The Best Way to Learn

The only way to truly learn the material covered in class and retain that information is through active cognitive processing. Active cognitive processing is when the student is engaged in the learning process by listening carefully, watching demonstrations, actively asking questions, making connections with previous knowledge, and by repeating the material in order to comprehend the information. There are many ways to increase active cognitive processing to insure certain ideas have been learned.

One of the ways to increase active cognitive processing is by getting good night’s sleep. Having a complete sleep cycle is one of the most important parts of the day. There are many advantages to maintaining a full sleep cycle like, stress levels are reduced, muscle tension is reduced, hand-eye coordination improves, and depth perception become more clear. The brain's cognitive processing is also enhanced and rejuvenated because the brain reprocesses everything the body did and learned and stores the information in the temporal lobe. By getting a good night’s sleep the brain is more capable of active cognitive processing and will not "zone out" and not attain or not process information.

Another way to increase active cognitive processing is through reinforcement. When new material is learned the brain creates a pathway for the information to be accessed through again. A brain never "forgets" anything, but merely cannot follow the pathway or cross the synapses to retrieve the information. By repeating the information, the brain uses the pathway more and becomes more efficient at attaining the information. Essentially, this process depends on the individuals study habits including the use of flashcards, rereading the material, games, and quizzes. By utilizing different ways to retrieve the information and repeating the information the brain can actively process the information.

Although there are many more influential methods to increase active cognitive processing, one of the main ways is through discontinuity. This process allows the brain to process and assess the information already attained, more commonly referred to as a study break. The brain is consistently learning new information every day, and does not have enough time in the day to completely organize the information. (Sleep does help reorganize some of the information, but sleep is mainly for maintenance of the cognitive processes.) This study break allows to organize information making it easier to attain and making more room for more information. The break also depends on length, if the break is too long the information is not being reinforced enough and some might be lost, but if the break is short the information can still be unorganized and less new information will be stored. By issuing a break between studying the brain can organize and process already learned information and make room for more information making the learning cycle continuous.

The active cognitive processing cycle is continuous and very fragile. Many factors can disrupt learning including sleep deprivation, not studying, stress levels, psychological dysfunctions (disruption in relationships), and overloading information without a chance to organize. All of these things can cause an individual to be incapable of learning and retaining information. As Issac Asimov explained it, "the day you stop living, is the day you start decaying." Therefore, in order to continue successfully learning through active cognitive processing class should not be held so that the learning cycle will not be disrupted.