Study Skills!

This week, I watched three videos which contain heaps of advice about consuming information from different sources and processing it into knowledge. I learned something new and reflected on my previous mistakes in order to set myself up for success!

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The first video that I have watched is called ‘‘The THREE BEST science-based study tips’’. In this video, we are greeted by Mike, a doctor and co founder of ‘RemNote’, a note taking tool which helps one with their studies. 
Mike states that the three best ways to study, according to books ‘Make it stick’ (by Peter C. Brown, Henry L. Roediger III and Mark A. McDaniel) and ‘How to become a straight A student’ (by Cal Newport) are:
1.     Quizzing
2.     Spacing
3.     Mixing

Quizzing, as Mike states, is the most challenging yet productive way to study, as you are using cognitive effort and putting yourself up for a challenge. By using this method, you should try and avoid looking at the answers to your questions. Instead, you should think of the answers yourself, as it makes you think more effectively, making multiple parts of your brain collaborate and work together.
I find this method to be the most efficient for my personal studies. Even if I’m getting my answers wrong throughout my study period, it puts my brain into action and I literally learn from my mistakes.
 
Spacing out a study schedule is important, since cramming your studies only makes it easier to forget the information that you’ve recently gained. Hermann Ebbinghaus, a German psychologist, published multiple papers on the topic of memory, and his ‘Forgetting Curve’ informs us that after 24 hours of gaining specific knowledge, you will end up not recalling half of it.
So, this puts us to the question, when is the best time to start studying? Well, it is actually right before you’re about to forget the information, as Mike claims that ‘‘more effort equals more retention’’.
 
Interleaving or mixing your subjects allows your brain to understand connections between different ideas rather than relying on rote memorisation. 
I’m familiar with this technique, and I personally found it very helpful for my own studies, it made me feel more productive as I would get significantly larger amounts of work finished whenever I would switch from one subject to another.
 
Overall, this video helped me understand these self explanatory study techniques in more detail, making me realise which may be more effective and helpful.

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The second video that I had watched is called ‘‘Five Active Reading Strategies for Textbook Assignments’’. Thomas shares simple yet effective ways of acquiring information from textbooks, such as:
1.     Pseudo-skimming
2.     Reading backwards
3.     Coming up with questions throughout your reading
4.     Paying attention to formatting
5.     Marking/taking notes while reading
 
I find these methods exceedingly useful for my future readings, since my mistake in secondary school was blankly reading textbooks in hopes that the information sticks to me. After watching these videos and finding out about these techniques, I am eager to try them out and use them for my studies.

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The third video that I have watched is called ‘‘Creating critical thinkers through media literacy’’, in which Andrea Quijada speaks about her fascination of the things she wasn’t told, she learned new things through dedicating her own time and effort.
She states that she wants the current generation to be able to deconstruct media and apply any sort of information from all kinds of sources into our everyday lives, instead of blankly consuming information with the thought that it’s contents may not be something we will recall for use in the future.
I’m personally unfamiliar with media literacy, however the video was interesting nonetheless since I tried to acquire and understand the given information in my own way.



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