Best way to study.

I think the best way to retain and remember something you've just learned, is by applying it and using it as much as possible. Experimenting with something new also helps a lot. I feel that's what work best for me.

Thanks Charlie :)

Hi Alain,

Just try to do a project, or page, build something as soon as you can. Right after I finished the CSS deep dive I created a size that was totally respondent...helped me learned a whole ton while building in a way that watching a video simply will not teach you. I am guilty of just watching videos for now but actually gave myself a deadline to start building again in March best way to learn.

I agree with Charlie Parmentier, the best way to make sure you are really getting the content into your mental hard drive is by applying it to a project. If you are short on ideas, making a personal site is a really great start to begin playing around with some of the stuff you are learning. Later on, a personal website/portfolio site will be helpful when you are looking for a job as well. You can start out with something really simple, but use all the CSS you are learning to start getting to understand how it all works together. I really like Nick Pettit's simple 1 page site, especially when demonstrating that you don't need to make a really complex, multi-page personal site to have something that looks great. Playing around with some live code beyond the demo projects will really help you start thinking outside the box, and you will start noticing yourself thinking about what you want to do, and then just writing it out in code.

I'm glad others are concerned about learning techniques. These suggestions are very helpful, though I'd love to see Treehouse give some formal advice around how best to make their content stick beyond just watching the videos.

You're absolutely right Rory Costello. For example, right now I'm on track in the CSS Deep Dive and boy, that is a hell of a huge chapter (with great, Great, GREAT content), and since practice is all, I'm starting to afraid that I'll forget some things once I start to practice in the next Treehouse project. Seems too far away. I think it should be some kind of stop-to-practice at a given point and then go on with the rest of the content.

I will tag Guil Hernandez to see what he thinks about this.

Thanks.

I'm also on the CSS Deep Dive, Alain and it is daunting. Hopefully Guil will chime in - I'm particularly interested in whether or not we're expected to code along with every video. I try to do it for most but it means having to write out the code every single time. I can copy and paste the HTML from the CodePen but not the CSS (the older stuff that's not the particular focus of the lesson).

In general, (and I can only speak for myself), I don't expect to take in most of what's on the videos first time round. I'm on the Rails Development Track and I plan on getting through it in a timely enough way, practicing along with the videos where it makes sense. At the end, I plan on starting projects of my own and using these as a way to improve. This is where the real learning will come in, I reckon, and I think the videos should just be taken as an awareness exercise.

As I said before I would like to see Treehouse talk about learning strategies in more depth. It would also be useful to have the content in another more easily accessible format so that we don't have to go through videos / transcripts again if we want a refresher. A schematic diagram of CSS / HTML commands would be useful here, I feel.

In the meantime, keep the faith with the CSS deepdive and I'll try to do so, too!