Nursing school is a time of great learning and growth. As you learn more about the fundamentals of nursing, it can be hard to remember what you’ve learned because there are so many concepts to keep track of! Memory techniques are an important tool as you work towards becoming practicing nurses. Let’s explore in this blog post some memory techniques that could help make your time in nursing school easier.
Use images
I read about a memory course that emphasized picturing very emotional events connected with important information that needed to be remembered. The aim was to throw people off their regular thinking patterns with the use of unsettling pictures. Consequently, learners could more readily recover data when it was linked to other information for recall.
Stories
Another method for memorizing information is to make up unexpected, outrageous tales. In my experience, combining ridiculous tales with visuals or mental imagery was more effective than just telling stories. Each letter or item had some connection to the one before it, and the more improbable the link, the better my memory of the event was.
Establishing Connections
What you need to remember may be linked with specific colors. Examples include a bottle of blue or blue-green water for deoxygenated blood and a bottle of red wine or catsup for oxygenated blood. When you think of a disease, you may associate it with various organs and recall certain aspects of its physiology, pathology, or psychological implications.
Incorporating spaced repetition
The concept behind the spaced repetition method is that after learning, you should self-test yourself a few weeks to a month and then re-test yourself again and again.
Using questions provided by the National Board of Medical Examiners, you may take a self-test on your knowledge. It would also be better if you have self-testing flashcards. Interestingly, practicing with this method will help with memory and skill development.
Overlearning
Use various learning methods to retain information, including the memory palace, mnemonics, and brief audio recordings that you may replay in your mind. When you sketch it out and write it down, you are using different brain connections than just visualizing the material. Instead of just jotting down information, a tablet computer is more convenient for specific individuals.
Self-testing products
To assist nursing students in preparing for the MCAT, the Association of American Medical Colleges provides many practice questions. Make sure to practice them for as long as the actual exam and take breaks at the same intervals as you will have them on the actual test day!
As though you were training for a marathon, use self-testing items to see how they work. To begin, dedicate one to two hours of practice time and then progressively increase the number of hours until you simulate the whole exam duration. Good luck and let me know how everything goes!