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(Video) STOP WASTING TIME - Part 1 | Motivational Video for Success & Studying (Ft. Coach Hite)
By Daniel T. Willingham
Mr. Willingham is a psychologist at the University of Virginia and the author, most recently, of “Outsmart Your Brain: Why Learning Is Hard and How You Can Make It Easy.”
Picture your preschooler’s teacher pulling you aside at pickup time to say that your child was “not taking responsibility” for learning the alphabet. You’d be puzzled and probably angry. It’s not up to a 4-year-old to make sure he learns the alphabet. That’s the teacher’s job.
But as your child gets older, he’ll increasingly be expected to teach himself. High school seniors must read difficult books independently, commit information to memory, schedule their work, cope with test anxiety and much more.
These demands build slowly across the grades, essentially forming a second, unnoticed curriculum: learning how to learn independently.
For most American students, that curriculum goes untaught. In a 2007 survey, just 20 percent of college students agreed that they study as they do “because a teacher (or teachers) taught you to study that way.”
And that lack of instruction shows. Students don’t know much about how they learn.
In one study, researchers asked college students to select which of two scenarios would lead to better learning. For example, students were asked to compare creating one’s own mnemonic with using one the teacher provides. (Creating your own is better, previous research shows.)
For two of the six scenarios, students picked the worse strategy as often as the better one. For the other four, most students actually thought the worse strategy was superior.
How could they be so misinformed? You would think that after years of studying and then seeing their test results, students would figure out which methods work and which don’t.
Students get studying wrong because they don’t assess whether a method works in the long run. Instead, they pay attention to whether the method is easy to do and feels like it’s working while they’re doing it.
By analogy, suppose I were trying to get stronger by doing push-ups. You watch me train, and are surprised that I’m practicing push-ups on my knees. When you suggest that push-ups on my toes are a better exercise, I reply: “I tried that, but I can do lots more on my knees. And this way they’re not so hard!”
Students try to learn by doing the mental equivalent of push-ups on their knees.
For example, student surveys show that rereading notes or textbooks is the most common way students prepare for a test. Rereading is easy because the mind can skitter along the surface of the material without closely considering its meaning, but that’s exactly why it’s a poor way to learn. If you want to learn the meaning — as most tests require you to — then you must think about meaning when you study.
Yet, insidiously, rereading feels effective.
Rereading a textbook makes the content feel familiar. But judging that content is familiar and knowing what it means — being able to describe it, being able to use that knowledge when you think — are supported by different processes in the brain. Because they are separate, familiarity can increase even if knowledge of the meaning doesn’t increase. That’s what’s happened when a person looks very familiar but you can’t identify her.
And so, as students reread their textbooks, the increasing familiarity makes them think they are learning. But because they are not thinking about the meaning of what they read, they aren’t improving the knowledge that actually builds understanding.
Psychologists have developed much better ways to study, some of them counterintuitive. For example, if you’ve only partially learned some material, trying to remember it is a better way to solidify that fragile learning than studying more.
In one experiment demonstrating this effect, students read educational passages of about 260 words (for example, about sea otters) under one of three conditions. Some students repeatedly read and studied the text for four consecutive study periods, each lasting five minutes. A second group read and studied the text for three periods and in the fourth, which lasted 10 minutes, wrote as many ideas from the passage as they could remember. A third group studied for one period and tried to remember the material during the other three.
After the four periods, students judged how well they had learned the material and, unsurprisingly, the more students had studied, the more confident they were in their knowledge.
A week later, everyone returned for another test, and the results showed how misplaced student confidence was. The people who had studied just once (and recalled the material three times) remembered the passage best. The worst memory was shown by those who had studied the most — and had been the most confident about their learning.
When students read textbooks, they again gravitate toward easy methods that, misleadingly, feel effective. They like to highlight, which adds little time to reading, and which students assume can guide future studying. But research shows there’s little benefit to highlighting over simply reading, in part because students mostly highlight definitions, not deeper concepts.
Educational psychologists have developed strategies for effective reading that even middle school students can use. Readers are told to perform a task while they read, for example, to identify conclusions and ask themselves how they are supported. This task requires that students focus on high-level themes as well as the details that support them.
Psychologists have even developed strategies to address one of the most pernicious problems in schooling: Students cram for tests and rapidly forget what they’ve learned.
In one study, college students used a flashcard-like program to test themselves on a subset of concepts from an introductory psychology class they were taking. There were six practice sessions, each separated by a couple days or more.
On the course exam, students scored modestly better on the practiced than the unpracticed content, 80 percent correct versus 69 percent correct.
But the real payoff came three days later, when students came to the laboratory for another test of the concepts.
Researchers expected that students had crammed for the course exam and would have forgotten most of the content. And indeed, students scored 14 percent correct on the unpracticed content questions, even though only three days had passed.
But when tested on the content they’d reviewed in those six brief practice sessions, students got 66 percent correct. On a follow-up test three weeks later, they still scored 65 percent correct.
These are striking results, but studying days in advance of an exam requires planning, and most college students don’t see the need. When surveyed about how they decide what to work on, 13 percent of college students mention following a plan. The most common answer is that they just work on whatever is due next.
This is another challenge to improving study skills: Students think some tasks are so straightforward that they don’t require a strategy.
For example, most of my students see no need for a strategy when listening to my lectures. It feels like they’re part of an audience, attending a performance. Who uses a strategy to watch a movie?
And they’re right; comprehending a movie is easy. True, they must piece together the individual scenes to understand the plot, but movies are structured as narratives, and that familiar framework helps. What’s more, movies are honed and reworked by experts to be easily understood and instantly entertaining.
Just as movie scenes must be knit together into a plot, a student attending a lecture must not simply understand facts but understand how they relate to form a theme or argument. But my lectures are not entertaining stories, devised by an expert communicator.
As they have for reading, educational psychologists have developed strategies for listening that encourage students to relate individual points to broader conclusions. That helps them discern the organization of the lecture and thus understand it more deeply.
Or would, if students knew about this strategy and were persuaded it would help them. And that seems to suggest an obvious next step: High schools should require a study skills class.
Carefully structured classes of this sort show promise, but they would be more effective if all teachers could help students tune those skills to their specific classrooms.
Often, teachers can’t, because they don’t know the best study strategies. You would think that comprehensive knowledge of how children learn would be part of teacher education, and most programs do require a course in educational psychology or child development, but the impact seems limited. Teachers in training don’t know the best study strategies, either.
State lawmakers can help by reviewing teacher licensing examinations. Most require knowledge of principles of learning, but the expectations are low and many even refer to scientifically discredited ideas like so-called learning styles.
Most people hope that schools will encourage each child to become a lifelong learner, which means teachers must show students how to learn effectively on their own. That’s unlikely until teachers have that knowledge themselves.
Daniel T. Willingham (@DTWillingham) is a professor of psychology at the University of Virginia and the author, most recently, of “Outsmart Your Brain: Why Learning Is Hard and How You Can Make It Easy.”
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FAQs
What is the best way to study better? ›
- Get organised.
- Don't skip class!
- Take notes.
- Talk to your teacher & ask questions.
- Space out your studying.
- Create a study plan – & stick to it.
- Don't just re-read but study.
- Set up a quiet study space.
Decades of research have demonstrated that spacing out study sessions over a longer period of time improves long-term memory. In other words, if you have 12 hours to spend on a subject, it's better to study it for three hours each week for four weeks than to cram all 12 hours into week four.
Why studying is better? ›Studying is not just important for educational development, but also builds personal skills. Having good study skills can improve your confidence, competence, and self-esteem. As well as helps reduce stress and anxiety around deadlines and exams.
Is studying the more the better? ›More study improves grades, but not as much as you think
However, extra study doesn't make as much difference as people think. An American study found the average grades of high school boys increased by only about 1.5 percentage points for every extra hour of homework per school night.
- Unplug and log off social media. ...
- Find a comfortable study space. ...
- Set aside 30 minutes to be active. ...
- Drink at least 8 glasses of water each day. ...
- Make a 20-minute playlist of essential tunes. ...
- Reach out to friends when you need a break.
- Give yourself enough time to study. via GIPHY. ...
- Organize your study space. via GIPHY. ...
- Use flow charts and diagrams. via GIPHY. ...
- Practice on old exams. via GIPHY. ...
- Explain your answers to others. via GIPHY. ...
- Organize study groups with friends. via GIPHY. ...
- Take regular breaks. via GIPHY. ...
- Snack on brain food.
Most people recommend studying for 3 to 4 hours every day on a set schedule that allows your brain to work at its full capacity. You should avoid studying for more than five or six hours as this can lead to burnout and cause you to lose the information that you have learned.
How many hours can a human brain study? ›BRAIN FOCUS & CONCENTRATION FACTS & STATISTICS
The human brain is able to focus up to two hours, after which it needs a 20-30 minute break. The average American spends about 9 hours a day at work. According to the NeuroLeadership Institute, work focus equals about 6 hours a week.
Best time to study according to science
According to science, there are two windows of time the brain is most receptive to new material: 10:00 am to 2:00 pm, and 4:00 pm to 10:00 pm.
When we learn new skills, the density of our myelin, or the brain's white matter is increased. This in turn helps improve performance. Our neurons are also stimulated, forming more neural pathways which allow us to learn better.
What are three reasons to study? ›
- To gain knowledge. ...
- To discover hidden talents. ...
- To acquire critical thinking skills. ...
- To improve communication skills. ...
- To practice effective time management. ...
- To develop resourcefulness. ...
- To cultivate creativity. ...
- To foster teamwork and collaboration.
Education and lifelong learning help us use our brains to their maximum potential by stirring up our curiosity and intellect, Dr. Lagoy adds. The more you use your brain, the more oxygen it requires, and your body increases blood flow to it to fulfill the higher demand.
Can studying be good for you? ›Learning to Improve in More Areas
One of the most intriguing benefits to studying is that it doesn't just affect one aspect of your abilities; it helps you to grow skills. Learning a language doesn't just help you learn the language; it helps you increase your ability to take on even more languages.
You can say studying is about observing and absorbing the content -- you understand things in a manner where you do not really engage that much with topic. Learning, on the other hand, is a lot more active -- you understand things through hands-on experience. Learning actually calls for practice.
Is it better to read to study? ›Things become more complicated when you have to learn something new or understand a complex topic. Since the brain has to work harder to process new information, reading may yield better results. You will be better able to comprehend the material and remember it when you actually read it.
What is the best way to study and not forget? ›- Try to understand the information first. Information that is organized and makes sense to you is easier to memorize. ...
- Link it. ...
- Sleep on it. ...
- Self-test. ...
- Use distributed practice. ...
- Write it out. ...
- Create meaningful groups. ...
- Use mnemonics.
- Keep moving. ...
- Let there be light. ...
- Sit upright. ...
- Avoid your bedroom. ...
- Hydrate, hydrate, hydrate. ...
- Don't forget to eat (healthy) ...
- Make studying active. ...
- Study with friends.
Scores of studies conclude that students really do better when they sleep. Sleeping poorly (or not at all) leads to worse test results and poorer ability to learn new things. In fact, an all nighter hurts your ability to think, reason, and understand to the same degree as if you were taking your test drunk.
What is the fastest way to study? ›- Teach others (or just pretend) The University of Washington in St. ...
- Make breaks. Refresh your brain! ...
- Take notes by hand. ...
- Don't be afraid to take a nap! ...
- Use different study methods.
- Acknowledge your resistance and difficult feelings with motivation. ...
- Do not run away. ...
- Do not blame yourself for procrastinating now and then. ...
- Try to understand your studying style better. ...
- Don't question your abilities. ...
- Visualise yourself starting. ...
- Focus on the task at hand.
How long can the brain focus without a break? ›
This is due to the fact that the brain is only able to maintain true focus for around 45 minutes before it begins to lose steam. Therefore it would be wise practice to study diligently for up to an hour and then take a break.
How many hours do top students sleep? ›Sleep is crucial to physical health, brain function, and learning. Eight hours of sleep a night is ideal, but some students need closer to nine.
Are there times when you study better by yourself? ›Some students work better in the morning while others are at their mental peak at night, and studying alone allows you to maximise this time. As well as having fewer distractions, you may also feel less pressure to grasp concepts quickly in order to keep up with others.
How many hours do geniuses study? ›The Best in the World Put in 10,000 Hours If you study the most successful people in the world, you will also realize that their genius only came after more than 10,000 hours of focus and hard work.
How can I retain my memory for a long time? ›- Be physically active every day. Physical activity raises blood flow to the whole body, including the brain. ...
- Stay mentally active. ...
- Spend time with others. ...
- Stay organized. ...
- Sleep well. ...
- Eat a healthy diet. ...
- Manage chronic health problems.
Trouble concentrating can relate to things going on around you. Common causes include interruptions from co-workers, distractions from your roommates or family members, or social media notifications. But it's also possible for concentration difficulties to relate to underlying mental or physical health conditions.
Is it better to stay up late or wake up early to study? ›So, is it better to stay up late or wake up early to study? Both are okay as long as you don't reduce the amount of sleep you get. Not everyone is productive in the morning, and not everyone is effective at night. Do what works best for you, but try to get 7 to 9 hours of sleep.
Is it better to study at night or morning? ›Just as there are plenty of positives for studying during the day, there are various reasons why night-time is the best time to study for some. The most obvious advantage of studying at night is the abundance of peace and quiet you have. Night-time is when people are more relaxed, quiet and contemplative.
What time of day is your brain sharpest? ›That said, science has indicated that learning is most effective between 10 am to 2 pm and from 4 pm to 10 pm, when the brain is in an acquisition mode. On the other hand, the least effective learning time is between 4 am and 7 am.
What helps your brain to study? ›- Fit in some exercise a few times a week. ...
- Get creative. ...
- Stock up on your vitamins and micronutrients. ...
- Socialize. ...
- Allow yourself to power nap. ...
- Break out of your daily routine. ...
- Try something new.
Is studying good for Mental health? ›
Studying can be helpful for people living with or recovering from mental illness. Studying can help you gain new knowledge and skills for a certain job or career. As well as improve your self-esteem and wellbeing.
Does studying improve memory? ›Studies have shown that learning something new can improve our mental cognition, memory retention, and focus.
What are the most useful things to study? ›- Biomedical engineering. ...
- Computer science. ...
- Marine engineering. ...
- Pharmaceutical sciences. ...
- Computer engineering. ...
- Electrical engineering. ...
- Finance. ...
- Software engineering.
The United States of America (USA) hosts the most number of international students in the world. Quality education, unique curriculum, multicultural environment, and abundant opportunities are just some of the reasons why many International students want to study in the US.
What is the most important factor in studying? ›Motivation:
It is the most important factor influencing the learner. If the learner has no motivation to learn, any amount of force will be futile. More the motivation better will be the learning.
Researchers found that participants experienced a boost of one to five IQ points for every additional year of formal education.
Does brain get tired from studying? ›Similar to physical work, mental work over a long duration can produce a feeling of tiredness, also referred to as cognitive fatigue. Previous studies have shown that the prefrontal cortex plays a critical role in cognitive processes that underlie mental effort.
What are the positive effects of learning? ›Academic Outcomes
Improved higher-order thinking skills—an ability to demonstrate greater complexities of understanding. Statistically significant increases in ability to analyze increasingly complex problems. Significant increases in students' critical thinking abilities.
Studying carries no point or grade value toward the final grade. Student is held accountable for completion and quality of their homework. Homework carries a point or grade value toward the final grade. There is always studying that can be done.
What is a good quote about learning? ›“Learning never exhausts the mind.” “For the things we have to learn before we can do them, we learn by doing them.” “Learning is not attained by chance, it must be sought for with ardor and attended to with diligence.” “The beautiful thing about learning is that nobody can take it away from you.”
Is it better to study out loud or silently? ›
He and his collaborators have shown that people consistently remember words and texts better if they read them aloud than if they read them silently. This memory-boosting effect of reading aloud is particularly strong in children, but it works for older people, too. “It's beneficial throughout the age range,” he says.
How can I focus 100% on studying? ›- 1. Make a plan. ...
- Create a relaxed study environment. ...
- Take regular breaks. ...
- Don't get distracted by social media. ...
- Drink plenty of water and eat well. ...
- Reward yourself. ...
- Don't do all-nighters, you will regret it!
- Try to understand the information first. Information that is organized and makes sense to you is easier to memorize. ...
- Link it. ...
- Sleep on it. ...
- Self-test. ...
- Use distributed practice. ...
- Write it out. ...
- Create meaningful groups. ...
- Use mnemonics.
- Set a deadline. This will help you manage your time and get things done on time.
- Do one thing at a time. ...
- Study during short periods of focused time. ...
- Set small, achievable, and realistic goals. ...
- Break up larger projects. ...
- Use lists. ...
- Take breaks. ...
- Reward yourself.
- Eliminate distractions. ...
- Reduce multitasking. ...
- Practice mindfulness and meditation. ...
- Get more sleep. ...
- Choose to focus on the moment. ...
- Take a short break. ...
- Connect with nature. ...
- Train your brain.
- Keep moving. ...
- Let there be light. ...
- Sit upright. ...
- Avoid your bedroom. ...
- Hydrate, hydrate, hydrate. ...
- Don't forget to eat (healthy) ...
- Make studying active. ...
- Study with friends.
- Recall your purpose. Reminding yourself of why you're studying can be an excellent way to restore your motivation. ...
- Take the first step. ...
- Break tasks into manageable chunks. ...
- Keep to a study schedule. ...
- Join a study group. ...
- Create a study space.
- Find a Place to Study Regularly. Consistency is key when it comes to studying, so do your best to make a habit of it! ...
- Keep Track of Deadlines and Important Dates. ...
- Don't Cram for Your Exam. ...
- Organize a Study Group. ...
- Review Your Notes After Class. ...
- Ask for Help.
Very often the study habits and practices developed and used in high school do not work for students in college. Good study habits include many different skills: time management, self- discipline, concentration, memorization, organization, and effort. Desire to succeed is important, too.
What makes a successful student? ›Successful students take advantage of extra credit opportunities when offered. They demonstrate that they care about their grades and are willing to work to improve them. They often do the optional (and frequently challenging) assignments that many students avoid. Successful students are attentive in class.
How can I learn and never forget? ›
- Aim for mastery, not relative performance. ...
- Eliminate multiple choice questions. ...
- Use contextual clues. ...
- Work digitally and save often. ...
- Quiz instead of review to enhance memory for lists. ...
- To prevent forgetting, ask “why.”
- Be physically active every day. Physical activity raises blood flow to the whole body, including the brain. ...
- Stay mentally active. ...
- Spend time with others. ...
- Stay organized. ...
- Sleep well. ...
- Eat a healthy diet. ...
- Manage chronic health problems.
Study skills such as starting early, paraphrasing, taking notes, and active learning can help students avoid last-minute cram-a-thons and hopefully help them remember what they studied for longer than one week.
How do you study when you don't feel like it? ›- 1.Be your own master, chart your own path– ...
- 2.Break the material into pieces- ...
- 3.Make a schedule taking all things into account. ( ...
- 4.Close your ears to the surrounding chatter. ...
- 5.All will be fine in the end-
Answer: Using caffeine, either in a drink or in an over-the-counter preparation, is not recommended by medical experts as a treatment for ADHD. Although some studies have shown that caffeine may improve concentration in adults with ADHD, it is not as effective as medication.
What subjects are people with ADHD better at? ›The students with ADHD also performed better in certain subject areas than those without ADHD. These included the arts, creative writing, science discovery, and architecture. (Their achievement was self-reported.)