What I learnt from Professor Marty Lobdell

To be an A student, one need not have to spend more time studying, but should spend effective time studying. It is not magic that straight-A students get to maintain their grades in each and every exams. Behind this there is a strategy to ace and sustain one's academic results. In this post, I'm going to share some of the tips that I found to be useful to me to ace my results. 

This technique is also known as Study Less Study Smart.

Unlike my previous posts, I am going to share some extracted notes from an hour long of lecture by Profressor Marty Lobdell, University of Chicago about effective ways to study. Since some of you may find this video too long and can't pay full focus as the duration spans more than an hour, I hope my summary points out the key ideas shared by this professor.

Here are the ideas shared by the professor:-

1. Set up your study space

• Have a table lamp and keep it as a study lamp. It triggers your brain to be ready to study
• Make sure you are studying in a silent enviroment
• Do not listen to music as it decreases the level of concentration needed to absorb a study material.

2. Break your study schedule into 25-30 minutes per session

• Revise for 25 to 30 minutes and get up, leave the place and have a 5 to 10 minutes of break.
• Taking short breaks is as important as studying
• Use your break wisely
• Give your body some physical movement as it has direct correlation to your brain's activation.

3. Understanding is more important than memorizing

• Always try to grasp the concept
• A concept once understood it will stick with you for a long run
• Deepen your understanding by writing your lecturer's notes in your own words.

4. Use short cuts to memorize factual courses

• Use mnemonics, connection or association technique, acronymns, connecting images in your head and more
• Keep doing it regularly to speed up your memory power.

5. Do not get confused with Rcognition and Recollection

• Recognizing a topic is quick task than recollecting the concepts of the topic.But to check this, think about the concept you read 3 pages before and try to explain it. This proves to be much harder.  
• Do active recitation. Study in chunks or break a chapter into chunks which makes it looks easy to cover.
• Keep practicing more to smoothen the process of recalling. Practicing past year papers is vital to get straight-A

6. Get as much sleep as possible

• Numerous scientific studies shows a direct correlation between effectiveness of studying and sleeping time
• Sleep improves the brain's capacity to store memory
• It enables students to generate their own words when it comes to writing exams
• It balances the emotions, making students feel more relaxed to answer and tackle any tough questions whatsoever

7. After each class, give a depth to your notes

• Flush out the key points
• Write your own notes
• Use your own technique to undertand and intrepret the topic taught. 

8. Teaching someone is the best way ever to test your understanding

• Teach what you studied to your friend
• If there is nobody to teach, teach to a chair
• Preparing like a teacher requires extra effort and time
• It boosts your quality of answering a paper

I hope that today's post gives you a quick overview on how to study effectively. If you may find any other study hacks feel free to sound on in the comment section below. I have been using and giving more attention to each and every technique shared by this professor from time to time, making sure I'm sticking along with these great tips. To your surprise, I was able to achieve my goal of getting 4-flat in matriculation by applying all these techniques with some modification. 

I would like to emphasize the fact that some of you may find some of these techniques to be hard to practice as you may have your own way of grasping a study material. However, the key idea is to study less but study smart. 

Hereby, I'm signing off by saying CHEERS!

Have a great day!