Education is the key to unlock the golden door of freedom. – George Washington Carver

Now that you’ve developed some strategies for coming to class prepared and getting ready to learn, it’s important to learn how to learn. Although there are many strategies, and although each person learns a bit differently, there are some key stages and styles of learning that are similar for most students. One example is that practice is almost always necessary in order to get better at anything. Certainly any athlete or musician can attest to the importance of regular practice, and that same dedication to practice applies to college learning as well.

The Importance of Practice

Take a moment to watch the following video by Kristos called The Process of Learning. As you watch, consider how painful it can be—literally!—to learn something new, but also how much joy can be experienced after it’s learned.

Stages of the Learning Process

Consider experiences you’ve had with learning something new, such as learning to tie your shoes or drive a car. You probably began by showing interest in the process, and after some struggle it became second nature. These experiences were all part of the learning process, which can be described in four stages:

1. Unconscious incompetence: You don’t know what you don’t know yet. This stage happens to everyone when they approach a brand new subject or discover something they’ve never thought about before.
2. Conscious incompetence: You know what you don’t know. This stage can be the most difficult, because you begin to register how much you need to learn. Think about the saying “It’s easier said than done.” In stage 2, you begin to apply new skills that contribute to reaching the learning goal. Successful completion of this stage relies on practice.
3. Conscious competence: You are feeling some confidence about what you do know, but you can’t fully explain what you have learned to someone else. Even though you may be able to process the information you’re receiving in a lecture, you may not yet be able to fully answer a question about it. Stage 3 requires skill repetition.
4. Unconscious competence: You can explain what you have learned to someone else. This final stage is mastery; you have successfully practiced and repeated the process you learned so many times that you can recall and use that information in a variety of contexts.

Although you may feel you are a “master” of a particular skill by the time you reach stage 4, constant practice and reevaluation of which stage you are in is necessary so you can keep learning. ^[1]

The Study Cycle: A Five Step Process

The study cycle, from LSU’s Center for Academic Success, gives the big picture, so you can study more efficiently and have success on your exams.

Preview: Before class look over your notes from the last class and any assigned readings. Note headings, subheading, pictures, graphics, learning objectives, and summaries. Prepare questions to ask about the content.

Attend: Take notes, answer questions, and ask any new questions.

Review: Review your notes, find answers to any missing information or questions within 24 hours.

Study: Review your notes and ask yourself how? why? and what? to make connections. Repetition will move the material from short-term memory to long-term memory, so create study times throughout the week to review content.

Assess: Test yourself by seeing if you can explain the material to another person without looking at your notes or textbook. Ask yourself if you are spending enough time studying and if your study methods are working.

Watch the following video for an overview of the study cycle.

Identifying Learning Styles

Many of us are accustomed to very traditional learning styles as a result of our experience as K–12 students. For instance, we can all remember listening to a teacher talk and copying notes off the chalkboard. However, when it comes to learning, one size doesn’t fit all. People have different learning styles and preferences, and these can vary from subject to subject. For example, while one student might prefer listening to recordings to learn Spanish, that same student might prefer hands-on activities like labs to master the concepts in a biology course.

Learning styles or preferences are also called learning modalities. Walter Burke Barbe and his colleagues proposed the following three learning modalities (often identified by the acronym VAK):

1. Visual
2. Auditory
3. Kinesthetic

Examples of these modalities are shown in the table, below.

Neil Fleming’s VARK model expanded on the three modalities described above and added “Read/Write Learning” as a fourth.

The four sensory modalities in Fleming’s model are:

1. Visual learning
2. Auditory learning
3. Read/write learning
4. Kinesthetic learning

Fleming claimed that visual learners have a preference for seeing (visual aids that represent ideas using methods other than words, such as graphs, charts, diagrams, symbols, etc.). Auditory learners best learn through listening (lectures, discussions, tapes, etc.). Read/write learners have a preference for written words (readings, dictionaries, reference works, research, etc.) Tactile/kinesthetic learners prefer to learn via experience—moving, touching, and doing (active exploration of the world, science projects, experiments, etc.).

The VAK/VARK models can be a helpful way of thinking about different learning styles and preferences, but they are certainly not the last word on how people learn or prefer to learn. Many educators consider the distinctions useful, finding that students benefit from having access to a blend of learning approaches. Other educators find the idea of three or four “styles” to be distracting or limiting.

In the college setting, you’ll probably discover that instructors teach their course materials according to the method they think will be most effective for all students. Thus, regardless of your individual learning preference, you will probably be asked to engage in all types of learning. For instance, even though you consider yourself to be a “visual learner,” you will still probably have to write papers in some of your classes. This is a good thing: research suggests that it’s good for the brain to learn in new ways and that learning in different modalities can help learners become more well-rounded.

Consider the following statistics on how much content students absorb through different learning methods:

• 10 percent of content they read
• 20 percent of content they hear
• 30 percent of content they visualize
• 50 percent of content they both visualize and hear
• 70 percent of content they say
• 90 percent of content they say and do

The range of these results underscores the importance of varying the ways you study and engage with learning materials.

Defining Multimodal Learning

While completing the learning-styles activity, you might have discovered that you prefer more than one learning style. Applying more than one learning style is known as multimodal learning. This strategy is useful not only for students who prefer to combine learning styles, but also for those who may not know which learning style works best for them. It’s also a good way to mix things up and keep learning fun.

For example, consider how you might combine visual, auditory, and kinesthetic learning styles to a biology class. For visual learning, you could create flash cards containing images of individual animals and the species name. For auditory learning, you could have a friend quiz you on the flash cards. For kinesthetic learning, you could move the flash cards around on a board to show a food web (food chain).

The following video will help you review the types of learning styles and see how they might relate to your study habits:

Refer to the Chapter 1 Activities to help you extend and apply what you’ve learned about multimodal learning and studying to your current classes.

How Much Should You Study?

Class- and Study-Time Ratios

Time management is challenging for many college students, especially ones with lots of responsibilities outside of school. Unlike high school classes, college classes meet less often, and college students are expected to do more independent learning, homework, and studying. The amount of time students spend on coursework outside of the physical classroom will vary, depending on the course (how rigorous it is and how many credits it’s worth) and on the institution’s expectations. However, a general rule is that the ratio of classroom time to study time is 1:2 or 1:3. That means that for every hour you spend in class, you should plan to spend two to three hours out of class working independently on course assignments. For example, if your composition class meets for one hour, three times a week, you’re expected to devote from six to nine hours each week on reading and writing assignments.

When choosing the best course load for you, remember that for every 1 credit hour in which you enroll, you will need to spend approximately 1 hour in class per week and 2 additional hours studying. Here is what this looks like in reality:

If you account for all the classes you’re taking in a given semester, the study time really adds up. The only way to stay on top of the workload is by creating a schedule to help you manage your time, which we’ll explore in the time management chapter.