IMHO,
one of the main points was stated before - don't memorize the material - grasp an understanding and appreciation of the subject, and do what you can to relate to other experiences/subjects/etc...
[H.S. senior here]
Last year, my trig class [honors] was pretty difficult, my teacher focused making us understand the outlying concepts behind it instead of just memorizing a bunch of crap.
There's probably a correlation with his teaching methods [previously taught in japan] and at least some of our successes [almost all of us aced the department. final last year].....
---- Because of that, analysis is easy, and i can get away with doing the H.W. in class.
*****
THe other main point, which I discovered to be true, [mainly applies to high school, maybe it does for college too, unknown...] is how you were taught growing up [in the classroom] in junior high and high school yrs.
My elementary school prepared me very poorly for high school.... [its a college prep/private, btw] and it showed - I had no work ethic, since everyone in each grade @ the elementary school was placed in just one classroom of 30 or so; and I was bored out of my mind, learning more from reading the newspaper and library books during class.
Meanwhile, some of the other high school classmates were placed in 'gifted' programs when they were younger; then reaped the advantages in high school [taking honors/advanced classes]
What that meant for me was getting a 2.1 GPA freshman year, then working my ass off quite a bit, developing study habits, and a work ethic; to get where I'm a more rigorous pace......
[with my kids, if i have any, they'll be going to montessorri......]
/1st post @ TFP