Tag: study skills

Posted on

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?

Posted on

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.

Posted on

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!

Posted on

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).

Posted on

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.

Continue reading “Knowing Your Cognitive Limits: Taking a Study Break”
Posted on

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. 

Posted on

Priming is not make up for the mind

By Elia Canfield

If you have ever wondered why you can remember the phone number to that J.G. Wentworth commercial, priming is the answer. Listen, this phone number on the commercial has been thrown in between the shows you watch on tv every day. During most commercial breaks between It helps that the commercial is in the form of a song. This number has been memorized by your brain without you thinking twice about it. If it is now driving you crazy that you are one of the few that cannot remember the number it is 877-cash now. It was a whole jingle that sang call J-G Wentworth 887 C-AA-SH N-OO-OW. The stimulus is the number that activates memory in your brain. This is then reinforced every time the commercial is on the TV. Your mind can then recall this information at any given time when this information invaluable or related to some topic of conversation. This can also go for you memorizing songs on the radio that you do not even like, but cannot remember what was taught in the lecture. You cannot remember because you are not exposed to it frequently enough and in many settings where you are conscious and subconsciously learning the material. Priming has also primed us to pair different beats of sound to feeling like happiness, sadness, suspense, and danger.

Posted on

The Bad Boy of Memorization: The Method of Loci!

By Jesse Boyles

Having trouble with memory loss in your studies? Definitions just not sticking in your brain like they used to or have they never been able to quite catch on? Hi, Jesse Boyles here with a new product (method) for you! It’s called the method of loci and it is here to change your study and memorization methods from a messy, cluttered headroom to a memory palace! This method is a powerful mnemonic technique that can enhance retrieval of knowledge through a specific and distinctive coding style that helps reduce proactive interference, the disruptive effect of prior learned knowledge and makes you forget more recently learned info; the things you need to succeed (1). This method is very good at helping you memorize information for a test. In addition, the method of loci is the oldest identified mnemonic strategy. Basically, the method of loci is like a folder that can store all of the information you memorized as well as information you can later recall (6). Also, that folder allows you to store an unlimited number of details in a set order. I will explain the method of loci to you in more detail shortly! With this bad boy of a technique, you can remember all kinds of things!

Posted on

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.

Posted on

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.