his is kind of embarrassing, but I swear the following story is true. 

When I was a freshman in high school, I really wanted an A on a history test. I was sick and tired of just getting average grades, so went the extra mile and studied really, really hard. I remember sitting in my bedroom and memorizing every date, every battle, every 4-star general’s name, and anything else I thought might be on that test. 

I was all set to go. 

But when I got into the test, I realized I had memorized all the details, but didn’t know what war we were studying!  I had completely ignored the big picture and instead just tried to spit back the details to my teacher to get an A. 

Needless to say, I felt really stupid.

The moral of the story is that often our students need help learning how to learn, not just learning the content of our syllabus. 

Let’s take them beyond memorizing and just re-reading their notes. Here are some ideas: 

I am a really visual learner, so this idea really appeals to me.  But let me be clear: you do NOT need to be an artist to take advantage of “visual notes”.  All you need to do is to represent the ideas with a drawing, a doodle or with a bit of color. In fact, you don’t even need to draw a lot. You could just add small images or bolts of color to your page of printed notes. 

Your brain learns and remembers in many ways (not only with black and white words on a page), so you want to tap into all the areas of your brain that help you learn.   

Think of this as a multisensory way of studying.

Consider organizing your ideas with super simple drawings, short bullet points or colorful boxes and circles. You can then connect the different drawings or doodles with lines, arrows, stick figures or even emojis. 

Take a look at these for inspiration:

Or, read a short story, poem or section of a text to your students. Before discussing the text as a group, have everyone immediately draw the image they have in their minds on their paper. It doesn’t need to be fancy and it is NOT going to be graded! It’s just to get them used to the idea of representing their thoughts through a drawing. 

Technology tools for beginner “sketchnoters” are: Google Jamboard, Explain Everything, Notes (on a Mac) or Paint (on a PC).

We need to show students how to construct ideas, both literally and figuratively. For example,  a great way to learn fractions in math is through Origami. What a brilliant idea, right?

Asking a student to fold paper in ½, ⅓ and ¼ is a perfect way to demonstrate fractions! It’s so simple, that it’s brilliant.

Not only is paper folding an excellent way to demonstrate a boring, old concept like fractions, but it is an active way to learn too!  Students are constructing an object and learning at the same time. It involves problem solving, visualization and creativity. 

Not only is it good for math class. It can be used in other ways too:

• Science: have them create models of cubes, pyramids, bridges, organic molecules etc, all with paper. 
• Problem solving: show them a shape and have them figure out on their own how to recreate it with paper. This is also a great way to practice trial and error. No instructions, no nothing. Just allow them to struggle a bit, figure out what works, and then solve the problem!
• Art or Biology: have students create origami birds, animals, or other natural shapes. 
• 3D design: Many schools can incorporate origami into their coding classes as a first step towards designing larger items with Tinkercad and a 3D printer. 

The important part to remember is that not all learning happens with words on a page. Sometimes we need to offer students the opportunity to explore concepts graphically or “construct” the concepts out of something like this paper activity. 

When they learn it through the experience of creating something, or constructing an object, they don’t need to go home and “study”. They already know the material!

For more information on this topic, read this wonderful article on Edutopia:

https://www.edutopia.org/blog/why-origami-improves-students-skills-ainissa-ramirez

Studies show that writing your notes by hand (and not on a computer) allows your brain to process it more efficiently. This makes sense, because when you are writing something by hand, you are required to interpret the information and summarize as you write. When you type on a computer, you can go so much faster that you tend to copy ideas word for word. When you write by hand, you are forced to process the information and copy it slightly differently. This helps you learn it. 

For lots more information on how taking notes longhand is far better than writing on a computer, check out this podcast from NPR:

https://www.npr.org/2016/04/17/474525392/attention-students-put-your-laptops-away

Whenever students are reorganizing concepts or rewriting the ideas and putting them in their own words, they are processing the information. They are getting familiar with the ideas in all different ways. Using a combination of these techniques is always a good idea. 

Research has shown that other good ways to learn concepts is to do the following:

• Group information into separate chunks. Rather than staring down a full page of text, group it into smaller bits. 
• Highlight each one of those groups in different colors. 
• Rewrite the notes in your own words.
• As you write, read the concepts out loud. Your brain then processes the information in 2 different ways (written and orally), rather than just one. 
• “Teach” the concepts to someone (or just teach them to yourself!)  By explaining the ideas out loud, with the help of a visual aid like a whiteboard, you have to learn it. Otherwise you’ve got nothing to talk about!

Put it this way: Have you ever been at school, taking a test, trying to remember a specific detail from your notes? You can’t remember the details, but you DO remember that it is written on the top right of the page? It’s like, you can perfectly imagine where it is, or how it’s written, but you just can’t remember the words??? 

Well, THAT is perfect proof that your brain works in all different ways. We are visual learners AND we are intellectual learners.  Sometimes our brains remember colors, shapes or feelings and other times we remember ideas and concepts. In either case, we need to help our students learn all different ways to study so that they can learn how to learn!