If you’re worried about your A-level student who really struggles with study, there are much better ways to get information into their heads than the ones we normally use. I discovered a few years ago that using imagery and a memory scheme made a huge difference to my exam results. I didn’t invent the scheme – that was done by a brilliant man named Tony Buzan – but I did modify it and I found a way to combine a couple of elements to create an index system which allowed me to quickly call up what I wanted from my memory. As you can imagine, that was particularly useful in an exam situation.
I was an average school and university student. I HATED revision. I couldn’t stand the idea of going over subjects again and again and left it all to the very last minute. I got on OK, but I was the classic ‘could do better’ student.
A few years after I graduated from uni, I decided to change career and did a one-year master’s course to kick start that. I had to borrow a lot of money, so I was really motivated. That’s when I learned how to use imagery in my study. One huge change was that I actually enjoyed studying, rather than dreading it. When my first set of exams came around, just before Christmas, I nailed them.
We rely on our eyesight more than any other sense and our brains are wired for that. Take advantage of that and make study visual. The printed page is a really efficient way of getting whole sentences and lots of information from one place to the other, but it’s not exactly the most visually stimulating. You don’t have to replicate the look of a textbook to get the information into your head, but when we make copious notes, or even flash cards, that’s what we’re doing. After all, one flashcard looks very much like another. It’s far better to get creative. When you do that, you’re engaging both sides of your brain for your study.
Let me give you a simple example of how I would remember the fundamentals of the slow carbon cycle for A Level Geography. First, I need an image for carbon, I’m going to use coal, which is smoky, and dirty and made of carbon - it’s got a very strong association with carbon. Coal is not too memorable, however, so I’m going to need to do more. Most carbon is stored in sedimentary rocks, so I’m going to put sunglasses on my lump of coal and have it performing on stage as part of a rock band. Much of the carbon that goes into rocks comes from dead animals, shells, etc, so now my rock star lump of coal is playing castanets made from seashells, rather than a guitar. Carbon gets released from the rocks by volcanic action (amongst other things) so now my rock concert is interrupted by a volcanic eruption. Carbon is also released when rocks are weathered or eroded by rainfall or by streams and rivers, carrying carbon into the oceans. So my concert-goers run away from the volcano, through a cooling rain shower, and jump into a river, where they float happily to the sea.
That was an utterly ridiculous story, but for me, it would be memorable. Nobody else needs to know what imagery you are using, and if it works (and it does!) then use it. Who’ll have the last laugh when they’re remembering everything they study?
I have put together a course with loads of techniques that can be used for successful study and memory retrieval. I’ve already trialled it in a small pilot scheme and it’s worked wonders for the students. I’m not going to put up any links here, because I want to respect Mumsnet and their terms of service, but I may post some more tips in the future.
There's only so much that I can write in one post, but feel free to get in touch with questions. 