Learning while playing with proper rest may seem like a bad way to study, but testing has shown it to be relatively more effective than traditional learning methods.
Educators are always looking for ways to make teaching more effective, and it’s surprising when they discover that the secret to effective learning is often… studying less.
Educational researchers have found a lot of evidence to support this statement. They believe that having the right breaks will make the amount of knowledge memorized longer. This is not only true for students, but also businesses and companies that are having personnel training courses.
Having the right breaks will help the amount of knowledge to be remembered longer.
The idea was originally initiated by Paul Kelley , a former headmaster who was a sleeper, often late to work. It is because of his habit that Paul left the students’ class late and it was interesting when he discovered that the brains of young people in particular and humans in general, we do not do everything very well in the morning. morning.
Fortunately for humans, in addition to the hobby of sleeping, Kelley is also very interested in research to improve educational solutions. He is currently a Research Fellow at the University of Oxford and is the President of the British Association for Advanced Science. During his research, Kelley discovered a strong association between time packets and long-term human memory .
Simply put, memory is based on the activity of neurons in the brain. However, for it to work, these neurons need time to rest, not to be disturbed. To put it more simply, if we keep learning continuously, we will not remember much, but while studying and playing, reasonable rest will be the ultimate learning method to help knowledge remember longer and be easy to use. use when needed.
Professor Paul Kelley, who once had controversial research published in The Guardian because he believes that getting up late is the way to make this world a better place.
During learning, if neurons are distracted when they are active, during memory construction, this memory span will be affected. This is why rote learning is thought to be very fast, but forgetting is also fast and gaining and losing. We force the brain to take in so many things at once that it can’t remember it in time.
Of course, not many people believe in Kelley’s research, many people think that it has nothing to do with memorization when repeated many times, it will be easier to remember. Therefore, Kelley enlisted the help of Surrey Business School in the UK to test whether his idea was correct.
We force the brain to take in so many things at once that it can’t remember it in time.
600 students were invited to participate in this experiment, they were divided into 3 groups. They are required to study the same curriculum on advertising, but with different approaches and learning styles. The first group studied in the traditional way, studying and then testing. The second group was assigned to self-study and the third group was allowed to study and play at the same time. The method of the third group is called Spaced learners when they have certain breaks in their learning process.
Of course, the learning style of the third group was not at all similar to the other groups. There are times when they go to class, they are constantly crammed with knowledge, they can’t even remember to say anything. However, after that period of stuffing, there is a 10-minute break for students to do whatever they want. Some people sit and pick their noses, some even take their time off to complete a copy of Picasso’s paintings.
After a week of study, 600 students in the test were asked to take a short test. This test targets 3 factors, the ability to absorb knowledge, practical application and external lessons that the curriculum does not teach.
And when it comes to grading, Spaced learners remember 20% more than traditional learners and 23% more than self-learners.
In other words, at the same time of study, those who study while playing remember one-fifth more than those who study in the normal way. As for self-study, there is no discussion, many people sometimes don’t even study.
The parameters became even more interesting as the team gave more marks to the work. Students who study in the traditional way remember 78% of what they learn in the first half and only 22% in the second half. That means studying for just 30 minutes is nearly four times more effective than studying for an hour.
Going to part 2, put into practice, the Spaced learners once again outperformed. Even so, the distance between them and the other groups was shortened. They are only 13% more than traditional learners and 19% more than self-taught people.
Self-study is a popular way for many people, but its practical effectiveness is not very high.
Similar to additional knowledge outside of books, the Spaced learner group has only 10% higher results than the traditional learning group and 15% higher than the self-study group. Finally, the total results of course the Spaced learner group with the highest results next to the traditional learning group and the bottom of the table is the self-study group.
Excited by the results of the study, Professor Andy Adcroft said that Kelley’s Spaced learning method is much more effective than the traditional teaching method that all schools are applying.
However, Professor Andy Adcroft also believes that spaced learning cannot completely replace traditional learning methods. It can be interwoven with traditional lessons but cannot be completely replaced.
“Through experiment, we can see the effect that the above teaching method brings. We can combine using Spaced learning for lessons with background knowledge, basic knowledge or important knowledge. but in other classes still need to be taught by the traditional method.This method will probably be more suitable for organizations that train and educate employees to save learning costs, employees will not It takes too many lessons to get the initial training in. It’s exciting to discover more effective ways of education that we rarely pay attention to, “said Professor Andy Adcroft.
Thus, through the above experiment, it can be seen that the most effective way to study is not to study all night and all morning, spend dozens of hours but to study intensely and focus for 30 minutes. and then take a 10 to 15 minute break after studying. Well, sometimes hard work can’t make up for smart, methodical learning.
However, the above test was only conducted at 600 students, so it may not be true for many people. If you feel that the traditional way of learning is not suitable, try changing it to see if Spaced learning is right for you.