Study Smart Part II: Work smart!

Hi Friends, this is part II of the Study Smart post!

Last post I mentioned a Time Ideas article about exam preparation that identified Spaced-repetition and Practice testing as the two best tactics around. Why? They are both active strategies. Not simply  reviewing material, but actually practicing recall. Research has found that actively recalling information is one critical component in memorization.

The problem is it can be difficult to know how to implement a new method. Open University students tend to have jobs, families and commitments alongside their studies and so time is usually already stretched as it is. “Spaced repetition and practice testing” sound good, but how to quickly put it into practice? Not immediately obvious.

Highlighting and scribbling in margins isn’t effective, but it is quick and easy and that is one reason they are such common habits (Admittedly this technique will work for some people, but many people use it whether it works or not).

One thing I wanted for years was to be able to communicate in another language. I never got on well with languages at school (Memorizing tables of grammar rules, woohoo). Then I saw an article on Lifehacker about language learning, written by a person who had used spaced repetition and practice testing to learn 4 languages in just a few years. You can read that post here. The author used a free flashcard program called Anki to do it. Sure enough, Anki is perfect for any subject of study.

So The Anki flashcard program is free to download and use, and is available for Windows, Mac, Linux and anything with a web browser. Anki also has excellent documents on its site about how to get started, and there are dozens of how-to videos like this one.

You build decks of cards, and each card has a front and back. Question on one side and  answer in the other. Each card can go forward, reverse or both directions. Just add your notes and Anki will generate your cards to form the deck, and each deck can be as few or many cards as you need.

The beauty of it lies in the algorithm it uses for spaced-repetition. Each day it provides cards to revise, spacing out the introduction of new information bit by bit (Example: 20 new cards per day). When practicing with your deck, each card you practice will repeat based on how difficult you found it (Again, Good or Easy). Cards you want to see again will reappear sooner and more frequently, with cards you find easy coming up less often.

If you find just text dull, you can attach both images AND audio, you can engage multiple methods simultaneously (For example: Hearing the answer while you read it). By creating decks for each module or course you can practice-test your facts, definitions, figures, graphs and diagrams a few minutes a day. By adding this habit to your study strategy you will likely see excellent progress.

Make it a habit by setting yourself a 10 minute goal! 10 minutes per day, consistently. 10 minutes might not sound like much, but that adds up to over an hour of *testing* your memory in an active and engaged way every single week. Build that into a habit during a course and it adds up to less stress, less cramming and very likely better results with less time.

For more incentive, look at the Wikipedia page for Roger Craig, the highest earning winner of all-time on Jeopardy! Roger used Anki to prepare for the show, and later went on to win the Jeopardy! Tournament of Champions. So give it a try! There is nothing to lose (And it could even make you a pub quiz guru!).

Study Smart Part I : How do you work?

Hi Friends, For those of us studying at The Open University, exam season can be a particularly hard knock. The OU allows people who might not have studied for a long time to learn new subjects and develop new skills from wherever you are, and regardless of your background. A few students I’ve chatted to hadn’t studied since GCSE’s or A-levels, and for some it had been years or decades since their last day of doom exams.

Thankfully, most courses early-on are exam free, but if you stick with it long enough eventually you reach a day of reckoning. When you then find an exam on your calendar, hurtling ever closer, it is nerve-wracking. I don’t need to go into the stress exams can cause. I have recent previous study and have done exams within the last few years, but even with that to back me up I still found taking my first exam in a new subject difficult. It is OK to be nervous!

There’s obviously lots to help with the nerves, but one thing that is almost certain to help is:

Feeling confident in your knowledge of the material

If I know a topic backwards forwards and inside out and upside down, then I go in knowing that at least the ground beneath me is solid, even if my stomach is not. And if it doesn’t help? Well it certainly won’t hurt!

How do you get this mythical “confidence in your knowledge”? Well I came across an article from ideas.time.com awhile ago about techniques “Highlighting is a waste of time” and it got me thinking about that. Do we do things because they work or because they are just habitual?

• What I found: All my usual tactics (Highlighting and underlining until the pages are illegible) were counted in the WORST column. No gold star there.

• However: The two techniques listed as proven BEST were two I have been using to learn another language, and I just hadn’t considered that the same could be applied to exams.

Spaced Repetition and Practice Testing

So what does spaced repetition and practice testing mean? The author of the Time article suggests the use of a flashcard app, and that is absolutely correct. I’ve been using a great free tool for almost a year now which works wonders, and it’s called:

Anki.

Anki is a free, easy to use flashcard program that is available for *every* platform. Anki allows you to create your own memory cards, share decks you create, and search for shared decks. It uses an algorithm to space repetition of your cards, meaning you learn each piece of information at intervals to ensure you actually LEARN it.

There will be a Part II to this post coming very soon! It will cover how you can start using an efficient and effective way to revise for your exams. We’ll talk about how you can start using spaced repetition and practice testing quickly and simply, and how to incorporate it when you plan your exam-attack. No study skill that is too complicated or involved is going to help, so we’ll keep it simple! See you then 🙂

Studying… Burning Out

Hi Friends, I was thinking recently about something I’ve noticed as a student.

One of my favorite TED talks is by a Neuroscientist named Michael Merzenich, and within his video he introduces the brain as machine and says “It is constructed for change”. Change is the nature of existence, yet when it comes to energy or emotions students sometimes seem like they are totally caught out.

Everything moves in cycles, stocks have booms and busts, industries have business cycles and there are roughly four seasons in a year. Summer lasts for one season. Or less. (But certainly not more, this is not Westeros.)

AND YET somehow as students we have the idea that these change-machines inside our heads should NOT have cycles, that as long as we feed it a balanced diet and rest it once a day it can continue to operate at a steady consistent humming speed. We act like we are always at peak performance. We wonder why we wake up one day and are utterly sick of the whole thing and can’t recall why we started.

THEN we get into a new cycle, the cycle of ignoring our work and feeling ashamed or distressed that we’ve done so. We burnout. What is burnout? It is the psychological term that refers to long-term exhaustion and diminished interest in work.

So why does it seem we all forget that this even exists until it is right on top of us? How do we convince ourselves that cycles and of change and response don’t apply to us? Runners experience the runners high, a huge endorphin boost that can eliminate  feelings of stress and fatigue (It is super awesome). However: runners ALSO know that it comes to a very definite end, and when it does it is called HITTING THE WALL.

SO what to do? As a starting point, here are a few treatment and prevention points that might be of assistance. 

On Burnout:

• Accept that at some point you are probably going to develop burnout. You might even be on your way right now. You might want to never open your books again, you might consider quitting. This is OK, even though it is not an easy thing to admit. It does not mean you are a bad student. To a large degree, our success as students depends on our ability to be interested in what we study, so admitting when we are not firing on all cylinders is a huge step.

• If you are not already doing so, take care of yourself. Commit to eating healthy food that you enjoy the taste of, commit to fresh air and physical activity that you enjoy. Two things that help me are running and rock climbing. Commit to spending your time with good company. Commit to your sleep. There are limitless places to find information on each of these, I recommend Zen Habits, Lifehacker and Fitocracy.

• If you have sources of stress in your life that you can eliminate somehow then do it. Have a strategy for managing your stress before it manages you. And if some things need to not get done well then don’t sweat it. Burnout can go hand in hand with perfectionism and trying to be everything to everyone all the time. Expecting yourself to be perfect is a burden, losing sleep, eating poorly and becoming stressed and anxious to be perfect is not worth it.

• On that note, with each leap and bound in performance we soon start experiencing diminishing returns in our results. Know when to quit. “After x hours I could get 90%, but if I just do double the hours I’ll get an extra 3%!” Not sustainable. Also not good business. Being good is not the same thing as being perfect. Yes this might mean you get a lower mark. If you had unlimited hours then every task on earth would be done flawlessly. But you don’t.

• If you feel like you need to take a break, take one. Let yourself have some fun. There is nothing Stoic about struggling onward when it is the wrong time. Don’t think about should. I should be this I should be that, I should should should. The world is full of shoulds, and sometimes ignoring them all is the best option. Have some time off, take a study-holiday for a night or a day or a weekend. This is OK. And if you can, try to take actual holidays too.

• Share your thoughts with others. A lot of the time you’ll find the feeling is mutual. Recently I mentioned in a group that I felt drained by one of my courses. Reading the words but they weren’t going in. Quite a few people responded in complete agreement. There is tremendous value in this. Everyone gets sick and tired of work, even work they enjoy. Don’t be isolated.

• Treat yourself. So this goes along with “take a break” but sometimes they are distinct. Example: I bought an aeropress coffee maker, and have been experimenting with it since then. This was a nice treat as I get the satisfaction of fresh delicious coffee in the morning instead of instant crystals (Seriously what are those things?) and it is a good start to the day. Sometimes it is the small things.

• Take pride in your achievements. What you are doing is hard. You are bettering yourself. You are putting yourself through the paces on a course that challenges you. You are stepping out of your comfort zone. If you are studying with The Open Unibersity this also means you are doing it entirely upon your own initiative. YOU made this decision. You said “This I am going to do”. Friend, you are a badass.
  
• Note: I am not an expert or a doctor. Neither is Bill Murray. This post might not be what you need if you feel you need assistance with emotional or mental health issues. In that case your best bet is a qualified practitioner:)