Many students ask me how to study. Particularly in freshman mathematics courses, students may experience a sort of culture shock: university courses have far more depth and a faster pace than high school courses. Here are my recommendations to students.
If the way which I have pointed out as leading hither seems exceedingly hard, it can nevertheless be discovered. Needs must it be hard, since it is so seldom found. How would it be possible, if salvation lay ready to our hand, and could without great labor be found, that it should be by almost everybody neglected? But all excellent things are as difficult as they are rare.
—B. Spinoza, Ethics, V
1. D. Rohrer and K. Taylor, “The effects of overlearning and distributed practice on the retention of mathematics knowledge,” Applied Cognitive Psychology 20 (2006), no. 9, 1209–1224.
2. K. Foerde, B. J. Knowlton, and R. A. Poldrack, “Modulation of competing memory systems by distraction,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 103 (2006), no. 31, 11778–11783.
3. B. Finn and S. K. Tauber, “When confidence is not a signal of knowing: How students’ experiences and beliefs about processing fluency can lead to miscalibrated confidence,” Educational Psychology Review 27 (2015), no. 4, 567–586.
4. P. A. Mueller and D. M. Oppenheimer, “The pen is mightier than the keyboard: Advantages of longhand over laptop note taking,” Psychological Science (2014): 0956797614524581.
5. B. Draganski, C. Gaser, G. Kempermann, H. G. Kuhn, J. Winkler, C. Büchel, and A. May, “Temporal and spatial dynamics of brain structure changes during extensive learning,” The Journal of Neuroscience 26 (2006), no. 23, 6314–6317.