Study Prof

Another random family photo. I wanna party with these guys!

I recently received an email from one of my students with several great questions. I thought these issues, and their answers, might benefit everyone.

Hi Cody,

Some study issues that I have noticed that I have is not in how I study but when I study.  I have a horrible habit of procrastinating and only studying a minimal amount at the last minute…. Now, I will not say I have made bad grades by doing this, and actually much to the chagrin of my peers I always am one of the top scores in the class and normally manage an A in the course….

I’m with ya’. I used the same technique when I was an undergrad, back when the earth’s crust was still hardening. But–Danger Will Robinson!!!–The procrastinate and cram technique has several killer flaws, which (more…)

Here are a few more sites similar to the aforementioned Academic Earth site for watching online lectures by top academics.

For business related topics take a look at MBAvid.com, and for lectures in a larger variety of subjects try Lectr.com.

For your thoughtful consideration I’ve included a random, hilarious (disturbing?) picture I found at Awkwardfamilyphotos.com, just cuz.

Here’s a great picture of exactly how we achieve our goals through repeated actions.  We become what we repeatedly do.

This is a time-lapse of a Japanese group that walked the same path over and over. After several days they had worn a path in the grass. Consider how long it will take for the path to grow over once they stop walking. Weeks? Months? Once the path is sufficiently well-trodden, it will remain for a long, long time. As you are cultivating new habits, frequent repetition is the key to changing an action into a habit.

In the same way weaning yourself from a bad habit is not an overnight proposition. It will take time and effort to keep yourself from travelling the well-worn path long enough for it to grow over and disappear.

The lesson also applies to creating memories, although this illustration would represent brute-force repetition. Easier: use mnemonics to create a stronger path initially. That will cut down on the number of repetitions you’ll need to make that memory rock solid.

Updated from May 2008 post…

God bless book stores.  For the low low price of zero dollars an SAT/GRE junkie like me can go take a look at purty much every test prep book out there.  I go through the various books on a semi-yearly basis to see if there is any new test fu I can bring to my students.

There usually isn’t.  All the test prep books use very similar tactics and techniques but rename them and package them to sound different from the competition.  This is pretty much what you would expect, isn’t it?  After all, there are big bucks to be made, and I’m not the only one with access to a book store.

Which SAT or GRE prep book should you buy? The one you’ll use. One recent study compared different methods of test prep to see (more…)

“Evidence is mounting that sleep — even a nap — appears to enhance information processing and learning.”

via SleepEducation.com.

Organization skills cover a multitude of academic sins.  Check out www.rememberthemilk.com which is oh so much more than a to-do list.  You can track your daily to-do’s, categorize them, set them to repeat, and much more.

BONUS: it integrates seamlessly with gcal and gmail!

My SAT and GRE students will be familiar with my admonishment to look up each new vocabulary word in a good dictionary, read all the definitions, look at the roots and prefixes, look at the synonyms, and ESPECIALLY to see the word used in context. I stumbled across Wordnik the other day. What a godsend! It seems tailor made for the task.

Isaac Asimov has some insightful words on intelligence. It’s a wise man who realizes intelligence comes in many different forms most of which can’t be measured by a standardized test. I’m pretty sure it’s the sideburns that make him so smart…

Don’t waste time rewriting the same long names and words in your notes. Create a key with your abbreviations for the particular set of notes your taking. I usually put this key on the first page of notes in the upper right. I might start off with several key terms that I know will crop up, but I usually add others as the class progresses.

Example:

N – Napoleon

W – Wellington

Br – British

Fr – French

Wl – Waterloo

Now, instead of (more…)

Double-click any word for the dictionary reference. Check back every day for more words.

abscond
addiction
airy
amphibian
antiquated
arboreal
assimilate
aviary
bedizen
biennial (more…)