My Most POWERFUL Study Trick (Any Subject)

In-depth discussion about an advanced approach to learning.

Every week, I distil what really works for improving results, memory, depth of understanding, and knowledge application from over a decade of coaching into bite-sized emails.

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=== About Dr Justin Sung ===

Dr. Justin Sung is a world-renowned expert in self-regulated learning, certified teacher, research author, and former medical doctor. He has guest lectured on learning skills at Monash University for Master’s and PhD students in Education and Medicine. Over the past decade, he has empowered tens of thousands of learners worldwide to dramatically improve their academic performance, learning efficiency, and motivation.

[JustinSung]

Every week, I distil what really works for improving results, memory, depth of understanding, and knowledge application from over a decade of coaching into bite-sized emails.

[e-senpai]

A summary:
There are different levels of difficulty with any topic. In the same material, there can be areas of varying difficulty. So he's saying to be efficient you should learn the parts that you easily understand and skip the parts that you're finding hard. Make sure to mark down where those hard parts are. Then go back afterwards and see if you understand it a second time around. Because you're gaining prior knowledge, it should give you a foundation to learn some of the difficult parts. And you can repeat this process as many times as needed. He calls the technique "order control".

Additional tip from me: If you've done this process and still have parts you don't get, take what you are having trouble with and try to reword what's being said. Don't repeat phrases unless there's no synonyms. Often textbooks or professors will use very clunky, overly verbose phrasing. If you can break down what is being said to its fundamentals and with the most basic terminology, you'll comprehend it much better. This is one step of the Feynman technique, I believe.

[just_tammy]

I do a similar technique that I learnt from Unjaded jade. It was applied to past papers . You basically went through a past paper marking down questions or topics you failed to comprehend or could not recall. She called these “knowledge gaps” which you would then revise on so that later on when u tackle the question again, you’ll be able to answer it. Now I can try applying it to my studying ✨🙌🏽, Thank you for your help Justin! I’ve been learning to study more efficiently thanks to your videos🙏

[kiddhkane]

There's another metaphor to this:
If you are solving a jigsaw, you don't pick a random piece and see if it's the top left corner, and do it piece by piece. You find a piece that you can easily put somehwere (corner or edge usually) and than build on top of that. Also you can look for most easily solved parts, like a characteristic color.

[kingjulian]

your single most powerful thing that you taught me is "you don't learn with your paper, you learn with your brain"... That's one thing I never really realized... I was always just looking into my papers and just memorized some things, without ordering them in usefulness or anything... you taught me, that you really need to understand the topic you are learning about... And literally in every subject my grades went at least one if not two grades higher and I have the best grades in my whole school life... thanks for everything

[Med_Amine]

Summary:
- *Order control technique:* Reordering the way in which we are consuming information
- There are different levels of difficulty with any topic
- *learn* the parts that you *easily understand* and *skip* the parts that you're finding *hard* .
- *Update* your *mind-map* /Notes as you learn/encode.
- *Mark down* those *hard parts* aside (page #, key words) and *move on* to next thing.
You're gonna end up skipping heaps of information constantly and that's okay, because the purpose is to go through this text and pick out the things that make sense already.
⇒ *Slowly building up* a stronger network of *prior knowledge* (foundation ).
- Go back through skipped notes and re-process the info to make sense of it, And *update* your *mind-map* as you encode/learn.
- *Repeat* this *process* as many times as needed to cover what you have left ~x3 (Learn>skip>learn)
- Use *flash cards* as *last resort for* informations that you *don't* know how to *make sense* of it (because probably that piece of information is a little bit more isolated).

[johnhaag]

Thank you for this video Justin. I'm 50, getting back into college to pursue a 2nd career. I'm really enjoying how you explore concepts. I expect to put your material to good use!

[harshitarawat]

This is really good. I generally tend to focus a lot on things that don't make sense and look them up so I can get their concept. But this strays me away from the actual material and I end up finding even more terms or concepts that I don't know while trying to understand that one thing. Im definitely going to apply this from now on.

[Darknight]

Basically, follow the path of least resistance when it comes to your understanding and curiosity when learning or working. It is OKAY to skip things that you don't understand, write down what you have Q's on with the page #. After you've done your "rough draft" then go back and go through it again. With more prior knowledge you'll be able to answer some Q's that you previously had before and now you have more of a solid understanding. Keep going through it a total of 2-3 times and then the ones you don't understand, ask the teacher // go to office hours.

[beakless_duck]

So important to be aware of how cognitive biases like the framing bias and anchoring bias can skew our learning. It's really empowering to be in control of the way you take in information

[yuliaglazkova]

Order control technique:
Change the order in which you study.
3 sets of text:
1. Original material
2. The things you don't understand - add the things you feel you can only memorise
3. Your notes

Revisit the notes you took. Then the record of the things you didn't understand and note down the stuff you understand now (after your initial notes). Start from the top again. If you reach isolated information that you don't understand still after multiple itterations - then begin to memorise it

[dontaefranklin]

I've done this when learning languages. I thought I was just lazy cuz I only pay attention to what's the easiest to assimilate and skip the rest. Usually on the second run through a book all the stuff that was hard the first time is much easier to understand the second time! Thanks!

[sylvesterady]

I used to fail my math classes before but after I started doing some advanced math that was out of my league, my math is getting better and better now. This trick is really helpful. Thank you.

[bernadettemcenteehart]

As a fellow teacher this approach makes sense as long as I don’t put myself in an uncomfortable psychological state. I enjoy this way. It also allows me to access my memory in a very relaxed pleasant manner. So the whole experience is something I enjoy.

[cattelgibson]

I wish I had access to your teachings as a child. Your channel is life changing!

[petervanaltena]

Hey doc… 56 year old here, having to start learning something completely new again and starting to study again. This challenge forced me to think about how I can effectively learn… never had to do that in the past - at least not based on a strategy - so looking for ways to improve. Your content is great for that! Thanks so much for putting that out there and allow me for a next step in my career…

[tnmpro]

Justin
I used a complex method when I was studying for my A/Ls.
- Time management ( weekly timetable)
- colour coding the subjects
- Short Notes
-constant referring of notes
-tracking each and every unit of every subject with their difficulty level
Likewise.

But the issue is after entering into the university it is kind of hard to maintain the same level of dedication.

Your video really gave me some tips on to how to properly absorb the info.
In the past I would just go sequentially.

Thanks mate @JustinSung 👍.

[Maharddhika]

This is not your regular study guru video. Dr. Justin Sung truly goes in depth in his explanation. I had to watch this twice to understand the technique. For those saying it's lacking in detail, give it a chance. Open your brain and watch it again.

Were all here because were all lacking in a way when it comes to learning abilities.

Coming away from mediocrity takes effort.

[GradStudentTutorials]

Framing Bias - 13:26
Anchoring Bias - 13:38

[emilakhmedov]

It’s make perfect sense - this strategy called reverse planning and it used for for the conscious mind to agree with the subconscious. So as result you can continuously study until you get to the endpoint.