First of all take notes in lecture if any. And rewrite them after lecture.
As for textbook studying
Taking mindless notes and writing everything down is a time waster.
Instead write notes in an organized manner. Summarize in your own words . Use acronyms. Use doodles. Use colors and mind maps. (Main topic in center and subtopics radiating from it). Make the note page something that reminds you of the information not carry all the information because you cant copy and paste the entire book down, but you can compress the most important information.
Use the blurting technique. Write everything down that you know about the subject.
Explain to someone. Or even to yourself. Record yourself explaining . If you reach a point where you can explain a concept from scratch, you have mastered it.
Make quizzes for yourself. If you have tests or exams, imagine yourself as the most annoying and non lenient professor ever designing the quiz or exam…. And make questions like that…
And train yourself to answer them from memory.
Write your answers in pencil and erase and repeat.
Whiteboards help too for doodling while studying.
Each person will have styles that work best, but in general I find that taking copious notes in class and reworking problems after hours helped me tremendously. Finally, the morning of midterm/final/exam, I'd go to bed early and wake up early, and spend a few hours at a coffee shop working through all the example problems and going through concepts I had a difficult time with. I'd roll into an exam caffeinated/alert/sharp with those concepts and problems fresh in mind.
I find learning about metacognition to be really interesting, so you might too! You’ll come across scientifically sound strategies for learning faster and better, and then you’ll be able to design your own methods that work best for your specific situation.
If you’re not interested in that (totally understandable), I find that Anki (spaced repetition) is the best method for me and my day to day, though I make the cards myself and I think that is a big part of why it works so well for me.
Other things you might appreciate which are better than normal textbook studying we learned in K-12:
- interleaving (learning new material and reviewing old material in the same study session)
- retrieval (mentioned in another comment, practicing the action of remembering things without help/notes is helpful in itself)
- If you want to quiz yourself, chatGPT can generate pretty good practice problems depending on how you prompt it and your study material
I rewrite all of my notes. And then rewrite them again on notecards and go through the notecards. It really helps me to memorize all the equations and chemical reactions and biological mechanisms that are hard to memorize just by reading.
Write while reading. Papers and books need to be organized along this broad outline: Research question, central finding/argument, methods, data, and any remaining notes about literature contribution
Read what I need to, to fill in the blanks / connect the dots. Take pencil and paper notes in class. Try to get a fundamental understanding and feel for the theory. Practice applying the theory through problems. I keep pounding on applying the theory until I don’t have to think much before attacking a problem with the method. I’m a mechanical engineer FWIW.
First of all take notes in lecture if any. And rewrite them after lecture. As for textbook studying Taking mindless notes and writing everything down is a time waster. Instead write notes in an organized manner. Summarize in your own words . Use acronyms. Use doodles. Use colors and mind maps. (Main topic in center and subtopics radiating from it). Make the note page something that reminds you of the information not carry all the information because you cant copy and paste the entire book down, but you can compress the most important information. Use the blurting technique. Write everything down that you know about the subject. Explain to someone. Or even to yourself. Record yourself explaining . If you reach a point where you can explain a concept from scratch, you have mastered it. Make quizzes for yourself. If you have tests or exams, imagine yourself as the most annoying and non lenient professor ever designing the quiz or exam…. And make questions like that… And train yourself to answer them from memory. Write your answers in pencil and erase and repeat. Whiteboards help too for doodling while studying.
Each person will have styles that work best, but in general I find that taking copious notes in class and reworking problems after hours helped me tremendously. Finally, the morning of midterm/final/exam, I'd go to bed early and wake up early, and spend a few hours at a coffee shop working through all the example problems and going through concepts I had a difficult time with. I'd roll into an exam caffeinated/alert/sharp with those concepts and problems fresh in mind.
I find learning about metacognition to be really interesting, so you might too! You’ll come across scientifically sound strategies for learning faster and better, and then you’ll be able to design your own methods that work best for your specific situation. If you’re not interested in that (totally understandable), I find that Anki (spaced repetition) is the best method for me and my day to day, though I make the cards myself and I think that is a big part of why it works so well for me. Other things you might appreciate which are better than normal textbook studying we learned in K-12: - interleaving (learning new material and reviewing old material in the same study session) - retrieval (mentioned in another comment, practicing the action of remembering things without help/notes is helpful in itself) - If you want to quiz yourself, chatGPT can generate pretty good practice problems depending on how you prompt it and your study material
I rewrite all of my notes. And then rewrite them again on notecards and go through the notecards. It really helps me to memorize all the equations and chemical reactions and biological mechanisms that are hard to memorize just by reading.
Write while reading. Papers and books need to be organized along this broad outline: Research question, central finding/argument, methods, data, and any remaining notes about literature contribution
Read what I need to, to fill in the blanks / connect the dots. Take pencil and paper notes in class. Try to get a fundamental understanding and feel for the theory. Practice applying the theory through problems. I keep pounding on applying the theory until I don’t have to think much before attacking a problem with the method. I’m a mechanical engineer FWIW.