How do you feel about facing a formal examination after 25 years of gap? Most of us dread facing exams. For some of you, it keeps haunting as a nightmare even after several years. Last year, I signed up for a PG diploma course in training and development with ISTD. Though I managed to score decent marks, I was not satisfied with my first-semester preparation.

I decided to approach my future exams by adopting the best learning strategies. My learning never stopped after graduation. I am an avid reader of a variety of things. This habit has helped a lot in my professional, social, and personal development.

Typically, the triggers for professional learning include solving a specific problem, finding an innovative solution for a given scenario, developing a particular skill, and investing in various topics thinking that it will help us in the future. Our approach to learning these things will take somewhere between a few minutes to a few months.

However, going through formal education has an entirely different dimension. Usually, it covers a broad range of topics, and you need to study everything in the syllabus irrespective of whether it is relevant or applicable to you.

Though short-term online courses and offline courses have assessments and final evaluations, they are not as fearful as what “Examination” sounds - because it involves passing, failing, and the marks.

Let’s get back to my exam preparation. After facing the first semester, I started researching learning skills. Since learning was in line with my professional work, I went a little bit in-depth to understand learning intricacies. I went through various theories, neuroscience, psychology, research findings, practices, and techniques.  I started testing and practicing the effectiveness of these techniques. At this point, I thought about sharing this knowledge with others and designed a “Smart Learning course.” I offered this to a few high-school and college students. Most of these learning strategies were new to them, and they liked it.

Mapping

I started mapping my syllabus to the sections in different reading materials. My sources included books, videos, online ISTD lecture classes, assignments, online articles, and notes.

Focused mode and diffuse mode

I used a Pomodoro technique to focus intensely on study for 25 minutes and took 5 minutes break. This practice helped to beat my procrastination habit, and the number of Pomodoro cycles completed acted as a motivating factor.

Spaced practice

I avoided cramming and instead spread my studies to several days. Learning a bit every day over the long term helps to retain better. This practice also helped me to revisit the topics by the time I was about to forget.

Interleaving

Instead of focusing on a single subject, I started mixing up multiple topics in my single study sessions. This mixing allowed me to relate concepts from one subject to the other one. I still need to improve here as it is difficult for me to wean away from one subject once I get deeper into it. Task switching is expensive but required!

Retrieval Practice

Retrieval practice is a game-changer! I never know the importance of retrieval practice. Once I started practicing it, I realized its tremendous worth. I reserved my peaceful early mornings to do this. In the book, I would write all that I learned and remember about the topic and later go back to the sources to check the things I missed. This technique will allow you to recall a piece of information instantly when you need it.

Note-taking

Writing down the essential points and summary is one of my favorite habits. I usually underline the keywords and sometimes add my creative images to remember the concepts. I started vertical annotation towards a specific section’s left side to highlight the gist in a phrase. Annotations also helped me in retrieval practice.

Memory maps

For several years this has been my favorite tool to organize and present ideas. Usually, you would see a memory map in my presentations. I created separate memory maps for each topic in A4 sheets. In my retrieval practice, I tried to recreate these memory maps from my memory.

Memory palace

This technique involves visualizing a familiar place - like the layout of your house, street, library, office - and using it as a visual space where you can deposit concept-images that you want to remember. I tried to use it to memorize procedures that involved several steps. I still need to get the hang of it.

Themes and questions

Identifying themes emerged in the later stage after completing one round of skimming through the subject. When you go through several sources, it is an overwhelming experience as each source will have content developed with a different perspective. We need to synthesize and then try to absorb it. I identified 5-6 themes emerging from each subject and framed those in the form of questions. Later my quest was to find answers to those questions.

Discussion

I had several detailed conversations with my cohort Sanjay. We went through the previous year question papers to understand the scope and tried to figure out the patterns.

Conclusion

Overall, it was a wonderful learning experience. Despite all these strategies, I still crammed at the last minute as I overlooked some of the topics. Finally, I wrote my second-semester exams. Though results are yet to come, the learning experience is what matters. You can also apply these strategies for professional learning and development.