside of the subjects studied in class.
Move to make the information exist in the head
It is possible to practice imagining emotions or movements in the head, and even to really move, by mimicking a scene, by creating a memory palace or by creating gestures associated with notions to be learned (as does to open the arms to materialize the degrees of the angles in geometry).
Understand and analyze errors
An effective learner takes into account the remarks written on his exercises done in class and on his evaluations. It is also useful to compare copies with classmates to determine what type of errors are being made and how to correct them.
In any case, it is important to redo the exercises carried out in class and correct them, and even to do additional exercises (such as those in the annals of the Brevet or the baccalaureate).
Human memory associates the context, place and time when information is learned, and the information itself. This means that a learner can know his lesson at home, and not remember it in class. When you learn, it is therefore essential to imagine yourself using the information later. For example, imagining yourself in control or explaining your lesson to someone else