Increasing my memory retention?

Sleep.

I’d say take good notes that make sense to you when you’re reading and then reread with your notes if you have time. Add to them if you notice new things. I’m always more engaged in what I’m reading if I take notes (at least for dry material).

For lectures, if you can record the lecture and pay attention without worrying about notes right away I think that helps you pick up the more subtle things that go on in the lecture. Then go back and listen to your recording and take notes on that instead. You can rewind, pause, and control the whole thing in a way you can’t when it’s going on live.

Write down notes. Have a conversation with someone about the topic. Discussing it and writing about it will help you learn it.

@Rarebear is right… Sleep is essential.

you may want to add to it, though… Sleep when you’re not in class.

Play Mind Games, Avoid stress, aerobic exercise can help maintain short-term general and verbal memory and ofcourse sleep is also essential. A well balanced diet too help perk up a flagging memory and keeps it sharp. Say No to alcohol and tobacco. Read this article

When you find out -let me know. :)

I was just reading an article about this. It said to take notes after the lecture, copying doesn’t work.

Discuss or think about the lecture after class.

Study in short periods throughout the week instead of late cram session.

Yes get good sleep every night… And a few other methods.

You’ll have to figure out what works best for you because we all learn different – but here’s what works best for me (learned after years of University & post-grad classes and professional note-taking for my job):

1. I must get at least 8 hrs of sleep each night.

2. I type much faster than I can write, so when I’m trying to take in a LOT of information at a fast pace I type. I like to use Evernote because I can store my notes on the cloud (e.g. can use my iPad or Kindle in class/meeting to capture the notes, but later access the notes on my phone or PC).

3. If I want to RETAIN or study the information I’ve discovered that I best absorb info by physically writing the information down in my own words.
When I’m taking a class, if the professor allows recording I’ll record the lecture (sometimes work training is provided in a downloadable MP4 video—love it when this is possible) and later transcribe the key points BY HAND, in my own words.
I’ll frequently have to pause the lecture recording (because again, I can’t write fast enough sometimes)—but the process of re-stating what I’m hearing seems to really help me learn the material.
I do the same thing while reading any textbooks, too. I’ll make a rough outline of what I’ve read and transcribe the major points (by hand) and then I tend to absorb the material.

For rote memory try writing down the first letter of each word in a sentence and put each sentence on a separate line. Then use the first letters as hints to what the words are. If you are memorizing a long passage, begin by memorizing the last sentence, then the next to last sentence, and so on. Each time you recite, don’t stop until you’ve recited all the way to the end of the passage. That way you’re always reviewing the hardest stuff first, and constantly reviewing the rest of the passage each time. You can play around with punctuation to see if it will help you with inflection and pauses.

This method has worked very well for me in the past.

This may sound weird, but: sing it. When I want to retain lots of information, I take a tune I know well, and make whatever I need to remember fit the melody. I can still sing the songs I used to study in my first year of law school.

I also find drawing helps me – and index cards, which I take everywhere.

Do you actually have to retain it all? I don’t know about engineering, but I do know that for some practical subject areas the real aim is to know what’s there and where to find it. And how to use it once you’ve got it. You don’t have to keep everything in your head; you must figure out what does have to be on the tip of your tongue (such as rules and basic formulas) and what’s close enough if you just have it at your fingertips (such as trig tables).

Write a mental story. This can be either accurate or inaccurate. Say you want to remember the strengths of steel vs. iron. You could write a story about how carbon fills in the gaps in an iron lattice because it is small and pushy, or you could write a wild fantasy about how the steel dragon from the hills defeated the iron-armoured sea monster because it flew down from above (i.e. higher on the list) using superior strength. I personally find the more outrageous stories are more memorable, but different things work for different people.

Between 7.5 and 8.5 hours of high quality sleep. Memory retention is created when we sleep.