How to Learn Hard Concepts in School

College can be demanding. Even students who breezed through high school may struggle, because college courses involve a lot of information that’s presented in a short period of time. 

It’s natural to feel overwhelmed, but that doesn’t mean that you are overwhelmed. These challenges may be daunting, but they probably won’t be the first in your college career. 

With the right approach, it can be an opportunity to improve your learning skills and develop strategies to tackle more complex concepts. 

Study Smart, Not Hard 

Many students learn strong study habits in high school, but those same habits may not keep up with the demands of college education. Classes can be larger, exams may have higher stakes, reading can be more intense, and classes are more rigorous overall. 

It’s important to actively study, not just listen and read. You have to engage with the material and formulate your own learning. Here are some ideas to help you engage: 

• Create a study guide for each section or concept with questions and problems, then answer them once you’ve gone over the material. 
• Come up with examples that relate to your own experiences. 
• Think of difficult concepts in terms of question, evidence, and conclusion. 
• Try to explain the concepts in your own words, then compare them to the text to see if you truly understand. 
• Complete any practice quizzes and answer any questions posed by your text, even if they’re not graded. 
• Space out your studying over days or weeks, which is more effective for learning and retention than cramming all the information in at once. 

Try the Feynman Technique 

The Feynman Technique is a learning strategy that was developed by Richard Feynman, the Nobel Prize-winning physicist. He believed that many people focused more on memorizing terms and definitions, rather than truly understanding the concepts that underpin them. 

His approach focuses on studying to improve understanding, not memorization, and involves the following steps: 

1. Write an explanation of the concept as simply as possible, using short sentences and plain language. Avoid consulting references – this is based entirely on what you know. 
2. Consider which aspects of the concept you couldn’t explain well. Those are the ones you need to focus on. Repeat step one until you can explain the concept comfortably. 
3. Once you have a complete and accurate explanation of a concept, try to simplify it even more without losing substantive information. This will help you determine if there are any gaps in your understanding or elements you need to revisit. 

Use Mental Spacing 

As mentioned, shorter, consistent study sessions are more effective in the long term than cramming. Mental spacing follows this idea by practicing learning in a consistent, well-paced manner. 

Not understanding something new can be frustrating for anyone, which can encourage cramming or memorization to simply “get it over with.” However, this is the most inefficient way to learn complicated information and retain it for the future – a skill that’s important in college. 

Many courses and prerequisites build upon previous concepts as the coursework becomes more advanced and complex. If you don’t have a solid understanding of the concepts leading up to that, you’ll only feel more lost. 

With mental spacing, you prioritize many concepts learned over a longer period instead of focusing on one at a time. Your brain stays sharp, you learn a little at a time, and you get a feel for which concepts come easily and which don’t. 

Consider the ADEPT Approach 

The ADEPT approach was developed by Kalid Azad, a math educator and learning specialist, to help students break down difficult concepts. It’s an acronym that stands for: 

• Analogy: Illustrate the concept with a relevant comparison. 
• Diagram: Draw the concept out. 
• Example: Provide a simple example. 
• Plain English: Describe the concept with plain words and minimal jargon. 
• Technical definition: Describe the concept with formal details and appropriate terminology. 

Writing about a concept multiple ways forces you to think creatively and examine it from multiple angles. When you’re finished, you should have a solid library of mental representations – including diagrams, examples, and analogies – that will be easier to recall as you move further into the material. 

The ADEPT approach and the Feynman Technique are similar in many ways. You can combine the two by using ADEPT as your first step of the Feynman Technique, then revisiting the concept to deepen your learning using steps two and three. 

Play to Your Strengths 

We go through several stages when we learn a new concept, which include: 

• Confusion 
• Initial understanding 
• Expanded understanding 
• Refined understanding (with knowledge gaps) 

These stages show how our brains process and learn new information. Maximizing those strengths and weaknesses can help you grasp information more quickly, which includes pacing your learning. 

This gives your brain time to switch between focused, which is when you’re actively trying to learn new information or practice something, and diffuse, which is when your brain relaxes. The latter is when your brain is at rest and creates connections that focused learning can’t find. 

If you’ve ever had that “epiphany” moment of finally connecting the dots, it’s when your brain “clicks” on all the information you absorbed during focused learning. 

Set Goals and Measure Progress 

If you’re pacing your learning appropriately, it’s easier to set goals that are achievable, realistic, and measurable. Then, when you reflect back, you can see what worked and develop more effective study habits in the future. 

Here’s how to set goals for yourself and measure progress: 

1. Write everything you know about a subject, even if it’s just a few disparate thoughts. 
2. Write down your goals for learning the concept. 
3. After you finish each study session, write down what you learned and what you still need to learn. 

These steps create start points and end points for your studies and show you how you got from point A to point B. Your goal can be for any period of time, depending on your own needs and pace. 

Develop Your Skills to Excel in College 

College studies often involve new concepts that are difficult and unfamiliar, but learning how to overcome your struggles and develop better study skills and enhance learning is part of the experience. Using these approaches can help you meet your goals and ensure that you’re truly learning, not just coasting. 

If you want to get back in the groove of learning in a self-paced environment, Sophia’s online courses are ideal for those difficult courses. You can take your time to study concepts while building valuable study skills – and we have plenty of learning resources to help if you’re stuck! Start your free trial on Sophia today!