Here are suggestions (courtesy of Nobel prize winner Carl Wieman) on HOW to study physics.  Wieman won the prize in 2001 for his research on Bose-Einstein condensates.

I. The most efficient learning ocurrs when the student has an expert individual tutor.  The tutor poses questions, the student makes mistakes, and the student reflects on their work.

II.  Experts have 3 things that novices do not:

    1. Factual knowledge.
    2. An organizational structure.
    3. They monitor their thinking.

III. Effortful study is required to develop expertise.  It is similar to muscle development, where you need strenuous extended use to get stronger.
       Low-level study does nothing.  Studying while watching TV is pointless.

IV.  The tutor must motivate, limit capacity, and give timely and specific feedback.

V.  The student needs a proper framework.  They must work multiple specific examples, compare and contrast, and then generalize.

(NOTE:  Experts typically solve problems by recalling previous solutions. See V. So you should work many problems in order to see the patterns - i.e., store lots of information in your long-term memory to reduce the burden on your short-term memory.)

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Last Modified: 14 July 2008.