How to Learn Science Faster – Helping Your Students to be Confident

I have always wanted to know how to learn science faster. Once upon a time, there was a young girl sitting in a college biology class where a professor was lecturing over an hour about ALL THE THINGS. SO MUCH INFORMATION!

That young girl was me.

Although I absolutely love biology, and I actually did well in the class, things could have gone SO much differently.

You see, I do remember being bored and off-task while my professor was lecturing. He was entertaining at times, but was I soaking in the content? Probably not. I think the majority of my learning came from after the class was over, when I studied on my own. He provided us with study guides of the most important information to learn for the test, so that is pretty much what I did. I reviewed the study guides to prepare for the test.

*Check out the human body systems lesson shown above!

How to Learn Science Faster

Your students are the same exact way, probably more so. They may go into another world when you are teaching if they are overwhelmed with a whole bunch of information.

There is a lot of content to teach, especially when they move up in grade level. Middle school science is.

a lot to learn, but there is a way to make sure that they are not overwhelmed! If they are too overwhelmed, they will not learn anything at all (cognitive load is too high).

So, what is another trick in my toolbox to learn science faster? Let’s see!

Helping Your Students Learn Science Faster by Taking Out Unnecessary Information

So you want to help your students learn science quickly, effectively, and without all of the overwhelm. One way to do this is to take out unnecessary information in your lessons.

As teachers, we want to teach students everything that we know! However, it’s important to remember that, in middle school, students are building on prior knowledge that they learned in elementary school, and they will continue to build on their middle school knowledge in high school and beyond.

YOU DON’T HAVE TO TEACH THEM EVERYTHING!

Yes, there are students that can handle more information, and that is where differentiation comes into play into your classroom, but there are some of your students that will be overwhelmed with unnecessary information and even redundant information. You want to avoid this to help decrease your students’ cognitive load in your classroom. By doing this, you are helping your students to retain information and learn science faster.

I definitely have noticed in my lesson creation my first few years of teaching that I was guilty of trying to teach my students too much. I mean, I wanted them to learn a lot and to get ahead. You just have to be careful with information overload. As I said, there is a time and place for this. It just needs to be interwoven into the differentiation in your classroom.

Well, maybe you don’t have extra information in your lessons. There is still a way to take out some information that may be unnecessary or redundant. Any text that does not directly relate or that is redundant should be taken out of the presentation.

Example of Taking Out Unnecessary Information

Let’s look at this slide from a human body systems lesson that gives an overview of all of the body systems.

One thing that you want to make sure of in your lessons is that you never want to have paragraphs on your slides.

Here’s an example of what NOT to include in your slide on the skeletal system:

The skeletal system provides a frame that supports and protects your body parts. It gives your body its basic shape. Bones and other connective tissues make up your skeletal system. This includes tendons, ligaments, and cartilage. You are born with more bones than you have as an adult because some smaller bones connect together to form bigger bones. Your skull is an important part of the skeletal system because it protects the brain from injury.

Instead, take out some the unnecessary information, organize it, and highlight important information.

You can set up your slide to say something similar to this instead:

Skeletal System – supports and protects

• gives your body its basic shape
• made of bones and other connective tissues like tendons, ligaments, and cartilage
• the skull is essential in the skeletal system – protects the brain from injury

This will help the students not to get overwhelmed by organizing and taking out things that may not necessarily be essential for your understanding of the skeletal system. It’s not to say that you can’t bring it up in class, but start small, and then build upon it.

More resources on how to learn science quickly

Want to know more? Check these resources out!

Redundancy Principle

7 Steps to Help Your Students Retain Information Like a Rockstar

How to Use Mayer’s 12 Principles of Multimedia