Tag: psychology

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Attn: Loading Too Much On? Here’s a Theory of How to Fix It

By Maya Estes

Do you ever feel like you are taking too much on? Responsibilities are piling up and you cannot for the life of you get on top of everything? You, my friend, are not the only one. At one point in time, everyone has been in your place; they have said ‘yes’ one too many times and now they have so many things on their plate that they are overwhelmed. It is not always saying yes though. Life is full of numerous distractions; it is amazing the world is still turning with the many ways you can avoid all of life’s responsibilities. There is never going to be a tried and true way of eliminating all these stressors, but there are some ways to help reduce them and focus on what is important.

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Memory Consolidation is a Great Excuse to Sleep

By Kelsey Klein

Imagine this: you’re a freshman in college who just graduated from high school. Each year of your high school career, you were able to get by with taking a quick glimpse of your notes before a quiz or exam. Even though you didn’t put much effort forth when it came to studying, you still managed to get a relatively good grades in all of your classes (shocking). Although you know that you will have tougher teachers and harder classes when you get to college, you think you will be able to get by just fine with the way you study now. When your first test rolls around and you use the same techniques as you did in high school, but you get the test back and your grade is not good, oh boy are you surprised. 

If anyone ever told you that once you get out of college and your teachers will be relatively relaxed, they are not wrong. However, just because they are laid back does not mean you can slack off. It also does not mean that they will go easy when it comes to their tests. Even though people may have been lucky to get a teacher who is very chill, people still tend to freak out when a quiz or test comes sneaking up. Skimming your notes a couple minutes before the exam or quiz won’t cut it. Even hoping that studying quickly before you go to bed is wishful thinking that something will stick with you. Although it is not ideal, college is much different than high school, which means that you need to find new studying techniques that will help you excel when tests and quizzes come around. 

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Seeing Without Seeing? Imagine That!

By Kate Aukes

Welcome to college! The next four (or more) years may be some of the most interesting and fun of your life, but a good work-fun balance is important. You will likely find yourself spending some time working on your study strategies as you settle into a new routine and a new school. When it comes to studying the material that you’ve learned and remembering it when test-day arrives, visual imagery will likely be at play. This type of imagery can be very helpful to your performance on exams and your overall studying method. When I started college, my study habits tended to be lacking, and that reflected in some of my grades. As a senior, I can look back and see that my habits have improved greatly over the years and my grades have followed suit. My hope is that this post can help you learn from my mistakes and do well in your first year of college!

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Recall issues? Learn about Interference

Interference may be why you did poorly on your test

By Miranda Molleck

“Did you fail your first college exam? Its okay! Just breathe and keep reading.”

College can sure be rough. You have classes to attend, homework (papers, presentations, assignments), groups presentations, plus studying. You have to balance a lot. Its no wonder students run into interference issues.

“Oh, what is interference? Keep reading my post to find out. There are ways to help reduce the likelihood of interference.”

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Stop, Drop and Roll Your Way Into a 4.0 GPA

By Kyle Oakes

Have you ever left class and wondered why you can barely remember a thing? I want you to try to remember what you were doing in that class. If you are like most college students, you probably snuck in a text message during the class, or maybe you clicked on that Facebook notification that popped up. Maybe you just dozed off. All of these could be affecting your grade drastically. In order to help your grade, you want to set those notifications, and ringer, on silent for the duration of the course, and stop dividing your attention to the wrong thing.

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What is your learning style?

By Susanna Getz

Before I tell you what your learning style is I want you to STOP and think of what “you think your learning style is”. Okay, now you need to throw all that crap about learning styles out the window. Sorry to lie to you, but you will not find out what your learning style is because this concept is a myth. As real as unicorns and fairies. Complete bullshit!

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Meditation for general focusing and stress relief

By Collin Aimone

Everyone has had the issue of being stressed and has experienced trouble when trying to focus. A lot of times this is seen in school as the regular pressures of a learning environment can weigh heavy on the student. The amount of stress a student may endure can sometimes go unnoticed, and this stress soon leads to trouble focusing which in return can lead to falling grades. It has most likely been presented to all of us before as a solution to our problems, meditating, but of course we would not take the time to sit in our rooms and cross our legs and find our happy place. However, studies have shown that meditation can induce a physiological state of momentary deep rest, which has shown proof of lowering stress levels and helping individuals focus better. Continue reading “Meditation for general focusing and stress relief”

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Spacing Effect and Consolidation in Studying: Don’t you worry, you have time for that nap!

By Liz Wagner

Reality of College
College can be a scary experience for every incoming freshman, your automatically scared of the action of “failing”. College isn’t supposed to be a scary experience, it is supposed to be an enjoyable experience. You will have many opportunities that will shape you in to the grown individual you will become, you will attend parties, join clubs, and experience many firsts. But one important factor that you need to pay attention to is your study habits. If your study habits are not up to par, your grades and college experience will not end well.

Now we all know that one weakness that many college students face at some point in their college experience, and that is procrastination. Procrastination is somewhat like an evil monster that creeps up on students, especially when it comes to big papers and exams. The results of procrastinating are cramming last minute for that exam, meaning no time for that Netflix show or that nap you were counting on. What if I told you, that there are studies showing that a college student could benefit from not cramming, and you would have time for that nap.

This phenomenon in psychology is called the spacing effect, and it can benefit many college students in their studies. Many students throughout the years, typically develop their own study habits. But as you continue to read, you may discover that the spacing effect is the answer to those prays or to help you get that passing grade. The spacing effect is a pretty simple concept in psychology, the concept is spacing out your study time into multiple periods instead of one mass study session (4). During these multiple study sessions, an individual should take breaks in between each session, and the mind should be devoted to the same subject to acquire the best results (4). So that is right, multi-tasking in this phenomenon wouldn’t be a good idea. But the good news is during those short breaks in between studying you can do all the social media browsing, napping, or Netflix watching you want.
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Test Better Using the Testing Effect

By Sydney Abdnour

We’ve all heard the saying “you get out what you put in.” This statement applies perfectly to schooling, specifically studying and test taking. In high school, it is easy to cram the night before a test and get a good grade. Unfortunately, that is not the case in college. Even if you consider yourself a “good test taker,” it is important to put more time into your studies than you did in high school. There are many techniques out there to enhance the learning and studying experience for students of all ages. One of the effective ways to help students (especially college students) study and retain information better is the Testing Effect, known more commonly as the Retrieval Practice Effect.

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Cognition at Marquette, Spring 2017: A Postmortem of the Blog Project

The Spring 2017 semester is complete (by a couple of weeks, but I’ve been busy relaxing…) at Marquette University. I had the opportunity to adjunct there, teaching two classes, while looking for a tenure-track position. In Cognition, specifically, I enacted a blog project based on one at the Learning Scientists. It wasn’t the first blog project I’ve done, but quite different in approach and content. Im this post, I wanted to share my thoughts on the project as a trial run, some observations I made with grading, and try to figure out what I am going to do with this project moving forward. I’m open to suggestions and comments–just let me know in a comment below or on Twitter!

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