do not fall into the numbers game trap don't do it the numbers game trap is believing that the more hours you spend studying the better your results will be and perhaps that will lend itself to success when you are in high school or prior to that but when you get into higher education and you go into these really difficult courses what happens is that you have more of them simultaneously and to think that you can spend more hours studying each of these classes is highly unre realistic you see techniques themselves strategies themselves have differences in utility utility meaning there are certain strategies that are more effective than others ones that have been more studied so why not spend your time using the ones that are more effective so that you can be more efficient with what you do and then you can open up more time for the things that you actually want to be doing my name is Jun Yu if you're new to the channel welcome if you're returning welcome back my team had found this tier ranking for different common popular learning strategies and I thought that it would be really fun to rank these in order now that I'm looking at the screen I see that Ali abdal is going to be the productivity King so he's going to be that s-ranking that top one then we have great good average and met I'll be going in order and speaking through my thoughts my opinions on why I'm ranking it the way that I'm ranking and hopefully you'll be able to extract from this some strategies that you can apply immediately and then start to transform how you go about your studying because I promise you do not have to be spending so many hours every every single day with these low utility techniques I'm a Deans List biomedical engineering student getting both my bachelor and Masters simultaneously I'll be graduating here in 3 weeks and I'm so excited about it if I was to utilize low utility techniques for the six to8 class that I'm taking a term there's no way I would have survive so I hope you trust me on this and I hope you enjoy this video so the very first technique we'll just go right in order is teaching others and I think this is a great one to start let's go productivity King this is the best ranked I believe teaching others or the fan technique which is explaining the concepts as a fifth grader could understand it it is one of the best techniques especially for beginners to adopt why well if you've watched study videos if you've read any study papers if you've learned about it you understand that when you are trying to study when you are trying to learn something it doesn't happen on a piece of paper it happens because you're engaging in the right type of thought and when you tell somebody hey teach this concept to somebody that's never heard it before immediately they go through the process of simplifying they go through the process of reorganizing the information so it makes sense to somebody new it makes you think of analogies and examples that you can supplement that explanation with this type of reorganizing material this type of contextualizing it this type of application thought all of those are really high order thoughts that are going to help you in terms of comprehension and retention so I would rank the fan technique to be really one of the best techniques that you can apply it immediately encourages active recall and when you can take the type of engaged thought and then apply to some of these other techniques you'll be really really well off the second one is the Pomodoro Technique and I'm laughing because again I would highly recommend this the Pomodoro Technique traditionally is the 25 minutes of work with 5 minutes of break and then after you complete a series of pomodoros and you take a long break now although I don't use the 25 minutes anymore I use a little bit longer than that with 45 minutes or 55 minutes or perhaps sometimes even an hour I really do believe in the idea of chunking your sessions down I really do believe in shorter more intense intervals and I really do believe providing yourself the brakes is absolutely necessary for your ability to stay focused to have the energy and then to be able to actually get the results that you want out of your study sessions the pomodora technique is really really great for people that procrastinate a lot I talk about this all the time but when you procrastinate it's not because the task is overwhelming in itself it's because there's an underlying emotion behind that task that you're actively running away from and the best thing that you can do is to simplify it as much as possible and when you set yourself a bar of just 25 minutes of work perhaps you even do 20 minutes that's okay or even 15 minutes if you're really struggling with procrastination thinking about that is a lot easier than telling yourself you're going to study for 3 or 4 hours that day but what happens is two powerful things one you build confidence because now you actually did the thing that you promised you would do and two it builds positive momentum so your subsequent sessions are a lot easier to uh complete so your first 25 minute session might have had some friction towards it but your second your third your fourth you'll get in a Groove you'll get in a flow State and I believe that the pomodora technique or some version of it it doesn't have to be 25 minutes for you is a really effective tool to adopt the third one is going to be studying with music and I'm going to put that at good I do this I will always recommend music without any lyrics unless it's a low Focus type of task then and you want to enjoy your music sing along with it that's fine but if we're talking about deep work sessions and you know that most of our sessions here are going to be deep work because I want you to get the work done and then get out so you're not spending a whole load of time with it in that case choose music that doesn't have lyrics because whether you're conscious of it or not your mind will start to gravitate towards those lyrics and especially if there're songs that you really enjoy so if you find yourself dancing and you're singing along although it might be fun in that moment you're not actually making the most use out of that time right and you're extending that study session which I don't think you'll need to do so what I recommend is if you're going to go the lowii music route great if you're going to go with orchestra music great I've even heard people use soundtracks of different movies that they enjoy great but I would also recommend White Noise I found that to be really really helpful for myself I'll play that on the side and it does a really good job especially if you're in a scenario where your home life is really really loud now I would always when I was younger put on headphones but you know how there's always leakages of sound anyways if I put white nose noise in in the background it would take care of that background noise for me so I think that studying with music is good but I'm putting it at good because I find a lot of people do it with lyrics and then it becomes more ineffective then it becomes effective so I'm going to put that at tier good now I see rote learning I'm going to put that at me I won't waste my time here and talk about this but rot learning there's not really a place for it and I think that that's what we gravitate towards when we're younger and we're not exposed to the right type of learning strategies and what I mean by that is when you first look at a piece of information you think that all you have to do is just constantly repeat that one word and you think that doing this will provide you the retention the comprehension necessary to succeed and when you are in middle school or high school a lot of your exams are going to be pretty easy in the sense where they're going to be gradutation questions they're not going to require as much application contextualization synthesization of of new knowledge and with that you can get away with having very surface level information but when you get into higher education you're going to really require you to apply that knowledge in new context and that becomes really difficult when you're just rote learning and also rote learning is going to take a lot more time right so having the opportunity to create a learning system we talk about this all the time where you are setting yourself up for Success so what you do before class during class immediately after class for your revision there is no root learning that happens at all throughout that process what you're providing yourself is the context necessary is the relevance necessary is the constant application the challenging questions so then when you get to your revision have such a good foundation of knowledge that it's true knowledge like depth of knowledge versus just knowing the surface level and like a terminology definition right we want to go further than that so I'm going to rank that as math the next one on the list is rewatching lectures and I'm going to put that at tier average in most scenarios I wouldn't recommend this right because you are doubling the amount of work that you should be doing cuz you had watched the lecture first perhaps you went to class now you're watching a recording of it the way that you get away from this the way that you prevent this all together is through your priming sessions the reason why we lose a lot of information and the reason why we are not able to actually pay attention in class is because that information in class has no meaning to us it doesn't serve any function and that's why I tell you all the time to do the priming because when you set yourself up with a big picture understanding of the topic before going into your classes what do you do then all the details in class have meaning right they serve a function in that big picture so they're going to have relevance they're going to engage you more they're going to interest you more it's going to spark that little brain little shooting stars in your head where you're like yeah that makes sense to me that's something that I read before right that's what we want we want that light bulb moment to happen a lot of us don't do the priming sessions we go into our class we have no idea what the teacher's saying we have no idea what parts of this are important or not then we come out of it like yeah I don't remember anything in that class and then 2 weeks later we rewatch lectures because we realized yeah we are lost so you want to use the prime sessions to avoid this completely but rewashing lectures sometimes can be beneficial in the sense where if you're watching it on perhaps 1 and a half or 2x speed it's not going to take up as much of your time and maybe you are watching it for specific things that the professor had said that you might have missed out on cuz you were engaging in other types of thought that were more active and more High utility at that M moment like more relevant to you now you want to go back and remember exactly what the teacher had said for a specific context that's okay but let's try to stay away from as much as possible I thought it was better than rote learning so I'm putting this above it in the tier average let's look at the next one on the list which to space repetition I'm going to put this at the top tier again space repetition is the best way that you're going to combat the forgetting curve and we've talked about this a lot on this channel it's so important that you're getting multiple touches on material and practically what this will look like is you have shorter intervals when the material is still unfamiliar to you when still new to you and you have a not necessarily deep understanding of it then you're going to perhaps study it on the first day and then the third day and the fifth day but then as the information gets a little bit more relevant to you you have a better Baseline knowledge of it it becomes more familiar then you can space out the intervals wider and you're not spending as much time in each subsequent session that will really set yourself up well when it comes down for your revision where you're not going to be starting from scratch you actually retained a lot of the information and it's simple right just put a revision timetable for yourself a prospective one in the sense where before the tournament started you're you know the topics that are going to be taught cuz you have all the sby set it up for yourself you can make changes throughout the term but this way you know that you're getting multiple touches ahead of your exams you know that the retention is going to be a lot higher you know that you're not going to have to cram from scratch so I think that's a really really good one to utilize and I think that that's got to be at the top tier the next one on the list is active recall and that's definitely at the top of the list I won't harp on this for too long because we talk about it literally in every single study video that we bring up active recall is one of those learning strategies that have been so highly studied it focuses on the retrieval process instead of the encoding one or not just solely relying on the encoding one and it's really really great for your retention so it's the idea of can you consistently test yourself across your revision timetable for the material that you're being covered with in class and when you do that you do such a good job of identifying gaps of knowledge one that's one benefit two you do a really good job of consolidating the information that you do know as well so active recall test yourself constantly and I actually talk about this pretty differently than I think most I think active recall is a principle right and I think about active recall as that overlying principle and underneath it there are certain application points so when I talk about the fan technique when we have the teaching others as one that we T briefed on in the beginning I think that's an application of it when I think about the bluring method that's an application of it when I think about the practice test that's an application of it so use active recall it is such high utility in comparison to low utility techniques like rereading rewriting or anything of that sort so you should know that by now I feel like we talked about that enough uh but I can be more than happy to create an active recall video perhaps talking about some of the evidence towards it and then outlining the applications I just spoke about in more depth if that's of interest to you anky this is one that's going to probably be a little bit controversial um where do I put this I'm going to put this at I'll put it at good if if you're unfamiliar with this this is a digital flash card so uh it's similar to Quizlet and other types of apps like that now I'm putting this at go would because people literally love it this is like the bread and butter especially for a lot of Med students right because a lot of people have such good things to say about it and I've used Quizlet myself I've used these types of flashcards um applications myself and I think there's a place for them absolutely there is but you have to be very careful when you're using cued recall right and what is queued recall it's when you have a Q and you have a Target so the Q is the front of the flash card and the back of it as the target you will rarely be asked questions like that in real life that way in that format and especially even on exams especially from an engineering standpoint we're never asked questions that way we're never given a cue than a Target we're given different context new types of examples things that we've never seen before and then we have to synthesize the information that we had learned before and then try to apply it in that new example new context that is really hard to do when all you're doing is queued recall when all you're thinking about is a specific specific word and then immediately connecting that to just a definition or something that was on the back of that flash card for yourself I think there are more effective ways to do flashcards and I've seen this work before where it's not necessarily going to be a question answer it's not going to be a term and a definition but something a little bit more involved I've seen people that fully rely on flashcards for their methodology of studying and that becomes really problematic because when you get into higher education when you go into these types of really difficult exams and when you go into your professional career it's very rare that you'll be asked questions in that type of format so try to challenge yourself to not just utiliz flash cards they certainly have its place I think there are things that need to be remembered and can be really really helpful to do it with a flash card but a lot of the information requires a little bit high order thought um and in doing that I think that when you can challenge yourself to do that with some of the other study methods that we talked about with act recall applications you'll be better off the next one is online videos and I'm going to put put this at great I think online videos are really good of course you have to be very careful with where you're sourcing from and who you're watching and if it actually pertains to the topic and the way that you're going to be tested on it but I think what's great about online videos is that it's a different type of modality that you're learning from and so interleaving that we talk about a lot happens with when you inter leave the different topics together but also the modalities and changing that up is considered inter leaving and this can be really really beneficial and so let's say that you are utilizing the findan technique and that's you verbally explaining it to your friend right that's one modality of learning perhaps another one is you reading the textbook and you're doing the learning method but perhaps you want to gain a different type of perspective right and you're watching somebody explain the topic through a YouTube video or through an online video that doesn't explain it the exact way that your professor had and then perhaps that way is going to click for you more or at the very least it's going to contextualize the information a lot more for yourself and so you become well more well versed you know how to apply that knowledge in different scenarios so I think online videos are great I would just really caution you to watch ones that are going to be effective right don't just watch any random video If You Can scope the best ones in terms of the most credible sources you'll be really well off the next one on the list is question Banks and I'm going to put this at the very top if this is describing what I think question banks are and for me and I've talked about this in my learning system a lot in my notes during class I always take down active recall questions this is my attempt to take a step further than just simply rewriting what the professor is saying and asking myself why is this information important how can this information be connected to what we've learned in the past how can this information be tested and what types of examples can I find this type of information be applied in right when I ask myself those questions it requires me to do a little bit more critical thought and that is good that is really what you want to do and what happens afterwards is that you create this perfect review sheet for yourself where immediately you can test yourself on the information that was presented to you in class I just told you what consistently testing yourself is going to do for you it's going to identify your gaps of knowledge it's also going to consolidate the information that you do know well and when I have those I will put them in an oce I will put them in my question Bank area and in doing that you have an opportunity to collect a lot of really great questions for yourself and you can test yourself whenever you have some free time with it I think that becomes really effective where it's not necessarily going to be like a what is question it's not simply a definition question I think it's okay to start that way but when you ask yourself some of the more complex questions then when you have a bank of them you can literally test yourself if you know that knowledge or not it's a really great way to keep yourself consistently tested throughout so that when you get into your revisions right before exams you're not starting from scratch you have a really good foundation of knowledge so I think question Banks can be really helpful now past papers I'm going to put this at the very top as well I'm realizing that this is a pretty darn good list for me to be putting so many at the very top I thought there would be a lot more low utility ones that I can talk about not doing so much but when we're talking about past papers they're such a great way to identify content emphasis right it allows you to scope your learning a lot obviously your previous year's exam isn't going to be the same that you're going to experience and it's really important that you know that and you're aware of that you're not literally just studying that exam but it's going to give you some Clues it's going to give you some Clues on what type of information is going to be readily tested at least in previous years and is that going to carry over does that align with how this term was taught to me and if so yes it's going to provide you a good radar right it's going to provide you this good sense of awareness on what things that you should really focus on during your study and past papers I think that is a right way to do this too it's not for you to just you know try half with half effort and then look at the answers immediate and be like yeah although I didn't Circle that one that's kind of what I meant I think I'm good and then move on to the next one no I I want you to actually utilize past papers that you're in an exam setting and really try to pull that information out of your brain as best as you possibly can give yourself enough time to do that and write it out or say it aloud and and really try to test to see if you understand that knowledge and not just why you know that the right answer is right but why are the other answers not right because a lot of times what happens on previous exams is that they'll ask a question one format and on your current exam they'll ask a similar topic but it'll be framed differently and perhaps the answer that was wrong on the previous year's exam is actually going to be right on yours so I think utilizing in that methodology and then also if you have multiple past papers and perhaps a few of them you want to utilize more time with and go throughout more comprehensive review that's great and then perhaps on one of them you actually simulate the exam conditions if you know that you're going to have 45 minutes complete the exam then spend 45 minutes doing it and it's going to give you a heightened sense of confidence going into exam day you know that you're capable of answering the questions and you know you're capable of doing that within the time constraint the next one on the list is my maps and I'm putting this at great now for those that have the Learning System you know that I call them diagrams and you know that I'm a huge fan of them so why am I putting them at at Great instead of the top and it has to do with actually why I call them diagrams in the first place my eighth grade social studies teacher is actually the one that introduced me to a lot of these learning strategies and when he went over my maps he showed them a very particular way and it's the exact way that you would find if you searched up on Google right now my maps and it's how everyone in the class had learned it too and it wasn't as effective like I didn't get any type of benefit from it so I strayed away from it a lot this wasn't very different from the linear note taking so what my eighth grade social study teacher would tell me all the time is like you have to engage in the type of thought necessary and that was really great advice but when I was utilizing these mind maps I would take the header of the PowerPoint slide put that in the center of my mind map and then the branch that would come out of it would literally be the bullet points underneath it now that's not me engaging in the right type of thought right that's exactly the same thing as me just rewriting what the teacher had said or rewriting what the presentation had said that's not effective and I knew that and I was like why am I doing this I did understand understand it and I didn't go back to it for a very very long time until I realized wow mind maps or diagrams can be really really effective if done right because they allow you to visually understand the big picture and we know that our brain's ability to understand and remember a piece of information is greatly enhanced when there more relevant connections to it a diagram is a way to visually do that and to keep track of that and when you're organizing and simplifying a diagram like we talk about in The Learning System book you're doing the exact type of thought necessary to be able to get that type of um comprehension retention so I call them diagrams because when I think of my maps I think about a different strategy that I used in the past and when I talk about it I I've done it in lives in the past years ago you I would say I think my maps are great and then immediately the feedback is oh I actually feel like my master waste of time I feel like I didn't I didn't get much out of it and understandable because they're using it the way that they're normally taught it and then normally shown it on Google and I really don't think that that's the proper way to go about it so I think if done right it should be at the top but if it's the way that it's currently at I'm going to just leave it at Great the next one is making notes I'm going to quickly wrap this up here because I'm reading it now it says making notes and reading notes I'm going to put them both at good on this one and then for reading notes I'm going to put it at average this depends on how you're doing it right the way that we describ in the Learning System is that the way that you should be taking notes is one leveraging the hyper cration effect by identifying key Concepts that were covered with in the pretest or in your previous diagram that you created and you be more aware of that in your inclass notes that's great and then I talk about how you can create another diagram in class and you can visually identify all the things that we were just talking about before in the previous tip with the mind maps I also tell you to create those active recall questions in class if you're doing that I would put that at the top list I think that's great what I see a lot of people do is not take notes like this and then that becomes very low utility they just write everything down they never even revert back to the notes and then and then when I think about reading your notes if your note taking system is bad when you go back to read it you get no utility out of it right there's no use out of it and what happens that you just waste time rewriting what the teacher had said going back and reading what the teacher had said when you can easily just go to the presentation slide or go to the textbook to read everything that the professor is talking about right that's not the point notes should be to facilitate the type of learning that you need to have so that you can do well on your exams that doesn't happen by rewriting everything now if you have a proper note system and would put both reading notes and making notes a lot higher up but because I see a lot of people don't take notes this way I'm going to put it at good and average and that should wrap up the video there are learning strategies out there and a lot of people are going to tell you to do X Y and Z things but it's up to you to do the research to understand that you know what there are certain techniques that are not so high utility and I should just stay away from that and then I should lean more towards ones that have been researched a lot and if I can go ahead and spend more time trying to adopt the high utility I'll be better off cuz what happens is that these high utility strategies take time for you to learn take time for you to learn then adopt and apply and a lot of people what they do is after two weeks of trying them you'll say oh it's not I'm not getting the type of results That I Want from it they'll give up but in reality it's like no it's worth for a good amount of people right like it's worth for millions millions and millions of students and it's probably because you're not spending enough time utilizing them properly versus the easier techniques you learn how to use them right away and it makes you feel good it makes you feel like you're getting worked on but it's actually not having that type of long-term effect that you want so choose your learning strategies carefully I hope you enjoyed this video if you have any questions at all leave your comments below give this video a thumbs up and of course subscribe so until next time I hope you take care and I love you guys and I'll see you all at the top [Music]