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Sight
- Use charts, diagrams, pictures in textbooks - relate to reading and lecture.
- Create your own charts, diagrams, pictures. Draw no matter what kind of artist you are (use simple stick figures; use graph paper if needed).
- Make humorous drawings that emphasize an association or idea.
- Use oversize paper for writing or drawing when, dealing with difficult material (tack on wall or refrigerator where you'll see them often.)
- Use index cards with drawings and/or key concepts (tack around the house and/or take them with you to go through in spare moments --eventually you'll be left with only a few hard to remember items.)
- Use color for coding information:
- a special color for emphasizing a tricky point
- a highlight for your own notes as well as your textbook
- different colored pens for different parts of a chart or diagram (ex: a chart contrasting the positions of the Republicans and the Democrats on various issues -one color for one side, another for the other side)
- Consider the visual aspect of your notes; leave lots of space (don't crowd); indent to show relationship of ideas.
Hearing
- Includes hearing yourself -in other words talking to yourself!
- Use a tape recorder selectively: still take notes on main points (the tape can be used as a "check" ); or take notes from the tape recording.
- Tape record your own notes for reinforcement (listen in the car, etc.)
- Discuss the class with someone, preferably a student in the class, but if that's not possible, choose a friend to talk to about the class.
- Make use of the sounds of words to cue correct associations:
- rhyming ( "i before e except after c" )
- using words starting with the same sound (Humphrey-Hawkins Bill for helping unemployment)
- rhythm (notice the rhythm of three major psychologists you might need to remember: Freud, . Adler, Erickson --1, 2, and 3 syllable names).
Touch
- Includes sensing space and feeling movement.
- Drawing and writing (even just copying) uses motor pathways to help you remember. This works even better if you write BIG (on the blackboard, for example), since the large motor muscles have a chance to make additional pathways to the brain.
- Make use of shapes:
- associate an idea, words, formulas, etc. with points on a shape (triangle, steps, star, etc. --see examples on last page);
- make use of a shape in your everyday life (arrange your notes in a circle in your
room, for example);
- make distinctions between ideas you're trying to keep separated by studying one on one side of the room and the other on the opposite side;
- give each stair step (actual or drawn) the name of a step in a complicated process;
- Make use of models (such as anatomical models) available in the bookstore to allow you to touch as well as see what you are studying.
- Use places in the house as triggers for memory in the way the classical Latin speech writers did. (They would connect the introduction of the speech to the entrance of the house, move on to the next room to connect to the next idea, and so on throughout their home).
Taste
- Associate hot taco sauce with ???
Smell
- Associate pine smell with ???
Although tastes and smells evoke very strong memories, they aren't very convenient for organizing or holding information in our minds. However, you could always try a "magic" peppermint lifesaver that you use to create a strong association with a difficult term, and pop it into your mouth in the exam!
Sixth sense
You may have no evidence of the sixth sense in terms of ESP, but the concept of this sense can be useful to you. Call it your intuition --your sense of
"rightness" about something. This sense can be a powerful aid to concentrating and remembering. |
