She has one. He has a few. They have one. So do I.

Come on. You can tell me. What's your tried and true favorite or best strategy for learning?

I know, I know. You wait until the last minute, head to the library and cram. Late night cram sessions in the library. Am I right? Or maybe you have a study partner, and you go over your notes with one another right before the test. How about highlighting and underlining? Do you, like me, swear by this method? But which one? I used to highlight. Now I only underline. Reviewing what I underline helps me study. I swear it works.

Or does it?

As far as I can tell, since my earliest school days, I've been a good learner. You know the type, pays attentionn in class, turns in the work on time, gets mostly As and Bs. That success has somehow endured. So what I've picked up (and subsequently what you've picked up along the way) - from teachers, my parents, other students - about how to "do" learning must work.

Except, they really don't.

How most of us believe we learn best is ALL wrong. Read that again.

All of those go-to techniques, refined over time - taking notes in the margin, taking notes in class, re-reading texts, highlighting and underlining - have no basis in research. In other words, there is no proof that these strategies help learners learn. None of those strategies, which we have believed have aided our navigation of our academic careers, are actually based in research. And yet, we still do them.

UCLA Distinguished Professor and resarcher, Dr. Robert Bjork (2016) says the skills we carry around with us lead to our overall "illusion of comprehension," lulling us into believing that we're actually learning material when in fact many of our assumptions and counterproductive to our progress. Bjork tells us notetaking actually suppresses learning and that highlighting, and underlining doesn't move the needle on our learning at all.

Instead, we should be adjusting our practice to learn over time (spacing) and rotating between topics (interleaving) for best results. These strategies, which have been tested, force us to have to retrieve previously learned information more frequently, and allow us to move away from what Bjork (20167) describes as our "flawed mental model."

So the next time you hurry to dash copious notes, or plan to "study later" via a cram session, think again. These strategies may actually be working against you (and me).

Bjork, R.A. (2016). How we learn versus how we think we learn. Retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oxZzoVp5jmI

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