Cognitive Psychology in Education
By Abby Mitchell
Entering college can be stressful, overwhelming, and confusing. Often you are bombarded with so much information in so little time. You may be told by different professors about various study tips like making flashcards, using Quizlet, highlighting main points, and much more. What if I told you there is a compressed and more effective way to learn? You could use interleaving.
By Gabrielle Penberthy
While studying, everyone has experienced the need to snap back others, listen to music, and browse Instagram. We laugh when we communicate with others, we groove to music, and we stay connected when we browse Instagram. We run the risk of drifting from our study goals when we engage in these activities while studying. It is all fun and games until we get a bad grade on that important test or the homework assignment that is half of the final grade. I understand how difficult it might be to resist temptation when your phone is so close. I find myself picking up my phone to put on music or snap others back. But when I do this, I find that I start singing along to the music, which diverts my attention from my studies. Why is this a task so hard to complete? Divided attention, or multitasking, is the term used to describe this. When this occurs, I typically end up with a low grade or find it difficult to respond to an important quiz question. This causes an excessive amount of worry and self-doubt.
Continue reading “One at a Time: The Hidden Power of Singular Focus”By Emma Sandlin
It is quite difficult to start college. There are several issues that must be resolved, the most important of which being how to comprehend and absorb the content in the best possible way. One of the many worries that accompany beginning college is learning how to use elaboration when studying new material. According to cognitive psychologists, elaboration is a very useful technique for enhancing learning and memory retention (1). Elaboration is the process of bringing new information to life by connecting it to what has already been learned or by creating meaningful connections. Students can improve their comprehension and retain more information by using the elaborative encoding method. Study skills mastery is essential to achieving academic brilliance. Elaboration is shown to be an effective tactic for boosting understanding, fortifying memory retention, and encouraging in-depth learning (1). Elaboration makes study sessions more lively by enticing students to actively interact with the content, draw connections, and develop ideas (2). Students that integrate elaborative processing into their study regimens open the door to an abundance of knowledge that is just waiting to be discovered and comprend (3).
By Macey Whisker
As a college student, you will be doing a LOT of studying! Twelve to sixteen credit hours a semester is an intense workload, so let’s make it a bit lighter. Throw your previous study tools out the window, this is not high school anymore! If you are anything like me, your parents or guardians probably had you remember their phone number so you could contact them from anywhere, anytime, if there was an emergency. Some parents added a little tune or jingle to the memorization process to make it easier to recall, and some assigned the chunked numbers a specific value or meaning, which is what chunking is (1)! Splitting up a specific group or list of information into chunks then assigning those chunks a title or value makes the details not just easier to remember, but able to be retained for longer periods of time!
Continue reading “Studying Blows!! Try Chunking it!”By Brody Forsythe
The transformation of becoming a college freshman from a high school senior is a different transition for everyone. Depending on the individual’s experience, goals and interests, it can either be a seamless transition or one with many holes and lots of exposed seams. When it comes to academics, it can be an extremely difficult transition if one is trying to incorporate old study habits that were previously effective in high school. There are numerous students out there that will tell you about their humbling experience with their very first college exam, and I can include myself in that category. I can remember studying for my first chemistry exam thinking about how easy it was going to be to get an “A” on it, and when it came down to taking the test, not a single concept could be retrieved from my mind to help me pass the test. All I could remember was how confident I felt looking over the notes I previously written down, and looking at the practice problems we did in class months prior to the exam and thinking, “Yeah, I’ve got this!”. I was just following my old high school studying procedure and little did I know my whole world about studying was in for a rude awakening.
By Makayla Behm
Starting College
Starting college is extremely hard. There are many things that you have to worry about but most importantly how to study and learn the information effectively. When starting out in college there are so many things that you have to worry about but learning how to rehearse the information you are getting should not be on one of your worry lists.
By Reece Putrich
When studying for an exam, do you try hard to remember everything? Then when you get the exam, you go mind blank and forget it all? Well, this is because you may have shallow processing. Shallow processing happens when you choose to only try and remember the physical features of an object or task. (1) This may happen when you are in a science class and must remember a diagram. While you may be having to memorize the diagram, you may possibly only try to remember the pictures and features you can see. On the other hand, if you were trying to pay close attention to the words or definitions this would then be called deep processing. (1) Deep processing allows our brain to hold more memories and allows our minds to remember information better. You are probably wondering where shallow processing and deep processing come from.
By Ariel Chism
The propaganda effect is something that occurs when individuals are usually repeatedly told something (whether it is true or not) and happen to believe it. (1) Propaganda can be a great tool to use when studying as it allows for individuals to use their creativity and knowledge they learned on a topic and put it into some multimedia form.
By Frannie Heckman
Memories are a huge factor in learning, studying, and just your everyday life as student. Learning the processes of memories and how certain memories become short-term and some become long-term, where they are in your brain, and learning how sleep can affect you, can actually be a benefit for studying and your future GPA. While studying many students just take in as much information as possible in a short amount of time this is not always the best method. Consolidation process of memories is transforming them into a more stable, longer- lasting form. (1) This can also be helpful to students to get the information they need while having it last longer in the process.
By Daizjah Shannon
Active learning techniques like summarizing, note-taking, and quizzing help you engage with the material and remember it better. These techniques are adaptive because they help you retain important information for future use. Active learning techniques can be used in a variety of ways to help improve your learning and retention of information, such as.
Continue reading “Survival of the Studious: How Adaptive Behaviors Can Improve Your Learning”