Education is constantly evolving. Even our parents would experience severe culture shock if they went to University today. Classroom equipment, as well as teaching methods and learning styles, have changed significantly in the past decade, without mentioning the impact of the recent pandemic on various industries, including Education and the whole world as a whole. Of course, a lot of these changes were generally beneficial and have provided society with hybrid learning, accessibility and inclusivity, growth of unconventional skills, and innovative study solutions. On the other hand however, more teachers and students started to experience previously unknown academic challenges and issues along the way.
One of them is confusion about studying in general. It’s not productive or effective to read all the articles and academic literature in order to prepare for exams anymore. And that is why, there is a huge demand for introducing latest study skills and tricks to the students, in order to help their adaptation to the modern implementations in the Education industry.
Your study schedule.
The biggest lies we say to ourselves is that we are going to do something once we are in a good mood, it’s not raining outside, it’s Monday. In reality, we have enough time to like photos on Instagram, scroll down on our Reddit feeds or watch an ad to get some coins in a game. That’s all right, we’ve all been there.
While it’s okay to procrastinate, it just doesn’t necessarily help us be at the top of a class. To be more efficient with our time and more productive in general, we can make a weekly schedule, and use it to prioritise what needs to be done. There is no need in any fancy software or a mobile app to begin with. You can use Microsoft Excel or Word to track the tasks at hand and make a table for your schedule. I personally prefer to use both, Excel — to monitor my progress, and Word — for a timetable and a list of deadlines.
Once you’ve decided on your main weekly priorities, write them down and brainstorm all the necessary actions you need to take in order to complete them. Fill the table with both deadlines and steps to meet them, but use a different colour to differentiate between the two. When making a schedule, it’s important to remember to leave some space for ‘rest’. Chances that you would like to repeat a day where you weren’t even able to pee freely are pretty low. Make your schedule realistic and easy to follow, otherwise, your motivation will drop drastically a day or two after.
Your study space.
What is the main difference between watching a YouTube interview and listening to an online lecture? That’s right, it’s comfort. Our brains associate YouTube with something pleasurable and release dopamine, a ‘happy hormone’. It makes us feel more relaxed and happy when we do something enjoyable, like snuggling up on a sofa or cuddle up with a favourite pet. This doesn’t only have to happen then, however, as we can trick our brains by creating a pleasant atmosphere around studying too!
There are no certain rules about how to do it right or wrong. It’s all about what works better for you and what completely doesn’t. While some prefer to listen to white noise when studying, others enjoy listening to their favourite music instead, and so can you! Try to experiment and see what significantly improves your mood and your study space. Maybe, natural light or a poster with an inspirational quote right above a computer will do the trick, or maybe you simply need to declutter your desk and keep a phone away for a moment.
Certain distractions are easy to avoid, and we’ve talked about them a lot in our previous articles. Proofreadinly’s recent discovery, however, is ‘Focus Lock’ — an app that temporarily removes all of your distracting apps, while tracking your work sessions for free. If there are any other alternative resources that help you remain focused, please share them with us. We are very interested in getting to know more about different study approaches that are unique, modern and easily accessible.
Your study style.
Forget about passive learning. You should concentrate on being actively involved in every bit of your studies instead. If you are unfamiliar with the term, active learning is when you perform meaningful activities and become a centre of the learning process, rather than doing passive reading and note taking without grasping a topic completely. There are various strategies to try out, and we will only mention a few, that can be easily implemented into your daily routine and schedule.
. Summarise it
Summarising is an important skill for not only academic writing, but also reading and time management in general. Imagine yourself preparing for an upcoming exam with a few pages of notes to look through, rather than a pile of study literature and online lectures to review. Summarising enables you to extract most important points and key ideas, and rewrite them in a shortened form for your further convenience. It usually also helps students to fully understand the main details of a subject or a topic, which is an important part of succeeding in studies these days.
. Relate it
Scholars insist on finding relevance with any complex ideas we are trying to learn. Relevance is a fundamental principle for both teachers and students, because it is directly linked to students’ engagement and motivation. When we can find a connection between a concept and our past experiences, our brains perceive this information as something interesting and worth knowing. We tend to study it quicker and remember it easier, when needed.
. Teach it
You’ve come across this point many times in life. Remember how your friend effortlessly explained some core ideas of a lesson to you, which came in handy when writing an exam a while after? Being able to freely explain an objective to somebody means that you have subconsciously mastered the topic, or in other words — fully understood it. So when preparing for a class or a test next time, make sure you can talk with anybody about it freely.