Ep 40: Learning and Study Strategies

Ulrich Boser, author of "Learn Better" and "The Leap", discusses the latest research on the science of learning strategies and reveals how you can help your teen to adopt proven study techniques for accelerating academic performance with less effort.

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Full show notes

When a teenager is constantly getting bad grades or failing to grasp course material, it’s hard to watch as a parent. It’s difficult to see them struggle to learn as well or as fast as their peers. We especially don’t want our kids to fall behind or get discouraged. Poor learning skills in the teen years can negatively impact grades, but failing to improve those skills can lead to greater disadvantages further into adulthood. This is why learning strategies for teens are so important! We want our kids to be happy, well-adjusted members of society, not those struggling to keep up.

Luckily, there are tried and true learning strategies for teens that can guide our kids towards being more effective learners. Our guest today is Ulrich Boser, the author of the book Learn Better: Mastering the Skills for Success in Life, Business, and School, Or, How to Become an Expert in Just About Anything. In the episode, Ulrich shines light on common misconceptions most people have about learning and several great learning strategies for teens we can use today.

Ulrich writes from the heart, as the inspiration for the book came from his own childhood. He struggled a lot in school, as he needed to repeat kindergarten and was placed into special education classes. Due to his difficulty keeping up with class, he always assumed he was going to be less successful than the classmates who excelled beyond him. However, as he began thinking critically about the process of learning itself, he discovered how he could become much more capable of retaining knowledge. He took his ideas about learning strategies for teens and put them into the book.

Ulrich describes a serious problem we have in today’s education system. He says we tend to sort people into two categories: good learners and bad learners. We shouldn’t be doing this, however, as research shows that we all have pretty much the same learning abilities. Rather than labeling them as unintelligent, we should be providing individualized learning strategies for teens who struggle in school.

One of the many learning strategies for teens that we discuss is the importance of physical learning. For example, we can greatly benefit from using hand motions to remember pieces of information. Although it may look peculiar, try helping your teen create a tapping motion that goes along with the information they are expected to memorize. Then, have them perform that same hand motion while being tested. This surprising technique can help them recall information much faster and with more accuracy.

Quizzing is another one of the effective learning strategies for teens I loved hearing about during this interview! Quizzing means testing your teen on the material they are learning. This is already a popular technique, so it’s good to know that it’s actually helpful. In fact, Ulrich says it’s one of the most effective techniques you can use! Even better, says Ulrich, is having teens repeat ideas to themselves without notes. If you can recall the information at hand without any reference, you will be more successful in remembering it for the long term.

Practicing new learning strategies doesn’t mean your teen isn’t smart already. Instead, it shows that they are dedicated to learning and adapting, even when things are challenging. Albert Einstein, one of the most brilliant men in history, struggled with basic tasks like tying his shoes and telling time. He had to learn certain strategies to adapt, and it was likely the development of those strategies that helped him become the brilliant innovator we all know. By researching and understanding learning strategies for teens, our kids can be just as brilliant as Einstein!

When it comes to learning strategies for teens, it’s good for them to distribute their learning over long periods of time, as Ulrich notes. As we’ve been told over and over, cramming for tests doesn’t work. If they try to learn everything in one night, their brains will simply not retain the information very well. Instead, by spreading out their studying over long periods of time, they can give their learning a boost.

Speaking of long term planning, Ulrich and I discuss how planning and goal setting can be helpful learning strategies for teens. This is especially true for teenagers in the modern day who have to juggle more than just school. Most teens are also involved in sports, extracurriculars, college applications, social media, complicated social circles, or a million other things. Ulrich speaks on the idea that if they’re feeling stressed and overwhelmed, teens simply don’t learn as well. By planning and setting specific deadlines for themselves, they can help section out their responsibilities so we’re not exhausted.

Along with sharing strategies for success, Ulrich also debunks common learning strategies that don’t work as well as we think they do. For example, Ulrich mentions research on reading has shown that highlighting certain phrases doesn’t help our brains retain information. The widely-accepted theory of learning styles (visual, written, or auditory), is also not scientifically accurate. These are very common misconceptions, and it’s important to learn that they are not effective learning strategies for teens. Instead, focus on quizzing, physical learning, and other scientifically-backed methods Ulrich shares in our conversation.

Ulrich says that our behaviors as parents have a significant influence on our teen’s behaviors through a psychological process called “modeling.” Modeling means, if we exhibit good learning strategies, our teens will do the same. For example, research shows that parents who are math anxious--meaning doing math makes them uncomfortable to the point where they avoid it--are likely to pass the same tendency onto their children.

Additionally, Ulrich encourages parents to share their own experience of struggling with learning to help kids contextualize and understand their own difficulties. If you can talk to them about what you’ve been through, they won’t feel so embarrassed or discouraged about their own struggles. Maybe you’ve always found writing essays particularly hard, but because it was difficult for you, you adapted and learned new strategies. By sharing this breakthrough with your teenager, you might help them adapt for their own situation.

Also in this episode, we discuss:

• Other methods of learning that are surprisingly effective, such as using analogies and talking to yourself
• Why it’s positive to “think about thinking”
• How to ensure that our teenagers will do the right thing, even when no one is watching
• What my brother has learned about education from running a tutoring company How receiving or providing tutoring can help your children
• How to gain back the trust of a teenager once it’s been broken
• How technology plays a role in learning

These ideas about learning and other learning strateg...