Another interesting exerpts from the book:
In a 2012 study, Dr. Jessica Payne and her colleagues found that people who studied material right before they went to sleep each night made stronger memories for that information (Payne et al., 2012). Provided that you are not totally exhausted, 20 min of review right before bed is great for strengthening recall.
The brain needs additional time to process the new learning, make important connections, and strengthen the cues to the information just learned. Thus, it is helpful to relax after learning, rather than learn additional information right away. Research has shown that recall of new information was improved in people who were given a break after learning (Tambini et al., 2010).
Taken altogether, many factors make cramming a short-term solution without any real positive long-term outcomes. As one group of researchers put it, “If learning is your goal cramming is an irrational act” (Jang, Wixted, Pecher, Zeelenberg, & Huber, 2012, p. 973).
Following is a quick story from my own life to illustrate this point: When I was an undergraduate, I took two years of Spanish and earned an A in all courses. I also lived in a Spanish-speaking country for a year following college. Yet today I know only about 30 words of Spanish. Why? Because I crammed for all my Spanish exams, and when I lived abroad, I tried my best to find people who spoke English to hang out with. I never engaged in distributed practice with my Spanish, and for all my time, money, and cramming, I got 30 words. If your goal is to actually learn something, cramming does not work.
As learners, anytime you can connect on an emotional level to your new learning by personalizing it or connecting it to an emotional memory, you make it easier to form a memory for the new learning.