Most educational settings are designed with one type of learner in mind: the extroverted student who loves to be in the spotlight, participate in class discussions, and work in groups. This isn’t to say that extroverted students are less capable than introverted students, or less intelligent.
It’s simply a fact of life that extroverted students tend to draw more energy from their surroundings than do their introverted counterparts. For many students, studying in a classroom can be draining. That’s not to say they are unable to learn in a classroom, but rather that they are unable to do their best work there.
Studying alone is not a weakness or limitation for the introverted student. Independent study is actually a superpower because it allows you to build a personalized learning environment. When you remove the distraction of other students and the pressure to respond to the teacher and classmates, you can focus on studying in the way that best honors your learning style and recharges your energy.
Next: Here is a look at most of the learning techniques that have been proven through science to be extremely effective for the independent learner.
The Power of Retrieval Practice
One of the dangers of learning alone is getting too used to passively reading material. Introverts get so comfortable studying in silence that they can fall asleep reading notes. The material looks familiar, and you feel like you’ve got it down, but chances are that you don’t really know it at all. Until you make your brain work to retrieve information from memory, you haven’t really learned it.
There is a very powerful learning technique that introverts can use independently to improve their learning: retrieval practice. To learn information, you must first study it. But then, you must test yourself to remember it to solidify it in your long-term memory. This can be done silently by writing down everything you can remember about a topic on a piece of paper, or by using practice questions from your notes or a study guide.
Optimizing Memory with Spaced Repetition
After an initial study session or two, just before an exam, the knowledge that you have gained during your study sessions will wear off after a few days. There is only one way to make knowledge really stick: to study with space in between. Making use of spaced repetition allows you to revisit concepts right at the moment you are about to forget them.
This technique systematically increases the intervals between your study sessions as the information becomes more ingrained in your memory. It is incredibly efficient. Instead of spending five hours reviewing the same topic in one grueling sitting, you might spend fifteen minutes reviewing it today, another ten minutes three days from now, and five minutes next week. This approach respects your mental energy, preventing the burnout that often comes from massive cramming sessions.
The Feynman Technique: Teaching to an Imaginary Audience
If you are an introverted learner, you will have a rich internal world and engage in a high level of internal dialogue. One of the best techniques for making sure that you have fully grasped the material that you are studying is the Feynman Technique. This technique, named after the physicist Richard Feynman, involves teaching the material that you have been studying to another person.
This can be done by explaining the material in simple terms to another person and by writing down the material that you have studied in simple terms. There are many different ways in which you can apply the Feynman Technique.
For example, you could explain the material that you have been studying to your pet, or you could write down the material that you have been studying in a study diary. It is at the point at which you are unable to explain the material that you have been studying in simple terms that you will find out that you have a particular gap in your knowledge that you need to address.
Of course, in independent study, you don’t need an audience in front of you to practice The Feynman Technique. You can practice explaining your learning in front of a wall, a bookshelf, or your family dog. Write your explanation in a study journal, and that will do just fine too.
As you try to explain your learning to an imaginary student, the point at which you struggle to explain something simply will reveal the gap in your own knowledge that you can then go back to your resources and learn. From then on, you will be able to refine your own explanation of the material until you can explain it to your imaginary student perfectly.
Mind Mapping for Deep Visual Connections
A large portion of introverted learners are deep thinkers who view individual pieces of data within the context of a much larger system. While the learner may be compiling large amounts of linear notes to organize their findings, it can sometimes be difficult to see the connections and view the whole when studying in this manner.
As most introverts are deep thinkers, they tend to think in terms of individual pieces of information that together make up a bigger whole. Organizing all these individual pieces of information in a linear note can be quite hard for some people, and they therefore don’t really get anything out of it.
These kinds of people benefit most from Mind Maps because they represent individual pieces of information in a non-linear, visual way on one page. A Mind Map starts with a central concept written in the middle of a sheet of paper. From this central concept, all related sub-concepts are drawn as branches that extend from it. In this way, all the different individual pieces of information are visually represented on one page in a way that clearly shows their connections to each other.
The way in which information is structured in a Mind Map is very similar to how our brains structure and organize information. Because of this, a Mind Map is a very effective tool for gaining insight into and getting a grip on complex and larger amounts of information.
Structuring Your Silent Sanctuary
Even with the right techniques, learning in isolation can be difficult if you don’t have the right environment in which to practice. By removing digital distractions, such as having too many open tabs on your computer or avoiding surfing the web, and by minimizing the noise around you, you can create your own silent sanctuary and ensure that you have the space and time that you need to focus.
Investing in noise-canceling headphones or finding a quiet room in which to study can be a good place to start. Once you have done this, you will find that your capacity for deep work increases dramatically.
