7 Ways To Learn More With Less Studying

The abundance of new research on how teenage brains work, aside from being cool for its own sake--teen brains are developing madly, pruning synapses and insulating neurons to build a lean computing machine--is fueling a new movement to help kids make the most of the brain they've got. Think of it as a user's manual for a machine that's still being wired.

One of the leaders in that movement is Wilkie "Bill" Wilson, a neuroscientist and director of DukeLEARN, a Duke University project to teach teenagers the practical applications of neuroscience. DukeLEARN's curriculum for 9th-graders won't be in the schools until 2009, but with the first homework of the fall already being stuffed into backpacks, I asked Bill for a sneak preview. He asked: "How would you like to learn more without having to study more?" Sign me up! Here's how:

1. Get to bed and go to sleep. Sleep enables memory consolidation, which is psych-speak for saying that you remember stuff after you sleep on it. What's more, overall performance, attention, and the ability to concentrate are damaged by lack of sleep. "So you're hurt in two ways," Wilson says. Teenagers need nine to 10 hours of sleep a night for optimum performance.

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Comments

[Sumocat]

"7 Ways To Learn More With Less Studying" -- Huffington Post headline

"7 Ways to Learn More Without More Study" -- original USA Today headline

Not doing more is not the same as doing less.

[BannedInBoston]

God, what an exercise in the obvious (like most neuropsychology....)

[Einstein44]

Be a long life learner...you will never regret it !!!!!

[Bush 08]

now if only we could improve the curriculum...

[mamacat]

Good advice.

[Harveycritic]

Something we should have learned in college when we pulled all-nighter study sessions just before major tests.