--Original published at Kirsten's Kreations

For this post, I chose to do option one on memory.

10 Study Methods for College-Bound Teens:

This article is an interesting read. As a college student myself, I found myself agreeing to a lot of the tips it the article provides. This article included ten tips; ask for help, study outside of class, use your peers, get organized, sleep, eliminate distractions, maintain health, track habits, stop procrastinating, and work on soft skills. All of these tips are highly important to follow. For the sleep and health, if someone isn’t maintain a good sleep schedule or isn’t in good health it can make the brain seem foggy and hard to focus because the body is going into a chemical imbalance and is trying to correct itself. During this time your brain is more focused on healing yourself rather than being able to store the information you are learning making it more difficult to remember later. Asking questions and using your peers is a good way to understand what you don’t know. When we are learning new things our brain goes through a process of encoding. If we learn something that seems confusing and we don’t ask questions, instead of encoding and storing the correct information for later use our mind will process the wrong information. If questions are asked to a teacher or a peer gives a better explanation, then we can correct the information being encoded before it is too late. Getting organized, not procrastinating, and eliminating distractions are important because they can help with recall, retrieval, and storage. Being organized with a planner is a good way to help keep track of what needs to be done because college has a lot of assignments and a planner is a good way to help someone recall what those assignments are and for what class. Stopping procrastination and eliminating distractions is extremely helpful because procrastination can hinder your brains ability to store the information. The longer you wait to study the less likely you will have time to process what you just learn causing problems to recall that information. Distractions can also affect the storage and recall in the same way because they just create their own form of procrastination by tearing your mind away from your current situation.

Top 10 High School Study Tips

The ten tips are: be engaged, stay up to date with homework, organize, have a routine, have objectives, have a study station, stay away from electronics if possible, manage stress, take advantage of technology. In all honesty, I feel this is a better article for college students than for high school students but it can work for high school students too. Being engaged and staying up is great because if you aren’t then your mind can learn the wrong information and not properly encode it. Plus, if you are confused it can be easier to ask the teacher questions. Being organized and having a routine is very important for any student. A routine and being organized is important because your mind can use chunking to encode the information you are learning rather than taking time out of your day and disrupting your memory process by having to recall what you need to do for the day. Staying away from electronics and taking advantage of technology seems to be redundant, but if you put your phone on silent and use your laptop to take notes or research the topics being learned then your brain will have less of a distraction making it easier to encode the new information for later.

10 Good Study Habits to Help Your Child Succeed in the New School Year

These ten study habits for parents to help their children are: get organized, know the expectations, develop a study plan, think positively, create a study group, practice active listening, review test-taking strategies, read actively, and look into the future. It is great for parents to help their children out because the more stress a student as then the harder can get for their brain to focus on processing the information and storing it because it is more focused on trying to come up with ways on how to fix the other situations. Developing a study plan is great because the student and the parent can come up with different ways that it makes it easier for the student to learn the new information. Getting organized and knowing the expectations are good to help keep the student on track of what they need to do rather than forcing them to remember it all themselves and delaying the process of them encoding and storing the new information. Practice active listening, review test-taking strategies, and read actively are all good because it falls under the testing effect. The testing effect is being able to retrieve information in different forms rather than memorizing it by rereading.

https://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/slideshows/10-college-study-tips-that-high-school-students-can-master-now?slide=12

http://student-tutor.com/blog/top-10-high-school-study-tips/

http://www.sylvanlearning.com/blog/index.php/10-good-study-habits-new-school-year/

--Original published at KatieMillerPSY105

We have covered, in lecture, the best ways to study in order to retain information to do well on tests, homework, other school work, etcetera. I wanted to take a look at what some articles are claiming to be the best studying methods and see how closely it matches with what we had learned. I found three different articles from sources that discussed methods for college students, middle school to high school students, and even parents.

The first article I did research on is called “How to Study: Studying Tips for College Students” by Column Five Media. This article describes some distractions students may face when they are taking notes. Even though a computer made it easier to take notes, this article found that there were many distractions such as “25% playing games, 43% surfed internet, 68% used instant messaging, and 81% checked emails” (paragraph 3). The article also showed some of the ways they thought college students should be studying. They say to set goals for your study time in order to avoid cramming (paragraph 4). We learned that distributed practice is better for memory so that you can have the information in your long-term memory instead of not being able to recall what you crammed in before the exam. Some other techniques they showed were reading notes, rewriting them, review highlighted information, using flashcards, and make up examples (paragraph 4). The highlighted information and flashcards would be considered organized materials, which we know from lecture, will be effortful encoding. Also, making up examples is similar to elaboration where we can make up our own examples to make it more relevant to us. Instead of just reading over class notes, one techinique would be to organize the written notes into questions by making headers. Overall, I thought that this article provided some realistic advice with some things that were similar to what we learned in our lecture.

The next article I found is one that gave advice for the high school age students called “Top 10 Study Skills for High School Students” on the Campus Explorer website. This article gave ten different pieces of advice for ways to study. These tips include manage time wisely, organize, and make study groups. We covered all of these methods in our lecture for studying and how they can improve our memory. Some other pieces of advice were to ask questions, study outside, sleep, and hone those writing skills. The tip to studying outside would be to actually try to study in an environment similar to where you will be taking the exam. This will help because you could give you retrieval clues if you are stuck. The other tips they gave could be useful, but were not as important as what some of the others were. This article can show the difference in advice for studying between college aged students and high school aged students.

The final article I found is “Ten ways to Help Your Child Succeed in Elementary School” found on the KidsHealth website. This article was similar to the high school article since both gave ten tips for studying; however, this article gave ten tips on how to help prepare your children for school. One tip that I found to be very helpful was teach organizational skills. This is a great tip because the parents could help their kids learn ways to encode information they need. This will help them in the long run if they can develop this organization skill early on. Some other tips included teach study skills, getting involved, and sending them to school ready to learn. It is important for parents to help their kids develop study skills while they are young because this could cause them to improve their long-term memory. I believe some “better” advice to give to parents for studying would be making sure they are spreading out their time for studying and coming up with ways for their kids to better understand the material they are learning. These two pieces of advice gives kids the best methods for effortful encoding. This article had some good and helpful tips for parents with their younger children, but there are some other things that parents could be doing to help their children learn the best ways to study.

All in all, these articles gave some good tips for all ages. Other than a few areas that suggested techniques that may not be as effective as the methods we learned in class, it was fairly close to some of the things we learned in our lectures.

Links:

https://www.campusexplorer.com/college-advice-tips/C6CA1844/Top-10-Study-Skills-for-High-School-Students/

https://www.rasmussen.edu/student-life/blogs/college-life/how-to-study/

https://kidshealth.org/en/parents/school-help-elementary.html

--Original published at Tiffany'sCollegeBlog

For this spotlight blog, we had the option of choosing from a memory prompt, stress prompt, and  a drug prompt. I chose to do the memory prompt because I think that looking at different study skills could help me use them during school or any other place that I need help studying. 

Memory is retaining learned information or past events, or taking what we learned and being able to use it in the future. There are three processes that are involved with memory: encoding, storage, and retrieval. Encoding is putting information into a form the brain can understand and store. Encoding has many more aspects to it like failure and the different types of encoding. Storage is the process of storing memories in the brain and retrieval is receiving stored memories. Each of these processes can have failure if you didn’t learn something properly or if you didn’t have strong associations. Encoding failure means that you never really learned it in the first place and never got information into a form that the brain could understand. Storage failure is a biological disorder or some type of damage to the brain and retrieval failures have to have with the associations not being strong enough. Encoding allows transfer from working memory to long term memory. Working memory is what you are actively thinking about. You can typically hold 5-9 pieces of information and then we forget or it goes to long term memory. The best way to keep things in working memory is through rehearsal and repetition. There are multiple types of encoding like automatic and effortful. There is also phonological, visual, and semantic. With automatic encoding that means that you automatically remember something with no effort put towards it. Studying is done with effortful encoding where you have to work to memorize something. Phonological, visual, and semantic are more useful when it comes to studying I feel because some people are a visual learning, some are better at just listening, and for some it depends on what exactly you’re learning. When it comes to remembering your memory, you mentally search your brain for it and then if it’s located, it’s brought back to working memory. With retrieving memory, often you would look for retrieval cues or words and other stimuli that trigger the memory. Another thing you could look for is context effects. Typically, we tend to remember things better where we have first learned them, which is why in class, most students sit in the same seat so they can recall what they learned. 

Effortful encoding is what we use mostly for studying. We have to work to memorize what is being taught to us. There are many ways to use effortful encoding and that is through organization, distributed practice, meaning, and elaboration. With organization, we remember things better if it’s organized while we learn the information, which is why a lot of teachers recommend the Cornell method of note taking. The Cornell method has notes but then a column for questions and organizing material by headings. It’s better to write notes the way they make sense to you and then review them later that day or the next day. Distributed practice has to do with not cramming things. Taking a lot of information in at once can confuse your memory and not all you to have connections. Studying a little bit of material over a long period of time is better and it’s easier to focus on newer material while just having to go back and refresh the old. You also can switch learning materials with other subjects. It gives you a break from one subject to focus on another. Meaning and elaboration kind of go hand in hand with each other. We remember better when we understand what we memorize and we elaborate more on the meaning and make the information personally relevant. 

The first article I found has to do with studying skills for college students. It lists seven tips and how to go about doing those seven tips. Good habits when studying can make or break your GPA and doing these tips can help with how you study. The tips include: good notes= good grades, stay organized, unplug and reconnect, don’t cram, don’t over-study, find your zone, and take a break. Taking good notes isn’t something that everyone is good at but it is a good way to get the key points from a lecture and a textbook. Writing too many things can be strenuous and time consuming. Staying organized by having a planner or a calendar is a really good way to keep your commitments in order. Organizing your class materials is important as well. It’s easier to memorize if notes are in order and if they stand out with color or different fonts. Not having your phone can also be helpful because then you aren’t distracted and can focus in more with what you need to get done. Not cramming and over-studying is also a good way to keep sane and make sure that your study habits are the best they can be. Time management is a very good essential to make sure that you can get through what you need to. Everyone has their perfect place to study and it might not be the right one at first but it will be if you try many places out. Lastly, taking a break can be beneficial to you and it can help you continue to be energized through studying. I think that all of these are good study tips to stay off with if you are going into college. They explain where to study, to not cram (which is something a lot of people do), ways to stay organized and to always take a break and relax. I don’t think this article includes anything having to do with bad advice but having more to say the notes and organization would have been good to see. College students often get distracted by many things and once that happens sometimes they can’t get back on track. 

https://www.campusexplorer.com/college-advice-tips/2DF9E34D/7-Best-Study-Tips-for-College-Students/

The second article I found was focused more on studying for high schoolers. There are many study tips that high schoolers don’t necessarily follow because they just think about lunch or leaving school and hanging with their friends. The article includes ten tips to help high schoolers with studying and being prepared for school. The tips include: be engaged, take notes, and listen, keep up to date with your homework, have an organizational system in place, have a routine, have daily and weekly objectives in place, don’t procrastinate, have an ideal study station, unplug, log off, mute, and power down, manage high school stress, and lastly, take advantage of technology available. Being engaged in class can help you focus more on what you need to do to get a good grade. Taking notes, asking questions, and engaging in discussions can help with these. This article discusses using the Cornell method of note taking, which for some it can help and others it can just be confusing and make taking notes even worse. Keeping up to date with homework can help you with studying as well. Using a planner can keep you on top of things that are due and help you plan what to do each night if you have a big assignment. Have an organizational system can help tremendously. It helps things stay in order and you don’t lose anything. My personal organizational system is color coordination. I have a purple folder and a purple spiral, sticky notes, notecards etc. Having a routine can keep you in line and make sure that you keep to it or you will be unorganized. This one I feel is super important because all throughout high school people don’t want to do work. They would rather go to the football games and hang with tier friends but getting your work done or even starting it can go a long way. This one is also important. Studying in a loud place isn’t going to help you memorize anything and having a disorganized spot can make you stressed and not focused especially if you just have to clean and straighten it all the time. You want it to be comfortable but not too comfortable so studying in bed probably isn’t the best. I think this article was helpful and didn’t have any bad advice, but I do think some of the tips are more important than others. All these tips were explained in depth and makes it easier to go along through high school. Even if it doesn’t have to necessarily do with studying right away, it’s still helpful because all these things lead to studying well. All of these tips play a key role in effectively studying and focusing on what you have to do. 

http://student-tutor.com/blog/top-10-high-school-study-tips/ 

For studying skills, there are also many ways to help you memorize something so that you don’t have to go back and relearn. Repetition is the best way to memorize something. Just re-reading your notes isn’t sufficient enough but you can create questions with your notes and also rewrite them. Studying in situations that are similar to the exam are good as well, doing 15 minutes of one class and then 15 minutes of another class. Flashcards are also a very effective way on studying, only if you use them correctly. Going through note cards both ways can help with definitions and vocabulary. Shuffling them and going through the ones you don’t really know are also a really good way to frequently practice the ones you don’t know. I don’t prefer this study method but sometimes studying in groups can be effective as well. It works when there is plan to get done and it’s in action. When studying with a group, you should know the material first and not learn it with everyone but get everyone to help you understand things you don’t know. 

The last article I found was advice for parents who have studying teens in high school or college. This article has a few tips for parents to help their children succeed. Some tips that it has for parents who have teens that need to study are: to learn effective study strategies, create weekly and daily plans and build rewards for a task that is accomplished. To help reduce a child’s stress and improve their grades, having a calendar that keeps track of assignments is beneficial, having a weekly planner to show a study plan and keep time of how much time is spent on one assignment and a checklist that shows what needs to be done that day and in what order they should be done can help. Along with those tips, location can be distracting if it’s not quiet or comfy, not having materials that you need can distract you because then you have to stop and look for the thing you need, and rewards. I think that this doesn’t necessarily have to be a snack or something but it could also be computer or phone time. This last tip is interesting because I’ve never thought about it. Keeping a worry pad so that teens who are distracted by their thoughts can write them down and worry about them later. I think that this is a good article and it doesn’t point out any bad advice. I think that this is a good start to getting a child on track with studying but there are more articles that may have a better sense of what to do and when. I also think that this article is very similar to the ones about college and high school students and it doesn’t say anything else that it very eye catching of a parent. 

https://www.understood.org/en/school-learning/learning-at-home/homework-study-skills/how-to-help-your-teen-develop-good-study-habits