5 Effective Study Tips for Online High School Students

October 15, 2025 byPhoebe Brown

5 min to read

Student using sticky notes for effective studying

In high school, students start learning how to manage their own schedules and gain more independence, which often means they are also responsible for their studies too. With more advanced courses and standardized exams such as the ACT®, SAT®, and AP®* tests on the horizon, it is never too early to learn effective study tips for high school.

Whether you or your student is attending in person school or online high school, anyone could benefit from developing effective study methods.

5 Study Tips for High School Students

With some simple, effective study methods, you can achieve your academic goals and have plenty of time to spend doing activities you enjoy.

1. Study with Others

Studying with others can make test prep more fun, while helping you get a new perspective on the material. Set aside an hour or two each week to go over the subjects you’re learning, quizzing each other as you go.

Just make sure that your friends are interested in developing good study skills. This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have fun studying together, but it is a work session. It’s best to discuss what’s expected of one another and start with a single, focused study topic to see how well you do as a group.

If you don’t have friends in the same class, or if you have trouble focusing when studying alone, try co-working or body doubling. Growing in popularity due to the rise of online learning and working from home, body doubling is when a person completes a task typically done alone, like studying, while recording themselves live online. While you may not be working on the same things, having someone else studying with you in the background can give you group study benefits without having to organize an actual study group.

2. Discover How Your Brain Learns Best

Are you a visual learner, or do you prefer to listen? Maybe you prefer a little of both. Each student learns differently, so it’s important to find effective study methods that work best for how you like to learn.

For example, visual learners tend to prefer watching videos, looking at graphs, images, and charts, and writing things down. Detailed notes with bullet points, drawing pictures, using color-coded flashcards, underlining, and highlighting can make a big difference in retaining information.

On the other hand, auditory learners, or those who prefer to listen to learn, tend to gravitate toward lectures and audiobooks for learning. For auditory learning, participating in group discussions and creating mnemonic devices by putting complex information into songs, rhymes, and acronyms can help their brains hold onto information better.

Auditory and visual ways of learning are only a couple types of learning preferences. There are many different learning preferences, and you may use multiple kinds. If you aren’t sure what your learning preference is, try practicing different types of effective study methods, and soon you’ll start to find what works best for you.

3. Use Time Management Strategies

It’s important to use your study time wisely. Start with blocking time on your calendar weekly to study. make an effort to stay focused by limiting distractions, such as background noises, music, and social media.

Here are a few studying and time management strategies to try:

Download an app that blocks distracting websites such as a Pomodoro timer that can block distracting sites for 25 minutes at a time with 5-minute breaks.

Study earlier rather than later. Studying all at once right before your test is often not as effective as studying in smaller chunks in the days leading up to it. Get up and move during breaks. Stretching, walking, and moving around gets your blood flowing and gives your brain a rest. Avoid scrolling through social media or watching TV since these activities can make it harder to refocus after your break is done.

Focus on one subject at a time and avoid multitasking. Trying to take on multiple tasks at once can weaken your grasp of information, reduce your memory, and hurt your performance overall.

4. Take Care of Yourself

Being tired, hungry, or stressed can make it harder to focus and remember information. Make sure you get enough sleep. Getting quality sleep helps with brain performance and retention, driving safety and alertness, mood, and overall health.

Talk about your feelings. If you’re anxious about something, try talking about it with a friend, family member, or a trusted adult. Getting things off your chest can improve your mood and boost your ability to focus.

Learn Tricks for Efficient Note-taking

The more comprehensive, legible, and organized your notes are, the easier it will be for you to study them. Notes can increase your recall of important information and can be used to call out important topics or ideas that you need to revisit.

Create your own system using different numbering (Arabic, Roman) or symbols to mark up your notes. For example, use a star for points you’d like to come back to, an exclamation mark for points you plan to put on flashcards, or a smiley face for concepts you’d like your teacher to re-explain.
Shorten your notes by using abbreviations and symbols. You don’t need to write out every word if you know you’ll remember what something shorter means. Save yourself some time!

Get creative. Draw pictures, thought bubbles, or anything that pulls your attention to important topics. Draw arrows from the cause to the effect. Use different colored highlighters. Mind mapping is a great technique to help visually organize information you need to study.

Take Learning into Your Own Hands with Online School

Just like studying, there are many different ways to learn. If you want to take back control of your education, the flexibility of online high school may be the right fit for you. With online schools like Connections Academy, students and their families can shape their school day around how they learn best while providing access to a wealth of College and Career Readiness programs and credit recovery courses to ensure students graduate on time.

Discover more about what attending an online high school is like by downloading our eGuide.

*AP® and Advanced Placement® are registered trademarks of the College Board. Used with permission.