For lifelong learning, the learning strategy is crucial! A study with students shows which strategy truly leads to sustainable learning. But can this learning strategy also be transferred to adults?
What are learning strategies anyway?
Simply put, a learning strategy is anything you do to memorize new knowledge as effectively as possible. Such individual learning strategies exist for every person, whether child or adult. The right learning strategies are the foundation for lifelong learning, from kindergarten to professional development.
Which learning strategy really works?
A study on students has shown twenty years ago: Certain learning strategies can significantly improve learning success! In this study, two important learning strategies were distinguished:
Surface strategies are what parents and teachers typically recommend: “Read the text a few times, highlight the most important parts with a marker, and simply memorize it!” – Who doesn't know this?
Deep strategies aim to find connections within the learning content and transfer them to other areas. This includes, among other things, reproducing the content in your own words or putting it into another form, such as drawing a sketch of the content of a text.
Result of the student study: Deep strategies achieve higher learning success!
When reading texts, the choice of learning strategy has a strong influence on learning success: students who naturally apply more deep strategies can remember significantly more content from the text. Additionally, these students can better place the new knowledge within their prior knowledge than students with surface learning strategies.
The graphic shows the success of both learning strategies in various content areas from the text that the students worked on:
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Result of the study: Students with many deep strategies learn more and better than students with surface learning strategies.
The right learning strategy for adults?
Students learn better with deep strategies. But can this also be transferred to learning in adults?
I believe so: Of course! Learning is a lifelong process, and we apply such learning strategies not only in school but also in adulthood.
In vocational adult education, as a trainer or coach, you have a variety of opportunities to support deep learning strategies for adults:
Specifically build on the knowledge that your participants already have from their work life and that they need daily.
Offer your participants various content types instead of just texts and images: For instance, motivate them with videos and practical exercises to place new knowledge in their professional context.
Encourage your participants to create sketches or mind maps to stimulate connections between different topics.
…and so on!
Learning strategies are indeed individual, and ultimately everyone learns best in their somewhat unique way – but age, whether student or adult, has no influence on the success of the learning strategy from my perspective.
I rather think: This way, adults can learn lifelong learning from children and find their suitable learning strategy.
What do you think about the topic: Do adults learn better with deep strategies just like children? Or are there indeed specific learning strategies for adults? Feel free to write your opinion and ideas in the comments – I'm looking forward to it! 😀
