Start your journey to finding your learning style…

Are you feeling confident that you know how to revise for your GCSE exams? Follow our learning styles journey to find the best ways for you to revise: or

Good Luck with Your Revision… Guarantee brilliant results; get the most from your brain! You will have a dominant right or left hemisphere, decide which way the dancer is spinning on the next slide to work out which side of your brain works best for you! Then choose the green or red brain and follow our exciting learning styles journey! This is the journey that will lead to success for YOU...as it matches the way YOUR brain works. Of course, to get the most out of your brain try all the techniques as you may find both your hemispheres work equally well! Remember...try the techniques for 21 days...practice makes permanent!

Build learning power through using both hemispheres Which way is the dancer spinning? Clockwise = right brain Curious & creative Anti-clockwise = left brain Logical & analytical

Retaining Information Does note taking work for you? The average student finds a lecture with note taking the most difficult way to retain information. Whereas teaching others leads to excellent memory retention!

Method of Loci Make your own Mind Palace (just like Sherlock) Watch the video Think of a familiar place and route, e.g. around your living room Then link images to revision information with locations you have just imagined.

Use visualisation memory techniques to help remember facts Idriz Zogaj, Memory Expert Watch the video from minutes 7.16 – 10.10

Act out or pretend you are teaching – yes, talk out loud! Watching a play or film is good, but acting a part out can make a piece come alive Act things out on your own or get a classmate or two over and share out parts in a play or piece of history GCSE Bitesize Macbeth Plot

Display your work Use places like your room, the stairs and hallways to put revision/flashcards, mind maps, diagrams and mnemonics. Image from http://thatmademeelohel.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/revision-tipstricks-organisation.html

Prior knowledge can help retain knowledge Watch Video Rewrite bullet points/flashcards/lists etc with detail filled in. Go back over these with notes and annotate with what you missed, then repeat! Explain ideas/arguments/theories to others

Create a Mind Map This will make the map more visually memorable

Mnemonics To remember the order of colours in the rainbow, or visual spectrum use the mnemonic: Richard Of York Gave Battle In Vain = Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, Violet To create your own mnemonics click here mnemonics

Have fun with flashcards Stick them around your house Highlight the key importance of information (rank it, colour code it, put it into tables etc.) Create checklists of the things you don’t know and get someone to test you Turn them into something else…

Q . How many minutes in a day? Ask Questions Don’t just write down facts instead use questions one column for the question and then another column for the answer so you can cover over the answer to see whether you know the information or flashcards with answer on the back. Even better ask others to check rather than testing yourself (and peeking at the answers) Front: Back: Q . How many minutes in a day? A. 1440 minutes

Story Board Turn the story below to pictures to help you remember it! Blueberries don’t simply improve memory – they can actually reverse memory loss. A study published in the Journal of Neuroscience that after eating their daily dose of berries, the rodents learned faster, had a better short-term memory. Broccoli is a source of two crucial nutrients that help improve brain function. Vitamin K helps to strengthen cognitive abilities – people who eat plenty of broccoli perform better on memory tests. Broccoli also includes a sizeable serving of folic acid, which can help ward off Alzheimer’s disease. Studies suggest that a lack of folic acid could lead to depression, so eating plenty of broccoli could also keep you happy. Who says that healthy food can’t be delicious? Eating a daily portion of dark chocolate has been found to improve blood flow to the brain. So don’t feel guilty about that chocolate bar – your brain will thank you! Source: The Telegraph, 3 Mar 2015

Story Board Do you remember the main points from the pictures below?

Note taking Note down 15 key words from this text: Psychologists have discovered the plasticity of our brains. This means that when people repeatedly practice an activity or access a memory, the groups of neurons that fire together in your brain will shape themselves according to that activity or memory. When people stop practicing new things, the brain will eventually eliminate the newly formed pathways. Like in a system of roads connecting various cities, the more cars going to certain destination, the wider the road that carries them needs to be. The fewer cars traveling that way, however, the fewer lanes are needed. This means you can control the capacity of your brain! Psychologists believe that "cells that fire together, wire together", meaning that if you perform a task or recall some information that causes different neurons to fire together, it strengthens the connections between those cells. Over time, these connections become thick and strong road maps that link various parts of the brain. Stimulating one neuron in the sequence is more likely to trigger the next one to fire. Therefore “practice makes permanent”. The more times the network is stimulated, the stronger and more efficient it becomes. Psychologists have carried out experiments that have shown when pupils know their brain is in their control they have performed much better in exams! Carol Dweck, Stanford University, USA

To form a habit you need to use the techniques 21 days in a row! Time for a learning muscle: Reflection Which of the techniques are the most effective for YOU! Rank the techniques and start to use your preferred techniques immediately to ensure that you start to get your cells to fire together & wire together! Mind Maps Loci/Memory Expert Act Mnemonics Flashcards Story boards Notes To form a habit you need to use the techniques 21 days in a row!

Which way is the dancer spinning now? Clockwise or anti-clockwise? Can you see her spinning both ways now? Have you warmed up your neural pathways???? If you try all the techniques you can develop your brain to use both hemispheres and see her spin both ways!

Thank you for watching and remember… practice makes permanent!