Your highlighter is lying to you

The study tricks that actually make things stick, and the two everyone already does that barely help at all.

Annie

RDH and creator of the nook & notes

I remember the good old days in dental school when I felt that no matter how many times I read my notes I always struggled to remember it all. I had a pretty bad study routine that involved a highlighter, way too many colored pens, and reading the same notes over and over again. Come quiz time, you know nothing. If it's not multiple choice, we're done.

Turns out that's a pretty common experience. Researchers ranked the most popular study techniques, and highlighting and rereading, the two things basically everyone does, came in dead last. So I made it my mission to find out if I was studying the right way or if I was wasting my time. Here's what I got.

Rereading feels like progress. It's not.

You reread your notes, it clicks, you move on feeling good. That good feeling is the problem. Recognizing something on a page and pulling it out of your brain cold with nothing in front of you are two different skills. We were never taught how to study, so what are you supposed to do? Here are some strategies backed by research.

Ask why instead of just what

Take something you already know: "periodontal ligament fibers can reattach to the root surface after scaling and root planing" Most people memorize that sentence and move on. That's the what. The why goes one layer deeper.

This move, asking why or how something works instead of just accepting that it does, is called elaborative interrogation, and researchers rate it as highly effective. You can use it with anything you're studying. Don't just memorize that epinephrine extends how long local anesthesia lasts, ask why adding it changes the duration.

It works because you're forcing your brain to connect the new fact to something you already know, instead of storing it as a random fact. It works best when you already have some background on the topic, but you can also use it during lectures to start building a study guide.

Explain it out loud like you're teaching the lecture

Start explaining everything out loud, like you're the one teaching the material. This is self-explanation, and it shows gaps that simply reading your notes never will.

It works with topics you think you know for sure, or with topics you're just learning. This technique is especially handy for the almighty embryology chapters. Why, you ask? Because embryology is a death trap and a bad joke we have to figure out quickly or else. IYKYK

I'll write a whole post on how I aced embryology my second time around, because I'm not going to lie, my first time was brutal. But for now, know this: explaining out loud is how you find the gaps before boards do.

Take notes by hand, and be selective

Students who took lecture notes by hand did better on conceptual questions than students who typed, mostly because typing makes it easy to transcribe word for word without processing anything, while writing by hand forces you to summarize as you go.It doesn't have to be pen and paper, grab your ipad and apple pencil and it works the same.

Same information, but the second version required deciding what actually mattered and translating it into your own version, which is exactly the kind of processing that makes it stick.Then when you revise your notes, you'll have to explain notes into full sentences that come out of your brain and not out of the book chapter.

Don't take notes... at all

You might be thinking, hold on, what is she talking about? Yeah, I know, it might be a hot take, but it works. I put it to the test all through dental hygiene school.

Just because you aren't taking notes doesn't mean you're dozing off. You're actually meant to be paying full attention to the lecture. Since you're not writing anything down, you're catching everything that's being said, and your brain is processing what you understand and what you don't.

That's a huge advantage most students don't realize. You can ask a clarifying question right away instead of going home confused, or doing a deep dive later just to understand something your professor could've clarified on the spot.

Quiz, quiz, quiz

The biggest and most effective one of them all? Test yourself. Preferably before you study.

Create practice quizzes using your lecture slides, or do the end-of-chapter questions. Be honest with yourself: did you really get something right because you knew it, or because you recognized it? If you're getting something right out of luck, don't lie to yourself, and flag it as if you got it wrong.

Once you're done, go back through everything you got wrong and study the why behind each answer. Our brains love overcorrecting. When we get a question wrong, our brains work extra hard to encode the right answer so we don't make that mistake again.

Another post is coming on which resources I used to build practice exams.

for when you need to schedule a study session

The kanban planner template is free

If you want to increase your productivity, organize and schedule your study session. Try chunking with a Kanban board. This one is on the house.

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