Study Prof

Focus is the big hairy bugbear that stalks many students. Twenty minutes into their two hour study session they find themselves talking or texting or trimming their toenails or doing absolutely anything rather than studying. So how can you deftly dodge the distraction of friends, phones, Facebook, food, etc.? Follow this simple formula (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.

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.

On my study skills video and in my study skills ebook I discuss the importance of taking frequent breaks during study sessions to boost recall and focus. Studying for 30 to 45 minutes and then taking a short 5 to 10 minute break can really boost your brain power.

Try this handy FREE online focus booster app to help you make sure you’re taking regular breaks and squeezing the most out of your brain’s capacity. Click on the “i” tab in the upper right to change the timing.

Improve your study focus with this free app

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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.

Reinforcing Effort

Student attitudes and beliefs have a significant effect on success in school. Achievement can increase when teachers show the connection between effort and success. - Northwest Regional Educational Consortium

Plato: “What giveth, wee Dipides? Thy project lieth untouched whilst thy deadline draweth nigh.”

Dipides [with downcast countenance]: “Woe is me, wise master. Yon titanic project is too difficult for the likes o’ me. I shan’t ever finish, and even should I do so (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.

Identifying Similarities and Differences

Learning to classify and discern differences and similarities prepares students for employing metaphor, analogy, and higher-order thinking skills. -Northwest Educational Technology Consortium

Focused students are like oysters. The oyster filters through a lot of water, straining out the tasty bits of nutrient. Every once in awhile  our erstwhile oyster encounters some problematic bit of grit. When this happens it closes up tight and rolls that sand grain round and round, until the oyster finally turns it into a pearl. Likewise, a focused student filters through a lot (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 fine folks over at the Northwest Educational Technology Consortium have assembled an arsenal of research-based strategies that help students focus. I’ll use their suggestions as a jumping off point, showing you how to apply the techniques to your own studies.

First up…

Thematic Instruction

Students learn better from thematic, interdisciplinary instruction — themes are a way of understanding new concepts and provide mental organizing schemes. -Northwest Education Technology Consortium

Quick! Memorize this list of numbers.

124724314158675309

For most of us, that can be a time-consuming and boooooring task. But what if memorizing this number (more…)

I know what you’re thinking, “Should I really question everything?” You’re such a smart-aleck, but the answer is, “yes!” at least if you want to hoover the knowledge-nuggets right out of whatever you’re studying and make yourself into the uber-scholar you always new you could be.

Posing kick-ask questions–and thinking carefully through how you might answer them–is a well-researched method of deepening comprehension and increasing recall (not to mention totally amping up your cred with the prof). But what constitutes a good question? And how can one learn how to ask them with all the speed and tenacity of an espresso-filled four-year old?

Good questions are questions that require (more…)

Caution: you’ll be tempted to shoot this tip down before you even try it. Resist the temptation. What will it cost you to at least try it?

Take a small sticky note–the smallest you can find–and write your immediate goal on it just as you begin a study task. Example: “Complete even problems at end of chapter 4.”

Rules:

1. The goal must be easily doable within one hour. (Forces you to focus on jobs in small, manageable chunks).

2. It must fit fully on the sticky note. (Forces you to be focus your immediate goal).

3. Post the note somewhere annoying, such as the middle of your computer screen or over your cell phone screen or on your watch face. Don’t remove the note until the task is complete. (Annoys you until it’s done).

4. Promise yourself you won’t break any of the rules. Swear by something sacred, such as your mom’s honor or the Power of Grayskull. You don’t want Grayskull gunning for you, so get it done!

Simple and effective as a fly swatter. Try it out.