Strategies to improve your memory

Did you know that

You have to pay attention to something in order to remember it?
60-80% of material is forgotten if not reviewed within 24 hours?
Your brain actively works on memory processing while you sleep?
Your brain uses 20% of the calories your body takes in per day, so you need to eat well to remember better?

Attention is the gateway to memory, so consciously pay attention to what you are trying to learn.

Get an overview (the "big picture" of a lecture topic or reading) before you start

Determine what is important by focusing on introductions, summaries, headings and terminology
Create questions to help you get interested in the topic before you start
Look for the answers to your questions while you listen or read

Work with the information to understand it:

Organize information–your brain likes it that way!

Practice what you have learned

Spread learning out over time

Try doing 50-minute study blocks a few times a week per course
Plan rewards to sustain your motivation
Take short breaks —this improves your ability to process and remember information
Don’t study the same subject all day – switch topics and courses
Review regularly

Test yourself –it’s important to find out what you don’t know so you can learn it properly!

Talk your way through your whole course as if you were teaching it to someone else
Follow up on anything you do not remember/understand to fix knowledge deficits right away.
Test yourself on math problems from random sections of course rather than linking them to a particular chapter.
Create a bank of test questions for you or a study partner; make them challenging!