3 conseils pour étudier efficacement

0:07 During their training, medical residents learn countless techniques, surgeries,

0:11 and procedures which they’ll later use to save lives.

0:15 Being able to remember these skills can quite

0:18 literally be a matter of life and death.

0:20 With this in mind, a 2006 research study took a class

0:25 of surgical residents learning to suture

0:27 arteries and split them into two groups.

0:30 Each received the same study materials,

0:33 but one group implemented a small change in how they studied them.

0:37 And when tested one month later, this group performed the surgeries

0:42 significantly better than the other residents.

0:45 We’ll discuss the secret to that group’s success,

0:48 along with two other highly effective study techniques which

0:52 can be applied both in and out of the classroom.

0:55 But to understand why these methods work,

0:57 let's first unpack how the brain learns and stores information.

1:02 Say you're trying to memorize the anatomy of the heart.

1:06 When you’re introduced to a new concept,

1:08 the memory is temporarily encoded in groups

1:11 of neurons in a brain area called the hippocampus.

1:15 As you continue to learn about workings of the heart

1:18 in class or study its chambers for an exam, you reactivate these same neurons.

1:24 This repeated firing strengthens the connections between the cells,

1:28 stabilizing the memory.

1:30 Gradually, the knowledge of heart anatomy is stored long-term,

1:34 which involves another brain area known as the neocortex.

1:39 How information is transferred from short-term

1:42 to long-term storage is still not completely understood,

1:46 but it’s thought to happen in between

1:48 study sessions and perhaps most crucially during sleep.

1:52 Here the new knowledge is integrated

1:54 with other related concepts you already know,

1:57 such as how to measure heart rate, or the anatomy of other organs.

2:02 And the process doesn’t end there.

2:04 Each time you recall heart anatomy,

2:06 you reactivate the long-term memory, which makes it susceptible to change.

2:11 The knowledge can be updated, strengthened,

2:13 and reintegrated with other pieces of information.

2:17 This is where our first study technique comes in.

2:20 Testing yourself with flashcards and quizzes

2:24 forces you to actively retrieve knowledge,

2:26 which updates and strengthens the memory.

2:29 Students often prefer other study methods,

2:32 like rereading textbooks and highlighting notes.

2:35 But these practices can generate a false sense of competence,

2:39 since the information is right in front of you.

2:42 Testing yourself, however,

2:43 allows you to more accurately gauge what you actually know.

2:47 But what if, while doing this, you can’t remember the answers?

2:51 Not to worry— making mistakes can actually improve learning in the long term.

2:57 It’s theorized that as you rack your brain for the answer,

3:00 you activate relevant pieces of knowledge.

3:03 Then, when the correct answer is later revealed,

3:06 the brain can better integrate this information with what you already know.

3:10 Our second technique builds on the first.

3:13 When using flashcards to study,

3:15 it's best to mix the deck with multiple subjects.

3:18 Interleaving, or mixing the concepts you focus on in a single session,

3:23 can lead to better retention than practicing a single skill or topic at a time.

3:28 One hypothesis of why this works is that, similar to testing,

3:33 cycling through different subjects forces your brain to temporarily forget,

3:37 then retrieve information, further strengthening the memory.

3:41 You may also find connections across the topics,

3:44 and better understand their differences.

3:46 Now that you know how and what to study, our final technique concerns when.

3:52 Spacing your review across multiple days

3:55 allows for rest and sleep between sessions.

3:59 While “offline,” the brain is actively at work,

4:02 storing and integrating knowledge in the neocortex.

4:06 So while cramming the night before the exam may seem logical— after all,

4:10 won’t the material be fresh in your mind?—

4:13 the information won’t stick around for the long term.

4:17 This brings us back to our medical residents.

4:20 Both groups studied the surgery for the same amount of time.

4:23 Yet one group’s training was crammed in a single day,

4:27 while the other more successful group’s training was spread over four weeks.

4:32 The reason all three of these study techniques work

4:35 is because they’re designed with the brain in mind.

4:38 They complement and reinforce the incredible way the brain works,

4:42 sorting through and storing the abundance of information it’s fed day after day.