New research on studying: what works, and what doesn't

If you're serious about studying, you need to read this new TIME magazine article Highlighting Is a Waste of Time: The Best and Worst Learning Techniques

Here's an excerpt:

"In contrast to familiar practices like highlighting and rereading, the learning strategies with the most evidence to support them aren’t well known outside the psych lab. Take distributed practice, for example. This tactic involves spreading out your study sessions, rather than engaging in one marathon. Cramming information at the last minute may allow you to get through that test or meeting, but the material will quickly disappear from memory. It’s much more effective to dip into the material at intervals over time. And the longer you want to remember the information, whether it’s two weeks or two years, the longer the intervals should be.

The second learning strategy that is highly recommended by the report’s authors is practice testing. Yes, more tests — but these are not for a grade. Research shows that the mere act of calling information to mind strengthens that knowledge and aids in future retrieval. While practice testing is not a common strategy — despite the robust evidence supporting it — there is one familiar approach that captures its benefits: using flash cards. And now flash cards can be presented in digital form, via apps like Quizlet, StudyBlue and FlashCardMachine. Both spaced-out learning, or distributed practice, and practice tests were rated as having “high utility” by the authors."

The freezer method

Passing along something to try when you've got a deadline, especially for writing.

First, mentally move your work deadline back 48 hours. Complete the final draft and "put it in the freezer" by putting it aside completely.

Then, 24 hours later (note that this should also be 24 hours before you'd normally be completing it) sit down with it again and read it as if seeing it for the first time. Missing words that your spell check program didn't catch? Punctuation? Proper formatting? And so on.

All good?

There really ARE apps for all that!

First, a top five list - notable for a different flashcard application (I still like Quizlet a lot), another graphing calculator to try, and Evernote which I actually like and use. I'm planning to try the project app soon. Here's the link.

Next, here's a list from Lifehacker for the Mac Student

Continuing our Apple/Mac theme, here are 8 more.

And this' year's updates list from AppStorm here.

Know what doesn't work very well? Those big paper calendars that lie flat on your desk. Seems like it would be handy to write on, easy to see for reminders, etc. The reality? That's where I put stuff down or spread my work out on the desk, covering it up.

College continued

While this is not easy stuff it is pretty straightforward information to learn, and the classroom lectures have enough discussion to make it interesting. I'm enjoying studying about US government in an election year, and who knew microeconomics could explain so much?

Here's some advice:  do NOT skip the reading. Don't even think about it! On this kind of schedule there's no room for slacking off, because the very next day you'd be lost.

Do yourself a favor

What I wish...

Is that someone had shown us the Common Application form back in 8th grade or so, but definitely no later than the first two weeks of high school. If we had known then what we'd be faced with filling out 3 years later, a lot more of what we kept hearing about from our parents, teachers and counselors would have made more sense.

These big blank sections really get your attention: Academics. Honors. Extracurricular Activities and Work Experience.

If you are a parent reading this, it's never too early to show your child the Common App. Think of it as a reality check - what's on this form will determine how they will be viewed, evaluated and ultimately either accepted or rejected by a college, maybe their perfect college.

Think of it as the finish line, and show it to your kid before the race gets started.

It's just a little circle

This is a small, tiny thing. Just a circle that you draw on the top right corner of a piece of paper that your teacher hands out in class. It can be a circle about the size of a dime, or a nickel, that's all.

What the circle means, when it's empty, is that whatever is on that page will be due sometime, one day soon. It also means that you need to fill in that deadline or due date. So the empty circle sits there as a reminder that you need to write in the due date, and then you need to do the assignment, and after that you need to turn it in.

We get a blizzard of paper every day, all day. Pages and pages. My AP Psych teacher says we get so many in that class because our textbook is so out of date that she has to add all the rest of the information we need by passing out all these papers. She also tries to save paper by putting different stuff on the back side of a lot of the papers, so it's easy to miss that an assignment is on the back that has nothing to do with what's on the front.

The problem is that some of all these papers are just for you to read, and some of them are for you to actually do something with. What makes it even worse is that some of the papers LOOK like they are assignments, but the teacher says they aren't, and some other papers look like things to just read but the teacher assigns something you're supposed to do with what you read.

So your best friend is that circle. And it works best if you can try to make a habit of asking right when you get the paper:  is this read only, or  when is it due?

Better to be the one who asks all those questions than get a zero.

Laptop desks

I am experimenting these days with a wacky aluminum laptop desk, and I'm not sure yet what I think about it. It is endlessly configurable, and by that I mean it has way too many pictures of how to take it apart and put it back together again in a completely different shape. I'm not sure I WANT to lay on my side in bed and have it suspended over me, but if I did I could with this thing. When I'm on the couch it can float in air in front of me, which is great once it stops its final tiny movements and gets perfectly still, at which point it's great while I use a wireless keyboard and mouse. You can check it out here but just so you know, I got it for $89 which was a lot, but it's actually made a huge difference on long study nights when I'm living on planet Khan Academy.

I'm also trying a desk on legs which sits on the couch to either side, and this one has a fan motor and side tables. See this one here.

Neither is exactly what I thought it would be, but at least I worry less about the effects of the computer slump on my posture. I think I may be two inches taller.