Learning Styles

This week’s subject, learning styles, is a valuable tool in your arsenal. Learning styles are, well, the techniques you use to maximize your learning possibility. Knowing your learning style will allow you to study more efficiently and retain more information by reaching the optimal level of concentration.

First of all, why should we care to know? It all begins with your concentration (which is as unbreakable as an eggshell, right?). A psychologist named Anne Bradley described concentration to consist of 3 levels:

1. Light Concentration(LC): This first stage of concentration is easily broken by any and all kinds of distractions. This is the concentration we walk around with from day to day, and often use when we multi-task.


2. Moderate Concentration(MC): This second stage of concentration is a little more durable than LC, but can still be broken by small distractions such as checking to see how many pages you have left, someone talking to you, etc.


3. Deep Concentration(DC): This is the level where we all want to be. In deep concentration, you are focused on nothing but the material at hand. Concentration is not easily broken here, and is also the level where we retain the most information.

Ideally, the first two stages are “warmups” and should only take about 10 minutes to complete before we go into DC. The ideal 1-hr period should look like:
5mins - LC
5mins- MC
40mins- DC
10min - Break
That almost never happens. Instead, our one hour period is plagued with interruptions, and every time you have an interruption, the cycle starts over and you begin at the LC stage again.
An obvious solution to this problem is to eliminate all outside distractions, or things you know will distract you. Study in a quiet room, or in the library. This is your personal preference, so do whatever works for you. For instance, to eliminate my distractions, I wear headphones and listen to music I am familiar with. That way, I’m not concentrating on the music and I can’t hear anything that is going on around me.

Now that you are filled in, we can get to business.

The main benefit of knowing your learning style is knowing the best and quickest way your mind becomes interested, in order to get to DC. There are several models created by psychologist and educators that aim to give a label to the styles. They may be called different things, but they basically mean the same. The first style is Auditory, which means you learn by listening. Visual learners learn by seeing things, and Kinesthetic learners learn by doing things (hands on work). Most people have traits from all three styles, which require a mixture of techniques.

I am sorry to say, I will not include how to determine your particular style in this article. I will however refer you to sources in which you can. These test, based on several models such as the Kolb’s Learning Style Inventory, Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, and the 4MAT system, are very detailed quizzes. You can find formal versions of these quizzes at your college learning or testing center, often for free or cheap. Websites such as www.learning-styles-online.com/inventory/ offer free inventory test to give you a ballpark idea of how you learn. Sites like these also go into detail as to what your results mean to you.

Now that you have a roundabout idea of what works for you, its time to start implementing it! “Well how to I do that?!” Calm down baby birdies, I’ll feed you! Depending on what you “are” (visual, auditory, kinesthetic), different techniques shall be used:
Visual

• Use highlighters to mark important points


• Use computers,videos, and filmstrips.


• visualize information as a picture

Auditory

• Make speeches and presentations


• Read text aloud


• Use mnemonics

Kinesthetic

• Take frequent study breaks


• Chew gum while you study


• Work in a standing position

These are just a few of the many things you can do (more can be found at http://www.ldpride.net/learning_style_work.html ,to which I credit these tips). As an added bonus, having a good knowledge of learning styles in general will help you adapt better to a professor’s teaching style. Teaching styles are much like learning styles, you have auditory (primarily lecture), visual (lot of board-work and examples), and tactile (hands on like a chemistry lab). Knowing your professor’s teaching style will allow you to know how to combat the onslaught of knowledge they attempt (key word, attempt) to pour into that vast wasteland of abstract potential that we call a brain. Teaching styles may seem a little confusing, but do not fret, it is on the list of topics to be covered by this series of articles in the future. For now, just worry about making the most of your study time.

In short, knowing your learning style can help you reach your optimal concentration point, which helps you retain as much information as possible!

The “next week’s topic” will from now on be announced on Twitter (@studyingsmart if you haven’t followed yet). This is not a desperate attempt to get people to tweet, this is simply for the exposure that the blog desperately needs.

Be sure to follow us on Twitter (@studyingsmart ) and subscribe to the blog on Blogspot (www.studygeeks.blogspot.com), which is where the blog is originally posted then ported over to Facebook. Happy Studying! (and happy Fall semester for many of you!)

Freshmen Survival Guide

This week’s blog is rather short, but does contain some helpful information regarding improvement of your academic career in college. These years are the starting point of the rest of your life, so be conscience of the choices you. Freshmen year is a kicker for all of us, but these are just some things that I would like to share. This is BY NO MEANS a complete list.

Make use of tutoring resources: Having trouble in a class? Most colleges have after-hour tutoring sessions, occupied by graduate students. If you have questions or just need general help, this would be the perfect place to do that. Tutors assume that you have put much of your own time into trying to resolve the question yourself. If you expect them to re-teach the material to you, you are very much mistaken. To make full use of these services, make sure you know when and where tutoring sessions are held in every one of your classes (even if you think you don’t need help) so you can have some work done before then and be able to ask the questions that will benefit you the most. Also, if you usually have trouble in a subject, most tutors do not mind if you just sit in the room and do homework. That way, if you experience difficulty, you can ask immediately. (As an added bonus, if professors see that you are putting in the extra effort, they are more likely to round-up your final grade)

Visit Your Professor: Professors will declare office hours at the beginning of the semester. They do this for the SOLE PURPOSE of helping students. Be sure to visit them a few times throughout the semester, and be sure to bring questions. The more they recognize your face, the more benefit you will receive from doing so. Be sure to do this for professors that work in the department of your major because they will be the ones you can write you letters of recommendations, and give you first dibs on research opportunities.

”Non-Greek” Greek: These are known as service, academic, and professional greek organizations. Service fraternities give back to their surrounding community and do not select their members based on gender, race, major, or religion. The largest service fraternity is Alpha Phi Omega, which based their values from the Boy Scouts of America. Academic/Honor fraternities are very selective on their members. They choose their members based on superior academic standing. Some groups extend their membership to all majors, but most are major-restricted. Lastly, Professional Greek organizations promote a particular field of study. Although entrance is exclusive, you gain the opportunity to obtain important and crucial connections that will help you when you graduate, possibly even procure an internship or two in the process. These options are all provide excellent opportunities. Also, this is true for all three, their pledging processes are not nearly as demanding as a social greek club. Many social greeks require you give a lot of your personal time to pledging and to the organization in general, cutting into your precious studying time. You are in college to learn, let’s keep it like that.

Make use of your school library: Most freshmen do not realize they have a library in their colligate arsenal. The university I attended for my first two years of college (Auburn University) had one of the largest in the nation, so I was more or less forced to recognize its existence. After a few months, I began to realize more and more its value to me. One such thing I realized was that it made for a great place to study. You would often find people in your very class studying the same material. Another valuable tip (and one I learned a little too late) is if you do not understand the way your textbook presents an idea, go find another! Different authors often portray concepts in different ways.

Buy Your Books At The Last Minute: This seems like a contradiction to everything I just said. “How am I supposed to study without a book?!”, you say? Professors often suggest unnecessary items that often never get used, which cost you precious money. Of course, if you think you will need a book to study for the class then go ahead and buy it. Even if your physics class does not use the book, it may be a good idea to go ahead and buy it. Which brings me to my next point (and one I’m sorry to say, didn’t learn soon enough).

BUY YOUR BOOKS ONLINE!!!: Compare prices for yourself. Check sites such as Amazon, Ebay, and Barnes & Nobel and compare prices against your campus bookstore (be sure to include shipping price). I learned this a lot later than I would have liked to. I bought my books for the semester (3 books, after I found out what I needed) online and saved almost $150. Do I really need to say anymore?

There are PLENTY of lessons to be learned in college: How to make new friends, How to deal with that annoying roommate, etc, etc. These are just a few lessons that could come in handy, which I think would be very helpful. Keep up your good habits, and before you know it, you’ll be walking the aisle with a college degree and a 4.0!

Speed Reading

Speed Reading is, you guessed it, reading at abnormally fast speeds. The world’s fastest speed reader, Howard Stephen Berg, reads at an estimated 25,000 words per minute. No that is not a typo, there are in fact 3 zeroes in that number. If that wasn’t humiliating to us normal folk enough, he has demonstrated 100% comprehension live on several television shows (Good Morning America, Regis and Kathie Lee, etc..), taking extensive test written by the authors themselves. With this speed, the entire Harry Potter series can be read in a little under 45 minutes. Seems unreal doesn’t it?

So what exactly is Speed Reading? Think back to pre-school/kindergarden, if you will. You first started reading by recognizing the sounds that the various letters represent. Next, you pronounced those sounds in succession according to the order of the letters. Once we are familiar with numerous words, we can pick up the pace and read words at a time. Now, here is where we begin. The next step is to read sentences at a time, and then paragraphs at a time. Don’t worry, it is possible, just not using the techniques and habits you have formed over the years. Speed reading programs aim to increase your reading speed by breaking you of these habits.

I do not expect anyone to be able to read 25,000 wpm, I merely pointed out the story of Mr. Berg to give an example of what is possible. For our purposes, we are aiming for somewhere around the 500-600 wpm range, far below a world record but enough to allow you to become a more efficient student. Your reading pace is more or less governed by what type of material you are reading. For example, an engaging novel can be read with a speed of 600 wpm, whilst a Biology textbook can be read by the same person at around 350 wpm (These numbers are just examples). The connection between how much of the information needs to be comprehended, and the speed read becomes apparent. In short, the faster you read, the less you comprehend. This can be avoided by slowly building up your skill. Think of speed reading as learning to ride a motorcycle. When you first ride, you dare not to go 120 mph, but rather you start at a low speed and as you become more experienced, you increase your speed and comfort level.

Now to the nitty gritty.

To begin, you need a few tools: a pointer tool (finger, pen), timer, paper, and a quite room.
1. First of all, figure out your current reading speed. There are several websites that will test your reading speed and comprehension, but the easiest way is to pick a solid passage of text from any sort of material and read it. Time yourself, then count how many words were in the text. Here is your general equation for finding out your reading speed:
(Number of Words read ÷ Number of Seconds) * 60

2. Practice Scanning. The method of scanning includes skipping unnecessary words such as ‘a’,‘the’, & ‘and’. So if you read a block of text that read, “The man walked into the store and bought some milk. He then walked to the front to pay for the milk”, you would read it as, “Man walked into store bought milk. Walked front pay for milk.” Of course there isn’t an exact list of words you should avoid, the point of this is to train your brain to piece together the story on its own, allowing your eyes to obtain information faster.

3. This step is one of the most important. When we are young, we are taught to pronounce our words aloud. As an adult, we rarely experience an occasion where we need to pronounce our words while reading to ourselves. When your take in text information with your eyes, the information travels to your larynx, where it is voiced and then sent to your brain. Eliminating the link between your eyes and larynx in your reading process will easily double your speed. The “speaking with your eyes” method is known as subvocalization. So how would you go about this, you say? Well it’s easy, just keep your mouth shut! Just focus on not speaking while you read. Start slow at first, then once your get more and more conformable with the idea, speed up a little.

4. These next steps are meant to be less about training your eyes, and more about keeping your focus during reading. They are also extraordinarily simple. The first is called the “Pointer Method”, developed by Evelyn Wood. Can you guess what this method entails? Being the geniuses you all are (if you’ve read any of my other articles, this statement leans more towards truth than sarcasm), you would have guessed that you would need something to point with. Your index finger is perfectly suited for the job, however if you were taught pointing your finger was rude, a pen will work just as well. Just follow the words with your pointer while you read. This will keep you focused on the sentence you are reading.

5. “Regression” is the habit of re-reading material you have already read, usually by skipping a sentence or two backwards in an attempt to re-learn information. If you need to do this, you are either 1) reading two fast, or 2) not paying attention. Obviously, this would decrease your reading speed tremendously. This is a simple fix. Take a sheet of notebook paper (I personally use my bookmark) and cover the text already read, leaving the current visible. This usually covers the previous two lines, making it impossible to re-read previous text. Sooner or later, you will break yourself of the “re-reading” habit and will be able to use the pointer method more effectively.

As with anything, practice makes perfect. This is not an overnight process, and is something that you CAN forget, if not used often. However if you being the ideal college student, studying every night and in-between classes, you should not have a problem keeping this skill at tip-top shape! There are claims that if you practice everyday, taking a break every 30 minutes, you can increase your reading speed by 3 times as much in 3 weeks.

In short, learning to read past the ‘word-by-word’ stage will help you read faster. Although your comprehension rate will suffer a bit, learning the process slowly and at a comfortable pace will help to reduce the amount sacrificed. Breaking the habits of regression, and implementing new habits such as Subvocalization and Scanning, will dramatically increase the rate in which you read. Lastly, PRACTICE PRACTICE PRACTICE!!!

Next week will be a busy week for me, so the next Studying blog will be posted in two weeks. Of course if it gets done earlier, it will be up ASAP. I will also be posting a questionnaire note, asking things such as how helpful the blogs are and what direction the readers would like the topics to go in. These will most likely be email responses, and thank you in advance for answering. Happy Studying!

Spaced Repetition Learning

Last week, we covered the topic of the Ebbinghaus Forgetting Curve. Can you recall the equation? If you reviewed the article within 15 minutes of reading it you can! For those of you who can’t however, I will gladly provide you with it: “The equation used to govern the forgetting curve is R = e ^ (-t / S ), where R is retention, t is time, and S is the relative strength of memory.” “S” here is the relative strength of memory, which is affected by a number of factors. I mentioned last week that one of these methods, called “Spaced Repetition”, is one of those factors. Over the years, the practice of Spaced Repetition has become a science in itself. This method will allow you to take in and retain mass amounts of information very fast, maybe even Flash fast.

Lets begin by giving a brief overview of what Spaced Repetition is. In short, it’s a glorified flash card system that makes use of the stimulation of the brain over given intervals. What does this mean exactly? Say for example that you have a deck of Japanese Kanji that you would like to learn. Over the course of two weeks, you study the deck over and over. At the end those two weeks, you feel fairly confident that you know those Kanji fairly well. Now, you take that deck and lock it in a safe for an entire year. At the end of that year, you pull the cards out and try to recall them, finding it extraordinarily difficult to do so. Now it seems like the two weeks you studied seem like a complete waste of time. With the Spaced Repetition System (SRS), It would be possible to remember those Kanji in a year or two without reviewing them.

Here is how it works: (example taken from Wikipedia) Say you have a deck of cards you have made for Art History. One side has the painting, and the other has the Artist, Date, etc. Now go through that deck and sort out the ones you got right and wrong into two piles. The “right” pile goes to Group 3. Sort through the “wrong” pile, and divide them into “Completely Wrong” and “Got it right, but difficult” piles, which will be know as Group 1 and Group 2, accordingly. Now you review Group 1 cards every day, Group 2 cards every 2 days, and Group 3 cards every 3 days. Kinda get the picture? Good because now we will add more to the equation.

Say you now wanted to add more to the stack, well then go ahead and do that! However, be certain to keep track of what cards are in Groups 1,2,and 3. Now, it seems to be common sense that when you get upwards of 100 to 1,000 cards, studying them every 3 days seems to be a use of a great deal of your time. Lucky for us, scientist and psychologist have developed VERY complex algorithms (did I put enough emphasis on “Very?”) to learn how to adequately time each set of cards and when you need to review them. Of course, I do not expect you to be able to know how to preform these calculations, and neither did the makers of Anki. This nifty little program keeps up with all of that for you. The good thing about most of these programs are that they are offered for free. You will find that they all use slightly different algorithms, but the concept is the same.

It would also be great to mention at this point that this is not magic. As always, you get just as much out of it as you put in it. In other words, a little bit every day goes a very long way. The net result of this program is that over the given period of time, you would have learned a spectacular amount more with less effort than if you would have just sat down and tried to learn them without any gameplan, so to speak.

In conclusion, the SRS program stimulates your memory at specified intervals to keep you from forgetting material, being able to manage what you already know, and having the ability to easily add more if you wish to. Please check out the applications for the most efficient way to do so.

Here are the links mentioned in the article:
Anki - http://ichi2.net/anki/ (which I might add, has a WebApp for Iphone/Ipod Touch users)
SuperMemo - www.supermemo.com

And for you nerds out there who would like to see the math involved in this:
http://www.supermemo.com/articles/theory.htm

Next time, I’ll give a brief overview of the art known as “Speed Reading”. This happens to be a subject I know a lot about, so be prepared for an awesome article.

Be sure to refer all of your friends to these articles/fanpage. If enough people are interested, I’ll turn this into a full-blog and spread the joy over to Twitter. If you have any questions/concerns/suggestions, feel free to write on the fan-wall or post in the discussion area.

Hope you have a great week! Happy Studying!

The Ebbinghaus Forgetting Curve

In 1885, a study called “Über das Gedächtnis” was published by a German psychologist by the name of Hermann Ebbinghaus. In this study, Ebbinghaus studied his own memory by memorizing ridiculous syllables. In his attempt to understand how memory worked, he realized that the rate to which humans forgot information was by an exponential function.

For nerds: The equation used to govern the forgetting curve is R = e ^ (-t / S ), where R is retention, t is time, and S is the relative strength of memory.

For non-nerds: Check out the graph.

In either case, one can observe the graph to be decreasing. What does this mean exactly? It means that a timer is started once you acquire a new piece of information. As time passes, you can recall only a certain percentage of the material in question. Common sense right?

Ok, lets put this theory to more practical terms. You are sitting in class (make it a class of your choice if you will, mine would be Physics), and your professor announces you have an exam in 3 weeks. Now you are thinking to yourself, “Ok, I have plenty of time to study!” Fast forward to the night before the test, if you will. Now you are starting to study, pulling the dreaded all night-er. Keep in mind, that once you re-study the material, the curve starts over, giving you only a 70-75% recollection of the material. This number may also be effected by sleep deprivation and if you happened to skip breakfast. If you did no studying whatsoever, you would have a 14-15% recollection of the material.

Imagine an alternate situation if you will. You are sitting in class, with the same announcement and the same amount of time until the test. Once your hour-long lecture is over, you force your brain to recall the information you just learned. Doing this within 15 minutes of the lecture will alter the S variable in our Ebbinghaus function, altering the curve. Three weeks later, with no studying at all, this gives you a 30% recollection, which is already double that of not studying at all . Now just imagine how much you could recall with studying! Not only will this increase your recollection of the material, it will also help you be more confident, which reduces stress level and helps you concentrate more. All of this because of a bit of studying you did after class.

In short, reviewing your lecture notes within 15 minutes of the end of class can increase your recollection of the material by altering your Ebbinghaus curve.

What other ways can you alter YOUR “S” value? One of these techniques is called “Spaced Repetition”, which will be reviewed later this week and posted at the beginning of next week. Happy Studying!

Finally on Blogspot!

For everyone directed from the Facebook fansite, glad to have you back! If you are new to the blog, then welcome! Please read the articles and subscribe to the blogs!

Over the next few weeks, Studying! will slowly be integrated into Blogspot, as to make it more available to users across multiple mediums (Digg, Twitter, Youtube, etc).

The Facebook fanpage will still be the primary source of the articles, so if you are following from Blogspot, please bear with me. Things should be up and running smoothly in short time.