Study Prof

See if you can best me in a memory test and lend a helpful brain-cell to University of Edinburgh psychologists in the process. Schlepp on over to the BBC memory test and take twenty minutes to test out your memory muscles. Then click “more” below to see how I did.

Take a screen shot of your results, so you’ll be able to compare yours with mine, and make sure to read through the short article after you submit your results … valuable memory stuff there. (more…)

Spiftaculous website Exemplar will show you lots of examples of that irritatingly unfamiliar vocabulary term in context so you can get the straight skinny on how it’s used. It will also give you some stats about how often your word is used by year and geographic locale. Strangely, it doesn’t give you the actual definition though–don’t ask me why–but combine it with wordnik.com for a more robust vocabulary experience.

A heads up; apparently the examples are drawn only from scientific literature. Didn’t seem to make much diff on the test words I typed in, but just so’s ya know.

Not all profs are created equal. Many of them, through no fault of their own, have foreign accents that make them slightly tougher to understand than Charlie Brown’s teacher. Some have only a passing acquaintance with public speaking skills, and I’m pretty sure some of my profs weren’t actually fully Homo sapiens. What’s a student to do? Enter Einztein.com. Do a quick search for your topic of choice and get instant, free access to a lecture on said topic from superb professors at top-shelf universities around the globe. Click on the logo to see for yourself.

Dust off those synapses and belly up to the brain bar, pardner. You’re going to like this. Website Smart.fm takes some of my favorite learning principals (staggered review, automaticity, the Ebbinghaus learning curve, and more) and puts them all together in one slick and sociable site. Enter in whatever info you want to sear into your cerebellum or take advantage of the memory sets others have already created.

Take a peek at the intro video and then go give it a whirl. Click the pic to watch the video at YouTube.

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

Do you know what “nemesis” means? A righteous infliction of retribution manifested by an appropriate agent. Personified in this case by an ‘orrible exam … the new GRE. –With apologies to Brick Top

Gahhhh! They’re changing the GRE. It’s newier! It’s spiffier! It’s more gee-whizzier! Or so they claim. Get the straight skinny on just exactly how they’ve monkeyed around with the Test We Love To Hate straight from the equine’s mandibles…

Click to Watch

For years, and in my video (see right sidebar), I’ve been preaching the power of frequent study breaks to boost recall. Here’s a great online app you can quickly set to keep track of study sessions and breaks. It’s a nice (free) all in one package. Plus, there’s a downloadable desktop version. Take a look here.

Lifehacker.com has put together a very straightforward guide to taking superior notes using the Cornell Method.

Have a prof that is to teaching what Keanu Reeves is to acting? Try one of these lecturers instead…   free university lectures – computer science, mathematics, physics, chemistry.

Trying to establish a knew habit? My students know that committing to the new behavior of 30 days IN-A-ROW, is the key to making those habits stick. Enter Don’t Break The Chain!, an online calendar that allows you to tick off the days to your thirty day chain of good behavior. Knock’em dead!