If you’re assigned something to read, read it aloud to yourself. This engages not just the internal monologue part of your brain, but speaking and hearing parts, and your brain makes stronger pathways when more senses are engaged and working together.
Don’t buy (eta: or download) flash cards, draw them yourself. This engages sight and abstraction., plus motor skill areas.
Write your own notes, then read them aloud and highlight them yourself. So many parts of your brain make connections by doing this. Don’t just read. That’s not very helpful; you don’t have to study long if you study well.
I think there’s a name for this, but I’m tired and will rely on Cunningham’s whatever.
e: don’t forget about all of your senses – you have way more than 5.
There’s a bit of a counterpoint to that: spaced/distributed learning contributes to long term memory encoding. Revisit something a week or two later and a year down the line you’ll remember it more than if you did it the next day.
So depends on your goals a bit. That said, if you can, don’t leave stuff last minute because stress is definitely not good for memory if nothing else.
In the context of school structured learning, that’s often baked-in. Concepts are either continually expanded on, or re-visited throughout the course.
Which I guess leads to a corollary suggestion: If you want to learn something and have the means… Take a Course! One that’s well-made is structured to have reinforcing points, and scheduled by someone who knows the material, so can plan the lessons to be cohesive and additive in a way that a newbie wouldn’t necessarily think to do.