hi I'm dr. Steven Chu I'm a professor of
psychology here at Stanford University
this is a third in a series of five
videos on how to study effectively in
college the effective studying is more
than just a matter of having a desire to
learn in devoting sufficient time and
effort students have to utilize
effective learning strategies if they
use ineffective strategies they can
study long and hard and still fail in
this video I'll explain the basic
principles of how people learn best and
how you can apply those principles to
improve your study effectiveness as we
saw in the earlier videos you can be
highly motivated to learn but if you use
a shallow learning strategy you simply
won't learn shallow learning strategies
focus on superficial aspects like
memorization but if you use a deep
learning strategy which focuses on
meaning and comprehension and visual
imagery then you'll learn whether you
intend to or not
so if deep processing is the key to
effective study how do we accomplish
this while we're studying here are some
basic principles for achieving deep
processing and a question which will
allow you to satisfy each principle
first elaboration means making
meaningful associations between the
concept you're studying and related
concepts the association's can be among
concepts you're studying or with your
prior knowledge the more meaningful
associations you can make the better
you'll learn next distinctiveness means
that you make a clear contrast between
the concept you're studying and other
concepts you need to understand the key
differences among related concepts say
you're in a general psychology class and
you're learning about short-term and
long-term memory you elaborate the two
by relating them together they both hold
information for later use you also
emphasize the distinctiveness between
the two by focusing on the key
differences one as and one has a limited
capacity the other has an unlimited
capacity one has very rapid forgetting
the other has much slower forgetting
finally you relate it to your own
personal experience I meet people at
parties I forget their names a few
seconds later because of short-term
memory I still remember that time I got
lost in the mall as a child because of
long-term memory the last aspect of deep
processing is practicing appropriate
retrieval and application
of the material by appropriate I mean
that you practice recalling the
information and using the information in
the way that their teacher expects you
to be able to do if the teacher expects
you to solve real-world problems then
you need to practice recalling using
information in that way if your teacher
expects you to analyze hypothetical
situations you need to practice doing
that instead of reading the material
over and over close your book and notes
and recall as much of the information as
you can write it down explain it to a
friend take advantage of questions that
textbooks often have at the end of the
chapter that ask you to review the
information or take advantage of
textbook websites that often have review
tests now one thing I've told you not to
do is to memorize isolated facts here is
the exception to that rule if for some
reason your teacher tests you over exact
wording of isolated facts then memorize
isolated facts so these are the basic
principles of deep processing effective
study strategies take advantage of some
or all of these principles good students
have multiple ways of studying depending
on the teacher and the subject but all
their study strategies are based on
these principles you'll have to figure
out the best study strategies for
yourself and in the next video we'll
discuss impossibilities but no matter
what you do they should be rooted in
these principles here are two other
important concepts you need to
understand for effective learning
automaticity and over learning an
automatic process is one that's so
highly practiced that you can do it
without any conscious thought or effort
like driving a familiar route where you
arrive at your destination without even
thinking about it
any task that is practiced enough can
become automatic including study skills
when you get to college you bring high
school skills that are automatic
developing effective college skills
involves not just developing more
effective skills but overcoming those
high school skills that are automatic
and over learned overcoming those high
school skills is a big reason why
developing effective college level study
skills is so effortful and takes so long
for most students it takes conscious
effort over weeks or even months I have
had students who've seen immediate
improvement using the principles of deep
processing and if that happens do you be
pleasantly surprised but
most it's a process of ongoing
improvement you need to develop these
skills and practice them over a long
period of time the good news is though
once they become automatic they'll be
helpful to you in any learning situation
a concept is related to automaticity is
over learning over learning means that
you don't just study material until you
can just recall it you keep studying it
over and over again until you can call
it quickly and easily over learning
information helps prevent forgetting and
it makes recall fast and easy if you're
studying critical information that
you'll need to know in the future is
part of more complex learning it's a
good idea to over learn it in this video
we've operationalized deep processing
into a set of principles you can use to
achieve deep learning I also talked
about the pitfalls of bad study habits
that are automatic in the advantage of
good study skills that are automatic
finally I talked about the importance of
over learning critical information in
the next video we'll use these
principles of deep processing and apply
them to common learning situations we'll
be looking at how to take notes using
deep processing and also how to use deep
processing while reading in textbook