Tag: college

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How functional fixedness impacts people

By Alayna Missel

Have you heard of the term functional fixedness? Properly not considering you are a freshman in college. I am here to give you some tips on studying with regards to functional fixedness. The term functional fixedness is defined as when old information that a person has learned interferes with their ability to process and learn new information. This happens because functional fixedness is a form of a fixation. A fixation is when a person focuses on the one singular, often the most common use of an item and this inhibits the person to think outside of the box in which they could be able to use the item in different ways. Why am I telling you these definitions you might ask? I am telling you because in order to be successful sometimes you have to think outside the box when looking for a solution to a problem.

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Blind to Reality

By Kennedy Savage

You’re driving down the road windows down and music blasting, while looking out the window you notice the sunset and people going about their day. All of a sudden your focus shifts and you notice a car swerving into your lane, unable to break fast enough you rear end the car causing a traffic incident. This split second failure to notice fully visible, yet often times unexpected objects is and example of inattentional blindness.  

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Does Depth Matter?

By Emily Lange

Have you ever been sitting in a lecture, copying notes from the slideshow and suddenly realize you have no clue what you wrote for the last three slides? You have been feverishly copying the slides as quickly as you can, but how have you not learned a single thing? This is because you have been processing the information in a shallow manner, meaning that you were not paying close attention to the meaning of what you were writing. How can you learn to process the information you learn in class at a deeper level? Using Levels of Process theory can help you to become a better student!

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Dual Coding: Two Perspectives in Learning

By Marisa Murillo

Have you ever wondered how to store information easier in your memory? I have always failed to remember things because I did not simply know how to study memorization. The fact is, I didn’t need to study memorization, but I needed to learn and comprehend the information to actually gain knowledge on certain topics. In high school, many students may not have to study for their exams or quizzes but that all changes in college. College pushes students to study in order to learn the information they will be later tested on and have to apply to their future careers. Dual coding theory is a theory that attempts to explain cognition in terms of two separate yet partly interconnected systems. The two systems can work independently of each other or they can work together in an integrated way, often applying better outcomes. These two systems include a verbal system specialized for dealing with language and a non-verbal system for representing and processing knowledge about objects and events. Dual coding has a lot to deal with the concreteness of information. The theory is known to predict the information that is being dually encoded should be remembered approximately twice as well as information likely to be singly encoded. The best study method for any student is the cued recall of information and specifically associated with this theory is the conceptual peg hypothesis. Students can create questions or simple quizzes after lectures to better learn the information through recall for a better knowledge of the information in the future.

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Don’t bet on it! How availability heuristics hinder our study practices.

By Kate Summers

Picture this: You are walking down the hallway, out of the classroom when you hear, “Hey! You! Yes, YOU! Are you ready for our test on Friday?”. You shrug off the comment because inside you are really freaking out about the test. Your first big college test is just days away…and you haven’t even started studying. You run back to the dorm to start studying and studying and studying. All of a sudden it is Friday, TEST DAY and you can’t remember any of the information you have studied for the past two days. What went wrong? How could studying result in a bad grade?

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Take Note, Freshmen: Why Good Note-Taking Skills are Key to Success

By Carrigan Waltz

You’re a freshman in college, so you’ve probably taken notes a time or two in your academic career thus far. You probably think that you’ve got them mastered at this point. But are you actually missing out on important information? Could the way you take notes actually improve your recall of the information? The answer is yes. Taking thorough, well-structured notes can help you recall information better, spend less time studying, and improve your grades in the long run.

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Chunking Through College Stress

By Rhianna Cyr

Freshman year of high school I took the introduction to agriculture class. While in this class we had to memorize the National FFA Creed written by E. M. Tiffany. This creed is made up of 5 short paragraphs describing what it means to be an FFA member and the beliefs of the program, that each member should represent. In order to help us memorize it, my teacher had me and my classmates memorize each paragraph, to recite each week. In other words, week one on Monday, we start memorizing paragraph one, then recite it on Friday. Week two, we memorized paragraph two, to recite on that next Friday, and so on, for five weeks. This process of learning, one paragraph at a time made it much easier to store the creed in long term memory. Later, in my sophomore year of college, I learned the name of this simple process. So, keep reading to find out!

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Stop Reading, Start Retrieving

By Jacob Lamprecht

Studying. Most all college students will attempt to study at some point in their college careers. Though variations exist from student to student, oftentimes the same pattern emerges in our studying. First, we find a comfy spot. Then, to continue creating that nice study environment, we put on some music. But not that song, it doesn’t fit my mood right now, so I’ll skip it. Upon finding the right mood for studying, we check our social media to see if anything has happened in the last few moments since we began studying. When we finally get to the point in our studying where we actually open our notes or textbook most follow through with the same procedure. We look at our notes. And then look at them again. Rereading and rereading and rereading to shove that knowledge into our brain. Though this approach feels fulfilling and is easy enough to do once we get past the distractions, research has shown rereading to have little effect upon our eventual test scores (1).

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Knowing Your Cognitive Limits: Taking a Study Break

By MaKennah Hollon

This is a depiction of you sitting at your desk, mind wandering, thinking about whether or not you should take a break. Hint: you probably should. Photo from my camera roll, drawn by yours truly.

If you’re anything like me when I was a freshman, you’re probably living under the age old excuse that you don’t have time for a break. That you’re too busy. That it’s a waste of time and you have things to do. These are excuses that held me back from being more productive in my studies and are probably holding you back too. It’s hard, but by prioritizing breaks, you’ll be more productive, attentive and focused on what you’re doing. Breaks can ultimately help you get more things done in a shorter amount of time so you can avoid the age old college student method of staying up all night.

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A Complete College Guide to Studying the Correct Way using the Spacing Effect

By Paige Veronda

Do you ever feel like you study for hours and hours on end yet can’t seem to retain all of the information you just looked at? Do you feel like you are overwhelmed with all of the things you need to know for classes, work, and your everyday life? If you’re a college student, I’m sure you can understand the struggle of pulling an all-nighter for a test just to fail it in the end. Or the struggles of procrastinating right before a quiz and studying 5 minutes before your class begins. Neither of these end results will give you a passing grade (unless you are really lucky). However, there is a simple solution to this problem, and it does not require you to stay up all night or study for multiple hours at a time. Here is what you need to know.