What is the most effective study schedule for optimal retention?

[Deicider]

Let say you have a number of courses and you want to study at home.

You divide them 1hour each course, so you have many of them each day?
Or 2-3hours each one and few courses a day and cover them in different days.

What i ask here is which learning pattern/frequency/system/etc is better to remember what you have read/taught/etc.

My current is learning 4hours of 3 different topics.

Cause i believe that your brain gets depeer and better information if you deal with it for an extended time.
If you do it little by little you will forget all of them.

Is this the right way?

 

[Upisoft]

Warning, following is my opinion. Use at your risk!

I think it depends what you want to learn. If you want to learn abstract things and the way of thinking appropriate for the subject you will better do a lot of same for extended periods of time.

If you want to learn details, it is better to make few repetitions of the same thing, but keep the process short.

My way of learning was the following: First I read everything to be able to grasp the essence, then I do many short courses to cover the details that usually were not necessary to the understanding of essence and was forgotten.

 

[BobG]

http://tep.uoregon.edu/resources/assessment/multiplechoicequestions/blooms.html

Knowledge
Comprehension
Application
Analysis
Synthesis
Evaluation

You can get Knowledge and Comprehension by just reading, studying, cramming, etc.

The higher levels require some thinking about the material. Shorter periods leave you smaller chunks to think about while you're driving, doing the dishes, etc.

One caveat: Thinking about Doppler shift while driving can be hazardous to you and anyone else at the intersections you drive through.

 

[mugaliens]

The human brain learns better when limited to two or three topics a day, three to five times a week, and daily study times for each topic limited to about two hours a day.

Beyond that, one is encroaching on the curve of diminishing returns.

 

[disregardthat]

The human brain learns better when limited to two or three topics a day, three to five times a week, and daily study times for each topic limited to about two hours a day.

Do you have any sources for this?

 

[sprudence]

When I was at university (not that long ago), I used to create a list of topics that I might find useful, then within those topics I would create subtopics.. so for example I would put;

Geology

- Faults
- Metamorphosis
- Strata classification

Climate

- Cloud formation
- Hadley cells
- relief rainfall

Then I would go and search these topics in electronic journals, or publication journals and write down notes under subheadings..

Also doing a mini literature review is extremely helpful, searching for terms and quotes and listing them in a logical and coherent way.. but in order to do this it usual helps if you plan your hypothetical assignment/essay in advance and structure it, then you can add the meat to the bones so to speak. A literature review might even help with the onset of an exam..

This is only my way of doing it, many people have different preferences of studying which they feel comfortable with doing.

 

[Astronuc]

The human brain learns better when limited to two or three topics a day, three to five times a week, and daily study times for each topic limited to about two hours a day.

Beyond that, one is encroaching on the curve of diminishing returns.

That's about what one would do in a typical university program with 5 courses per semester - with say 3 topics on M-W-F and two topics on T-Th. It does help if there is context among the topics, e.g., a math course that covers the math being used in science (e.g., physics) course.

In high school, I found it helpful to be studying differential equations in Calculus and rate equations (diff. eq.) in Chemistry. I found it a bit distracting then to have to study English, particularly literature, although the Sci Fi elective I took my senior year was rather fun.

 

[Deicider]

thnx for your replies.
In my case i want to learn things from scratch.
So i guess the few long courses would be the best approach.Ok here's some overthinking:

Am not sure about the order in which is good to take the courses.

I think i should leave the easiest to comprehend/remember for the end.

And focus first on more difficult, but am afraid if i keep doing this 'forever' i might have loose knowledge of the courses i learn the latter since everytime it is their turn i would already be encumbered with the previous courses.

The next logical thing to do is to change their order everyday, but the again my brain might lose the serial habit.

Which i don't know if its a good or bad thing.
Why?

Mainly because in comprehension knowledge its always better to look things at new ways which i think it adds to the previous, that way you get better understanding of a topic, so shuffling would give some 'unexpected' at some level data and 'force' it to process it differently.