i'm dr althea need kaminsky a professor at saint bonaventure university and a member of the learning scientist team we use science to figure out the best way to learn we come up with rules of thumb to help students study well and without spending too much time elaboration is a study strategy that's been shown to help students develop their understanding of material elaboration is asking how and why questions while you're studying course material to help understand how things work and to better connect it to yourself to improve your understanding you can ask yourself questions to find the answers and share them with your classmates for example if you're studying different types of drinks you might ask questions about tea and coffee to help elaborate your understanding of those two concepts you could ask how are these the same how are they different why might you drink one or the other it's important to note that the how and why questions you ask should be relevant to the things that you're trying to learn so in this example you might ask why is one cup clear in one cup white but that question may not be as relevant to what you're trying to learn so be careful to make sure that you're asking the right questions sometimes the questions are just as important as the answers when you are asking yourself how and why questions you can make connections between different ideas by asking how they are similar and how they are different another way that you can use elaboration is to describe how the ideas you are studying apply to your own experience or memories as you go throughout your day you can make connections to the ideas that you are learning in class make sure that the way you are explaining and describing an idea is accurate always consult your course materials or ask your teacher to double check and make sure that your explanations are accurate once you know that your explanations are accurate now you can work towards describing and explaining without looking at your class materials this is a form of retrieval practice which is bringing your information to mind and that can make your elaboration extra effective