Students often believe there is some magic secret to revision and it involves meticulous note taking and the rewriting of their course.Reading and copyingare very time consuming and have little impact as they are so easy to do. The student is not having tothink hardand will forget most of what they have just done. It does not go into theirlong term memory.They often learn the information in lessons through practice, tests, experiments, demonstrations, videos and discussions. They need to repeat these processes when revising the learning.
The revision process should be based on the concept of how we best learn and remember information. Engage as many senses as possible in your revision.
Quite often students will procrastinate and are guilty of “cramming” , which is when revision is all done at the end of a course right before exams. The brain cannot take in all the information and the student will forget key points. This can also lead tostress and anxiety.Reviewing work regularly throughout the course will put the information in the long term memory.
