- Repetition: You need to read, listen and talk your way through it, not just until it becomes familiar but until...
- Assessment: You need to check whether you know it, not just stop when you feel like you do. It is supremely easy to mistake the feeling of recognition (I've seen that!) for memory (I KNOW it!)
- Duration: Once material is mastered (you can both say and write it correctly from memory) you need to let time pass, and then test yourself again. You'll probably forget some things. Go back and study again. Wait longer, and then test yourself again. You only really know it when you can repeatedly reproduce the material in reading and writing after long periods of not studying. This is why it is necessary to study for days in advance, not hours or minutes. Research shows that long term memories take time and repetition to form.
In science, we took the remaining time to start our research in order to try to understand how understanding pH can be helpful in food safety. In particular, we want to avoid just giving a list of facts. We need to explain what pH does for food safety, how it works, why it is useful, when we might use it and how long it takes, etc. For more details, see yesterday's post.
In other news, we have Open House starting tonight at 6 pm. I hope to see everyone there!