• TotallynotJessica@lemmy.worldM
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    17
    ·
    21 days ago
    • I don’t study
    • I take the test
    • I pass
    • I remember what I learned

    I am built different, but it’s more that I’m built incorrectly: I just can’t memorize. My ADHD/autism makes it impossible to memory dump because I can’t pay attention unless I find it interesting. If I don’t engage with it on a deep level, I don’t learn anything at all, even for a test.

    Despite more than a decade of classes, I can’t even understand complex conversations in Spanish. I was never forced to use it in my day-to-day life, so I never learned anything. On the other hand, I joined college level courses late while in high-school, yet still scored higher than everyone else on the end of the year tests. I found psychology and economics intuitively fascinating because I could see how they shaped the world around me.

    It may sound obnoxious, but my study strategy was to genuinely learn stuff and integrate it into my understanding of reality. I find learning fun, so I’m able to focus and learn better than most people. It’s a truly broken ability.

  • Monstrosity@lemm.ee
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    9
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    21 days ago

    You may not notice you learned anything in the process, but your brain did.

      • Monstrosity@lemm.ee
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        3
        ·
        20 days ago

        When you take a History class, you memorize a whole bunch of dates and names and places etc etc etc and often have to name those on tests.

        You are likely to forget most of the specific names, dates, places etc etc etc that you learned, but the overarching timeline, events, important ideas that people represented etc etc etc will stick with you. And that’s the point.

        • forrgott@lemm.ee
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          4
          ·
          20 days ago

          Not at all true for me. I’ll remember people and events and why shirt happened. When and where?? Not a chance.

          But anyway, the point is that rote memorization has, like, almost no long term benefit. It’s really a lie.

          • Monstrosity@lemm.ee
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            2
            arrow-down
            1
            ·
            20 days ago

            Okay, well, you are welcome to believe that.

            When teachers go to school to learn to be a teacher, they don’t just sit in Masters classes with their thumbs up their asses, is all I’m saying.

            Good luck!

      • unexposedhazard@discuss.tchncs.de
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        3
        ·
        19 days ago

        Nah stress comes from them being infrequent and high stakes. Each test should have less impact on your overall grades. The current system is like raising children but only ever giving them any quality feedback 2 times per year and then being confused when they did stupid shit in that last half year. Thats stressfull for everyone. What we need is a regular feedback loop so you can actually course correct in a realistic way.

        • Porygon [she/any]@lemmy.blahaj.zone
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          19 days ago

          I’m all for frequent, lower stakes quizzes but I disagree about what makes them stressful.

          One of my professors did that type of thing where he would randomly ask surprise graded questions on his lecture material throughout the class. It happened multiple times every class and we’d have ~30 seconds to a minute to answer them. Despite them being relatively low stakes (because of how many there were), that was easily the most stressful class I’ve ever taken. Having to be constantly on edge for the entire class for a quiz without knowing when it would happen (or even worse, getting caught off-guard when it did) was exactly what made it so stressful.

    • shani66@ani.social
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      3
      ·
      20 days ago

      Gotta learn the same way you do languages. Learn it once and use it regularly. Basic algebra is useful in day to day life, so it’ll stay with us. the formula for an area of a triangle is mostly useless so it’ll fade away. Or the way we learn stories, by being a narrative we can immerse ourselves into.