Credit: Carter Moon

Kimora Nelson researches alternative fuels in her Environmental Science class. She is trying to determine other sustainable practices when it comes to energy use.

Within the classrooms, students find ways to learn that help them better understand information. Walking through the halls, you can see classrooms that are filled with different learning materials. These different materials allow students to play around to test what helps them learn best. 

Some students may try other tactics like memorization, listening to music, and repetition to help them stay on top of their work. Many of these tactics vary with the different types of classes students attend. This is why most students focus on what seriously helps them.

Preparing for tests is normally a top priority when students try to find what helps them understand information better. Freshman Mia Stroven takes her time to understand what she is reading on tests. This helps her so she doesn’t rush through and answer randomly.

 “During a test, I take my time reading through passages,” said Stroven. “I’m beginning to understand I won’t answer correctly all the time.”

Many students go home and procrastinate on all of their homework. Even if they try to do homework or study, there is often something that distracts them. The students who do go home and study hard have found specific strategies to help them stay focused.

“I like to listen to music I don’t know,” freshman Anna Hickman said. “It keeps me from getting distracted with the lyrics from songs I know.” 

According to Can Music Help You Study and Focus? “Music activates both the left and right brain at the same time.” 

A fair number of students walk into school with headphones or earbuds on. 

Others may say that repeating or reading what they’ve learned helps them memorize information.  A lot of people find that saying something over is more effective than just writing it down. For example, the actors in a musical or play, study their lines over and over to memorize them.

In 2020, during the lockdowns induced by COVID-19, students struggled with what was being taught and how online learning affected their learning. 

“It definitely was a huge disadvantage for my learning. I was in an environment with a bunch of distractions,” Stroven said. “When I’m around people who are focused and can physically work with the instructors, it helps me learn better.”

According to How Students Learn, the Yale Poorvu Center for Teaching and Learning says that students typically learn best by connecting new information and old information in an active social classroom. One example of this may be when you watch a movie in a history class and you connect some details you learned in other classes to the movie. 

Under these conditions, students can negotiate their understanding through varied approaches until one method is shown to be most effective for a specific topic or test type.

“I test out different learning ways,” Hickman said, “by using them when I have to study for something not as important, to see what works best.”