Study Prof

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…)

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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.

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.

Trying to study without being able to focus can be like a demonic real-life game of Whack-A-Mole. It’s frustrating, costly, and ultimately useless. Lifehack to the rescue! Take a look at their post on …

Simple Productivity: 10 Ways to Do More by Focusing on the Essentials

To become an excellent turnip you simply sit around and wait for someone to dump manure on you and water you from time to time. That makes for a great vegetable, but not a great student. So why do most students sit in class and wait for knowledge to be dumped on them?

To become an excellent hawk you roam far and wide with your eyes peeled for anything that looks tasty. When you see it, you dive on it, kill it, and take it home to the kids. That’s also–figuratively speaking–how to make a great scholar.

During a lecture or while reading a text, you are cruising, eyes peeled, looking for any little tasty bit of learning you can find. Once you see it, go and get it! Own it! Kick it’s hiney and eat it for dinner. Here’s how…

1. Pay rapt attention. Birds of prey are properly known as raptors, from the Latin word meaning “one who seizes by force.” As you sit in that lecture hall or hunker down with your Ramen and that three-inch thick, hernia-inducing textbook, actively look for facts and concepts.Some textbooks and professors will make it easy for you. They’ll put main points in bold letters, or point to a key concept and say, “this will be on the test.” This makes your job easy; pounce on the point.Other lecturers and books will camouflage important points in a thicket of words, unimportant drivel, and poorly-told anecdotes. Only the most attentive raptors will spy their prey and swoop down for the kill.
2. Pounce on the point. That means go grab it and make it yours by putting it in your notes using some of the note taking methods I’ve mentioned. Notes are the equivalent of talons for the raptor. The prey is not yours until you’ve got a death grip on it. If it’s in your notes, then it’s yours. You can eat it later at your leisure.
3. Rip it apart and consume it. Don’t be content to simply get the concept into your notes. You must really understand it. One great way to do that is by asking great questions and then answering them. Please log in or sign up to read the rest of this content. Find out more.

Actively go and pursue knowledge by paying careful attention, capturing concepts in your notes, and then processing the knowledge with good questions. Don’t settle for being a vegetable waiting for the next load of manure. Be a hawk! Go own that knowledge!

If you’re like me you probably see writing as something you are assigned by sadistic, work-happy profs, but writing is actually a powerful thinking tool. It will help you focus, recall, and understand! Whether you’re trying to get a bead on Charlemagne’s leadership genius, the weaknesses of multi-variate regressions, or the in’s and out’s of stoichiometry, writing can give you the mental boost you need.

How it works

Taking a doughy, unshaped thought and turning it into a well-constructed, logically-articulated sentence forces you to process at a higher level. You’ve got to take the info-mulch roiling around between your ears and (more…)

The New York Times recently talked to Winifred Gallagher, author of Rapt—A Guide to the Science of Attention. Here are a few of her suggestions…

• Use earplugs to decrease distractors (this will sound familiar to my GRE students)
• If possible, do your important work in the morning. Most brains are fresher then.
• Avoid interruptions. The brain can’t reboot instantly.
• Sip caffeine. It does help you attend.
• “Multi-tasking is a myth.” Concentrate on one thing at a time (turn off the TV, the iPod, the cell phone, etc. whilst studying).

One very effective way to keep yourself from giving in to temptation (whether that temptation is to eat that last piece of pecan pie or to watch that last episode of The Office) is to procrastinate–just keep putting it off. And you can do that by distracting yourself.

Check out this great article on how some 4-year-olds (yes, 4-year-olds) were able to effectively delay gratification by distracting themselves.