Study Prof

“For more than a decade, neuroscientists and physiologists have been gathering evidence of the beneficial relationship between exercise and brainpower. But the newest findings make it clear that this isn’t just a relationship; it is the relationship. Using sophisticated technologies to examine the workings of individual neurons — and the makeup of brain matter itself — scientists in just the past few months have discovered that exercise appears to build a brain that resists physical shrinkage and enhance cognitive flexibility. Exercise, the latest neuroscience suggests, does more to bolster thinking than thinking does.”

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Cody Blair has spent over a decade helping students and teachers discover the secrets that make learning simple! His ebook, Secrets Smart Students Know, reveals how the best students use powerful study skills, maximize their memory, avoid procrastination, and maximize their focus to achieve fantastic grades with much less work! Click now to find out more about simple methods to maximize your study skills.

© Cody Blair, All Rights Reserved. You may reprint the above article as long as you include the above bio/resource information in full, including the functioning links. Do not make any changes to the article or bio. If you can't include clickable links, please ask permission to reprint.

Recently, a student asked me for my hot list of academic life-changers; key study skills you can use to dominate your grades. Here goes…

1) Get help. It’s the 21st Century, fellow netizens! Flying cars, robotic house maids, and personal jet packs are now commonplace… okay, well, maybe not. But it’s still the 21st Century!, which means you don’t have to rely on your brilliant professor’s rapid-fire mumble-lectures and micro-type PowerPoints. Use the interwebs and (more…)

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Cody Blair has spent over a decade helping students and teachers discover the secrets that make learning simple! His ebook, Secrets Smart Students Know, reveals how the best students use powerful study skills, maximize their memory, avoid procrastination, and maximize their focus to achieve fantastic grades with much less work! Click now to find out more about simple methods to maximize your study skills.

© Cody Blair, All Rights Reserved. You may reprint the above article as long as you include the above bio/resource information in full, including the functioning links. Do not make any changes to the article or bio. If you can't include clickable links, please ask permission to reprint.

Need a step-by-step formula for puttin’ the hurt on your current course load? Want to muscle through those killer classes and become a legend of learning? Here’s an idiot-proof way to step-up your academic game in three simple steps. Caution: This works best for non-skill-based classes such as, history, political science, sociology, biology, etc. rather than topics like physics, cage-fighting, foreign languages, and math.

First: Make sure you take thorough notes. You can’t master the material if you don’t remember what it was. For a more in-depth how-to on taking noteworthy notes–notes that will cause your professor to weep uncontrollably and set up a shrine to you in the staff lounge–look here. As you’re capturing those notes, be sure to get down the high-payoff items, and I mean payoff in terms of exam grades. You want only to study the info that will actually boost your GPA. Not sure if an item is going to be on the test? (more…)

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Cody Blair has spent over a decade helping students and teachers discover the secrets that make learning simple! His ebook, Secrets Smart Students Know, reveals how the best students use powerful study skills, maximize their memory, avoid procrastination, and maximize their focus to achieve fantastic grades with much less work! Click now to find out more about simple methods to maximize your study skills.

© Cody Blair, All Rights Reserved. You may reprint the above article as long as you include the above bio/resource information in full, including the functioning links. Do not make any changes to the article or bio. If you can't include clickable links, please ask permission to reprint.

~~The “100 Words (or Less)” series gives you a super-short summary of what you need to know about the subject at hand and does it in 100 words or less. Check the link at the bottom for more detailed info about the topic.~~

Eliminate Distractions. Hide yourself away from friends and fun. This includes non-essential electronics.

Be Strategic. Identify the high payoff items in what you’re doing. Do them first.

Take Breaks. Set a timer and work in 30 to 45 minute bursts with short breaks in between to recharge your brain. Don’t like breaks? Take them anyway. They help! (Caveat: NOT for people with ADHD.)

Ask questions. Ask yourself tough, open-ended questions about what you are learning. Answer the questions.

Talk to yourself. Sitting in silence is a recipe for daydreaming. Talk to yourself as you think. Keeps your brain train on the tracks.

Take a more in-depth look at how to maintain focus…

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Cody Blair has spent over a decade helping students and teachers discover the secrets that make learning simple! His ebook, Secrets Smart Students Know, reveals how the best students use powerful study skills, maximize their memory, avoid procrastination, and maximize their focus to achieve fantastic grades with much less work! Click now to find out more about simple methods to maximize your study skills.

© Cody Blair, All Rights Reserved. You may reprint the above article as long as you include the above bio/resource information in full, including the functioning links. Do not make any changes to the article or bio. If you can't include clickable links, please ask permission to reprint.

Take a look at Unforgettable, a short pdf ebook on memorizing vocabulary easily and effectively. A quick read will give you the inside scoop on…

• The quick and simple way to learn vocabulary for language classes and standardized tests like the GRE and SAT.
• How to soak up that tricky vocabulary like a sponge! Save time. Slave less.
• How to make those memories uber sticky. Memorize it once and it sticks for days (without more review).

A few short excerpts …

Does rote memorization work?  Yes … eventually, but compared to the other type of learning we’ve been talking about—“car wreck memory” we might call it—it’s like cooking steak with a candle.  Let’s learn how to turn on the gas.

We’ll look at four different keys to making the most of your memory…. If you apply these four keys, you will be a memory master … a black belt in brain fu … a wizard of wiles … a (fill in your own cheesy alliteration here).  Let’s get to it.

___________

We know that “car wreck” memory occurs when something is emotional and unusual.  We also know that it’s multi-sensory.  So how do we take something, like the definition of the word “turbid,” and make it multi-sensory, unusual, and emotional?

You aren’t going to believe me when I tell you.  It’s actually very easy, and it doesn’t seem real, but it absolutely works!  Here it is in a nutshell.  Ready? …

The short ebook will set you back $2.00 US. You can take that two bucks and buy a sugary drink and a bag o’ Funyuns and what do you get? Temporary taste bud titillation and diabetes.

OR you can take the same two bucks and purchase this handy quick guide to maximizing your memory,  and make studying easier for the rest of your life! Oye! Such a deal! Click the link below, pay via Paypal, and you’re off to the races…

Unforgettable .pdf eBook

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Cody Blair has spent over a decade helping students and teachers discover the secrets that make learning simple! His ebook, Secrets Smart Students Know, reveals how the best students use powerful study skills, maximize their memory, avoid procrastination, and maximize their focus to achieve fantastic grades with much less work! Click now to find out more about simple methods to maximize your study skills.

© Cody Blair, All Rights Reserved. You may reprint the above article as long as you include the above bio/resource information in full, including the functioning links. Do not make any changes to the article or bio. If you can't include clickable links, please ask permission to reprint.

Holy-frikkin-mooses. I just read three paragraphs in my Whirled History book, and I don’t have clue one on what it was about. How can I fish the beefy info chunks outta the steamy cesspool of facts that is my reading assignment?

If that’s your main pain, then consider this simple drill to make your mind into a magnet for important points in your reading.

First, mark up a (disposable) copy of your reading assignment. Take a red pen or marker and start eliminating non-essential words. Get all guvmint-censor/evil-english-teacher on it. Your goal is to mark out as much of each sentence as possible while still retaining the overall meaning. It should look like you tapped a vein and bled all over the paper. (more…)

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Cody Blair has spent over a decade helping students and teachers discover the secrets that make learning simple! His ebook, Secrets Smart Students Know, reveals how the best students use powerful study skills, maximize their memory, avoid procrastination, and maximize their focus to achieve fantastic grades with much less work! Click now to find out more about simple methods to maximize your study skills.

© Cody Blair, All Rights Reserved. You may reprint the above article as long as you include the above bio/resource information in full, including the functioning links. Do not make any changes to the article or bio. If you can't include clickable links, please ask permission to reprint.

Anyone who has ever tried to bulldoze their way through a narcolepsy inducing SAT or GRE reading comprehension passage will know just how hard it is to maintain focus when reading. No matter how hard you try to feign interest in scintillating topics like “The History of Corn Prices in 19th Century Dubuque” or “An In-Depth Look at Catatonia in Clams” we just can’t seem to keep our gray matter engaged. We end up like that dog in the movie Up. “Squirrel!”

I’ve got an easy fix to help keep your wayward brain on track and boost your comprehension.

Don’t be like Saint Ambrose.

Saint Augustine noted that when he went to visit Ambrose–then the bishop of a hoppin’ 4th Century Milan–he often found him reading silently. No lie. The guy read without saying the words out loud! I know. Weird, right? “When he read,” (more…)

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Cody Blair has spent over a decade helping students and teachers discover the secrets that make learning simple! His ebook, Secrets Smart Students Know, reveals how the best students use powerful study skills, maximize their memory, avoid procrastination, and maximize their focus to achieve fantastic grades with much less work! Click now to find out more about simple methods to maximize your study skills.

© Cody Blair, All Rights Reserved. You may reprint the above article as long as you include the above bio/resource information in full, including the functioning links. Do not make any changes to the article or bio. If you can't include clickable links, please ask permission to reprint.

Thank you, Engineering Student Services & Academic Programs Office at Texas A&M University! They have taken over the hosting of my Wired Study Tips podcast on iTunesU. If you haven’t already done so, bop on over to Wired Study Tips on iTunes and take a listen.

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Cody Blair has spent over a decade helping students and teachers discover the secrets that make learning simple! His ebook, Secrets Smart Students Know, reveals how the best students use powerful study skills, maximize their memory, avoid procrastination, and maximize their focus to achieve fantastic grades with much less work! Click now to find out more about simple methods to maximize your study skills.

© Cody Blair, All Rights Reserved. You may reprint the above article as long as you include the above bio/resource information in full, including the functioning links. Do not make any changes to the article or bio. If you can't include clickable links, please ask permission to reprint.

Taking frequent breaks maximizes your brain’s ability to recall. Hundreds of variations on experiments first performed in the late 1800s have confirmed that taking a 5 to 10 minute break every thirty or forty minutes will help you get the most out of your overworked and underappreciated neurons.

To help you remember to take study breaks, take a look at the free online app, Unforgetit. It’s perfect for setting break reminders to get you up off your duff on a regular schedule.

Want more details about breaks and maximizing your memory? Watch my free study skills video. It will take 45 minutes to watch and save you HOURS this week!

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Cody Blair has spent over a decade helping students and teachers discover the secrets that make learning simple! His ebook, Secrets Smart Students Know, reveals how the best students use powerful study skills, maximize their memory, avoid procrastination, and maximize their focus to achieve fantastic grades with much less work! Click now to find out more about simple methods to maximize your study skills.

© Cody Blair, All Rights Reserved. You may reprint the above article as long as you include the above bio/resource information in full, including the functioning links. Do not make any changes to the article or bio. If you can't include clickable links, please ask permission to reprint.

Homework and Practice

Homework can increase student understanding when assignments provide the opportunities needed to practice and apply new learning. - Northwest Regional Educational Consortium

‘Kay. Show of hands. How many of you like homework? … Anyone? … Bueller? … Bueller?

Most of us have an ancient, wired-into-our-DNA hatred for HOMEWORK (just typing the word caused me to gag). So… good news and bad news.

If we aren’t good at something we tend to lose focus quickly, so if you’re zoning out in class, it may be because your skills in the current subject ain’t cuttin’ the mustard. Here’s the bad news; homework–and more specifically, practice–is really the best way to develop certain types of academic skills. Calculus currently kicking your kiester? Much of the research shows that practice is what you’re probably missing. Those who practice math (more…)

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Cody Blair has spent over a decade helping students and teachers discover the secrets that make learning simple! His ebook, Secrets Smart Students Know, reveals how the best students use powerful study skills, maximize their memory, avoid procrastination, and maximize their focus to achieve fantastic grades with much less work! Click now to find out more about simple methods to maximize your study skills.

© Cody Blair, All Rights Reserved. You may reprint the above article as long as you include the above bio/resource information in full, including the functioning links. Do not make any changes to the article or bio. If you can't include clickable links, please ask permission to reprint.