00:08:41 Successive relearning, according to learning expert Bill Cerbin

00:14:43 Here are a few steps to get you started

00:21:29 Here are the primary takeaways from today's episode.

Become a Studying and Learning Machine: Strategies For the Top of the Class, Promotions, and Smashing Your Goals (Learning how to Learn Book 27) By Peter Hollins

Hear it Here - bit.ly/4hqQa5q

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0D41QTWPY

The best students, the top performers, the quickest learners - it's not by luck. They know what they're doing, and you can be like them too.

We've never been taught how to learn. Yet learning is the keystone to any goal you want to achieve. Let's start changing your life with this very book.

A learning structure and framework that takes you from A-Z, in what to do and how to approach it.

STUDYING AND LEARNING MACHINE takes you on a psychological and physiological journey of your brain and how to work with it best. What your brain likes and hates - that will 1000% impact how quickly and effectively you learn. The more you learn, the more you earn! So let's go on this journey together of how to maximize your time, money, and life path!

Master your approach and save countless hours.

Peter Hollins has studied psychology and peak human performance for over a dozen years and is a bestselling author. He has worked with a multitude of individuals to unlock their potential and path towards success. His writing draws on his academic, coaching, and research experience.

Smarter, faster, and better ways to achieve expertise.

-What Descartes had to say about effective reading and retention.

-How to 'scaffold' content that you read for better memorization.

-The STIC framework and how it makes your brain want to help you learn better.

-Understanding various types of thinking modes and when to use each one.

-Play - how it helps learning and how you can speed up your learning 2x.

-How to climb a 'skill tree' to keep your progress efficient and effective .

Ever feel like you study for hours, but still struggle on exams?

We've all been there.

But what if I told you there's a way to learn smarter, not harder?

Hello, listeners, and welcome back to the Science of Self, where you improve your life from the inside out.

Today is September 17th, 2025.

Our featured book today is Become a Studying and Learning Machine, Strategies for the Top of the Class, Promotions, and Smashing Your Goals, of course, by Peter Hollins.

It's important to understand, just as we say in our conversational podcasts with guests, just because this book appears to be associated with learning and schooling, it's not just with academic topics.

It deals with work.

It deals with life.

It deals with your own personal goals, and it can be applied to many more areas than just studying for your next class test.

So we're pulling today from Chapter 1, Understanding the Structure of Learning.

We're going to discover why not all learning is created equal, and how you can make your learning more effective by tapping into your brain's natural abilities.

There's such a thing as successive relearning, and that's what we're going to discuss in detail today.

It's a powerful, structured approach that combines retrieval practice and spaced repetition to help you master new information.

Glad you're with us today.

If you're looking to learn something new or struggling with studies or advanced education, continuing education, the information in this podcast will help you today.

Thanks for being with us.

Thanks for being with us.

Imagine the following scenario: You’re a law student and there’s an important test coming up at the end of the month.

You painstakingly work your way through all the material, spending time on each textbook chapter and article, and then the day before the test, you quickly “revise” everything you’ve learned—i.e., you read through it all again once.

On the day of the test, you draw a blank.

You can answer a few questions, but you’re having a hard time recalling the things you need to.

You don’t get it; haven’t you spent hours and hours “studying”?

Haven’t you made countless notes?

How could it be that all that work amounted to so little in the end?

This is a book about all the ways our assumptions and misconceptions about learning may be getting in the way of us achieving our learning potential.

Without realizing it, most of us have acquired a set of unhelpful beliefs, habits, and attitudes from our time in conventional education, and we reflexively turn to these old ways of doing things any time we need to acquire new skills or knowledge.

In the chapters that follow, we’ll be looking more closely at the “normal” way of studying, and instead considering more evidence-based, effective alternatives that will get you real results.

We’ll begin with an understanding of how learning actually takes place and how to structure our approach to match the way our brain naturally incorporates new material.

We’ll explore the power of a consistent reading habit and also how to read for maximum benefit, we’ll look at intelligent ways to boost your memory (and why the standard tips and tricks don’t always work), we’ll examine all the ways that staying organized can actually improve the quality of your thought, and we’ll be reappraising deeper beliefs around work, rest, play, and creativity, and how you can consciously harness their power.

How to Use Successive Relearning

33 00:04:14,760 --> 00:04:20,720 But first, let’s return to the law exam and “going blank” after hours of study.

This situation is not uncommon, and the reason it happens is this: Your “studying” was not true, genuine practice.

You certainly did spend hours reading and making notes, but what you didn’t do is spend time practicing the one skill that would matter—retrieving information.

Look back at the story and you’ll see that you practiced retrieval (i.e., actively recalling information from memory) just once in the whole month, and that was during the exam itself—no wonder you didn’t find it so easy!

The truth is that effective learning is not automatic.

What’s more, just because you spend time and effort, it does not mean you are learning.

Learning is only effective if it is strategic and actually reflects and supports the way your brain genuinely acquires new skills and knowledge.

That means that if we truly want to learn, we need a deliberate and proven approach, rather than merely defaulting to habitual study techniques that seem like a good idea—reading, highlighting text, making notes.

Knowing how to learn is itself a skill, and it’s the reason you’re reading this book right now.

To learn well, we need to understand how the human mind works so we can optimize.

No matter what topic you’re trying to master or your current level of achievement, there is an underlying structure and logic to all learning processes, and if you understand that structure, you can make sure to spend your time and effort in the best possible way.

One key pillar in the structure of learning is called successive relearning, which is a meta-strategy that combines two smaller strategies: retrieval practice (or the "testing effect") and spaced practice.

This combination has plenty of research supporting its effectiveness, particularly for learning vocabulary and terminology (Bahrick 1979; Rawson & Dunlosky 2011; Rawson et al.

2020).

Some studies show that just one good relearning session can measurably improve your ability to recall material (Rawson et al.

2018).

In another study, psychology students scored ten percent higher (that’s one whole grade letter) when they used a successive relearning approach compared to students who didn’t (Rawson et al.

2013).

Even more impressive, when tested a month later, these students showed a forty percent higher score than those who just bumbled along with no real strategy—suggesting that effects may compound over time.

So, what exactly is this method?

Simply, it involves repeatedly testing yourself on what you’ve already learned (retrieval practice) over spaced intervals in time (spaced practice).

Doesn’t sound like much, right?

The key, however, is that to learn well, you need to actually practice the skill you’re trying to improve.

For example, if you want to be better at recalling certain information for a test, then you do so by repeatedly practicing recalling that information in the same way as you would be expected to do during a test.

Reading, taking notes, listening to lectures, and highlighting are all useful skills, but practicing them will not make it any easier for you to take that test, which is an entirely different set of skills.

If we return to our example of the law exam, a better way to study might include repeatedly doing past papers or test questions that resemble the ones you’re likely to encounter.

That way, by the time the test arrives, you’ve already practiced recalling that information so many times that it’s easy to simply do it again.

Without successive relearning, however, you’re not only asking yourself to recall information for the very first time, but you’re trying to do so under stressful and high-stakes test conditions.

Successive relearning, according to learning expert Bill Cerbin, involves just four essential features:

1.

Self-testing is the primary mode.

This means actively recalling information rather than simply reviewing it passively.

This may seem like a small distinction, but it makes all the difference in the world.

2.

Practice sessions are spaced out evenly over time, with several sessions scheduled, each separated by one or more days.

This spaced repetition enhances long-term retention because every successive attempt reinforces and solidifies the learning that has already been banked.

3.

Mastery of Content: You continue practicing until you can answer each question correctly at least once during each practice session.

This ensures a thorough understanding and retention of the material, but also gives you a concrete way to monitor and track your progress—you should never be unclear about where you are relative to your ultimate study goals.

4.

All questions are practiced multiple times across the sessions—even if you get questions right.

This repetition strengthens memory and reinforces learning.

Remember that you are trying to practice the skill you actually want to have.

If you want to easily and quickly answer questions correctly, then keep practicing easily and quickly answering questions correctly!

Now, while the above principles may seem straightforward in theory, they do require a mindset shift and a little discipline to consistently apply to your study sessions.

The biggest threat to effective learning is not a lack of ability or intelligence—it may actually be complacency.

If we get complacent, we stop paying close attention to what we’re actually doing and fall into mindless rote and habit.

We may create for ourselves the illusion that we are learning something, when really, we are just “going through the motions.”

Let’s consider another example.

Say you’re studying for an anatomy exam.

For those who have ever taken an anatomy class, you’ll know that there is a seemingly infinite number of new terms and concepts to memorize.

Med students, for example, need to know the Latin name of every bone, muscle, ligament, and tendon.

Such a student may have an exam coming up where they will be expected to recall dozens of names for parts of the brain.

An ineffective approach may be to sit down with an anatomy textbook and pore over the labeled diagrams of the brain, reading and re-reading the labels.

A slightly better but still ineffective approach may be to master the etymological root of each word and hope that an understanding of the Latin name will help you better recall the structure and location of the brain area in question (for example, you may remember that “occipital” literally means “back of the head” in Latin, so locating it on a diagram is easy).

These approaches won’t get you far, though.

To use a more effective successive relearning approach, you could instead schedule multiple practice sessions, each spaced one to two days apart.

During these sessions, you could repeatedly test and retest yourself on all the brain terminology you need to know, until you can correctly label every area on a blank diagram—just as you would be expected to do in an exam situation.

You could divide the brain into four sections, tackling each in succession, then moving on, practicing section one and two together, then later section three and four together.

Finally, you could build up to practicing all four sections in one practice session.

In each session, you are deliberately giving yourself as many opportunities as possible to actively recall the necessary information.

One obvious way to do this is to repeatedly give yourself a blank, unlabeled brain diagram and practice recalling the relevant labels.

You don’t just do this once or twice at the end of a study session; rather, this repeated practice is the study session.

Furthermore, much of your learning will actually take place between practice sessions.

For example, you may start every anatomy relearning session exactly the same way—you immediately present yourself with the blank brain diagram and practice labeling it a few times.

This forces your brain to recall everything it learned from the previous session.

In a way, this between-session recall is more important than the recall you practice during a session.

Of course, the exact way that you apply the successive relearning strategy depends on your study topic, your level of learning, your goals, and your unique preferences and limitations.

One thing you may immediately notice is that successive relearning requires time.

If you wish to use your time wisely, you need to be prepared and organized enough to schedule learning sessions and stick to the schedule you set for yourself.

Here are a few steps to get you started:

105 00:14:46,600 --> 00:14:46,800 I.

Choose Your Material: First decide what you need to learn.

For example, if you're studying biology, you might focus on cell structure and functions.

Where your focus should be may be fairly obvious if you’re preparing for an exam, but less obvious if your goal is to more generally master some skill or piece of knowledge.

When choosing your materials, try to actively connect your learning to your goals.

If you’re in school or college, it makes sense to align with the learning outcomes provided externally, but if you’re a self-directed learner, you may need to spend a little more time thinking about exactly what it is you wish to achieve.

Then choose only the material that leads you directly to that outcome.

II.

Create questions or activities that cover everything you need to learn in a systematic way.

In our biology example, these questions might reference cell structure and functions, such as "What is the function of the nucleus?"

or "What organelle is responsible for energy production?"

On a broader level, you also need to have a sense of how questions are organized, since this will help you properly schedule relearning sessions.

For example, if you have a biology exam on the cell, you may need to assign a textbook chapter to each relearning session, or perhaps organize your questions and activities according to the structure of your exam (i.e., one session spent on multiple choice questions, one on essay questions, one on short answers, etc.)

III.

Schedule Practice Sessions: Plan when you'll practice, bearing in mind that the ideal interval for spaced repetition is usually every other day.

So, if your biology exam is in two weeks, schedule practice sessions every two days (you could use the days in between to revise some other subject).

IV.

Practice Session I: Start with your pre-scheduled questions and activities.

Answer each question and check it against the correct answer.

For a simple example, if you answer, "The nucleus controls cell activities,” for the question about the nucleus, check if that matches the correct answer.

Make notes about the questions that are most challenging or those you get wrong and adjust as you go.

Keep practicing until you can answer every question correctly at least once.

Use incorrect answers to identify areas where you need more study, and keep attempting them until you get it right.

You can consider yourself done with the session once you've answered all questions correctly.

Doing things this way gives you a goal to aim for and keeps you focused, but it also helps with motivation since every correct answer is a mini-reward and positive reinforcement for what is working.

Proving to yourself again and again that you can do the task at hand will build confidence and go a long way to reducing pre-test nervousness.

V. Practice Session 2: Repeat the process from the first session, moving through each portion of the work you need to do.

Staying disciplined and sticking to the schedule is necessary, but don’t feel like you can’t make adjustments as you go along.

Add any new material covered in class since the last session, and reorganize material if you’ve under- or overestimated how long you’ll need to tackle it.

Keep reminding yourself of the two factors that make this kind of process work: retrieval and spaced practice.

As long as you are giving yourself ample opportunity to recall material, and doing so over regular intervals, you will progress.

One final caveat: Be careful not to confuse revising/reading with actual retrieval.

For example, simply reading over the functions of the different cell organelles and highlighting your textbook as you go is not retrieval practice; answering questions about those functions without consulting your textbook is.

Ever feel like you study for hours, but still struggle on exams?

We've all been there.

But what if I told you there's a way to learn smarter, not harder?

Hello, listeners, and welcome back to the Science of Self, where you improve your life from the inside out.

Today is September 17th, 2025.

Our featured book today is Become a Studying and Learning Machine, Strategies for the Top of the Class, Promotions, and Smashing Your Goals, of course, by Peter Hollins.

It's important to understand, just as we say in our conversational podcasts with guests, just because this book appears to be associated with learning and schooling, it's not just with academic topics.

It deals with work.

It deals with life.

It deals with your own personal goals, and it can be applied to many more areas than just studying for your next class test.

So we're pulling today from Chapter 1, Understanding the Structure of Learning.

We're going to discover why not all learning is created equal, and how you can make your learning more effective by tapping into your brain's natural abilities.

There's such a thing as successive relearning, and that's what we're going to discuss in detail today.

It's a powerful, structured approach that combines retrieval practice and spaced repetition to help you master new information.

Glad you're with us today.

If you're looking to learn something new or struggling with studies or advanced education, continuing education, the information in this podcast will help you today.

Thanks for being with us.

Here are the primary takeaways from today's episode.

There are many misconceptions around learning.

The primary one is that learning is automatic.

Rather, knowing how to learn is itself a skill.

Not all learning is created equal, and learning is only effective if it is strategic and reflects and supports the way your brain naturally acquires new skills and knowledge.

Successive relearning is a structured approach and consists of a combination of retrieval practice and spaced practice.

This process involves repeatedly testing yourself on what you've already learned over spaced intervals in time.

Repetition helps.

Keep practicing until you attain mastery.

Don't just review, but recall and track your progress as you go.

So we remind you once again, learning isn't passive.

It's an active process that demands deliberate effort and strategy.

It's not about cramming information.

It's about engaging with it, testing yourself, and building a robust network of knowledge over time.

We'll leave you with these words from Nelson Mandela.

Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.