🕒 Ignoring Spacing
Taking active recall without spaced intervals results in poor retention over time and even prevents the newly acquired knowledge from being assimilated into memory.
📖 Passive Repetition
To just reread notes or to just highlight without any knowledge retrieval, all these actions will not help you to effectively strengthen the neural connections that are used for recall.
❌ Overloading Content
Recalling too much information at once causes the working memory to get overloaded, which in turn, reduces the success rate of retrieval and the efficiency of retention.
💡 Skipping Retrieval Practice
Not practicing self-testing regularly will lead to the same situation as using active recall but with the opposite effect on memory formation and understanding of the material.
📝 Using Cues Poorly
The use of very detailed hints or notes means that one cannot practice deep retrieval, hence, recall becomes less effortless and less effective.
🔄 Ignoring Errors
Not looking at the mistakes while recalling causes one to strengthen the wrong information, thus, reducing accuracy and possibly creating incorrect memory traces.
🧩 Lack of Variation
Recall training in only one context or format does not help the transfer and adaptability of knowledge to different problems or situations.
⏱️ Excessive Duration
Studying for long periods of time without breaks eventually leads to exhaustion, loss of concentration, and also decreases the efficacy of active recall.