We are lucky to live in this modern time where learning anything is much more accessible, thanks to the internet. Platforms like Udemy, Pluralsight, Skillshare, and Youtube allow us to learn just about anything from the comfort of our homes. But how do we make online learning more effective?
Let’s apply the most effective evidence-based study techniques to online studying.
- Active Recall
- Spaced repetition
Active recall is simply trying to retrieve some information from your memory. If you can’t recall it, you can read it again to refresh it in your memory. Flashcards are the traditional way of practicing active recall. For example, if you want to improve your English vocabulary, you can make flashcards with words written on one side of the card and their meaning along with an example sentence written on the other side. You take your flashcards and try to remember the meaning of the word “rhetoric”, for example. If you can recall it, that’s great. But if you can’t, just turn over the flash card and check the meaning.
Spaced repetition is simply repeating active recall on spaced intervals. Doing so will help achieve 100% memory retention for newly learned information. If you try to recall something daily or at least two or three times a week, your brain will eventually store that information permanently.
That is active recall and spaced repetition in a nutshell. And this is how I practice it while doing an online course. On Udemy there is a built-in feature that allows us to take notes while watching video lectures. The built-in feature also saves a timestamp where we took the note. We can later review our notes and click the timestamp to go back to that specific time that note was taken. So in the lecture video when an important concept comes up, I click the “note” button and write a question about the concept. This way I create a list of questions for myself to practice active recall later.
For Youtube and other platforms which do not have a built-in note-taking feature, you can simply write questions in your favorite note-taking app (Apple notes, OneNote, Notion, etc) and also copy and paste the link to that lecture along with the timestamp where that question is answered.
This simple technique has proven to be very effective for me and has made online learning easier. There is no need to take written notes the traditional way. The information is available in that video for us to go back to at any time. Instead of re-writing that information in a notebook, burn it into your permanent memory by writing questions and actively recalling the information at spaced intervals.
Note:- Active Recall and Spaced Repetition help with the retention of learned information. But I am also a strong believer in understanding concepts instead of just memorizing them. If you can’t teach it to others, you didn’t learn it correctly.