Techniques of Learning and Study

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How Can I Improve My Memory
2007-09-29 16:35:00
As a student you have probably asked yourself ‘How can I study better for the test?’ The answer to this question is improve your memory.Remember, what is done to our bodies influences how our mind works. Several outside forces can affect one's memory. As has been established with other functions of the body, diet is linked to memory. Memory is also affected by lack of physical exercise and of course, there are foreign substances we put into our bodies. Drugs, alcohol, and even prescription drugs can have a negative effect. If it affects our bodies it can affect our memory. Injuries, traumatic events, even diseases can affect memories. Inadequate stimulation both mental and spiritual have also been shown to damage our minds, bodies and emotions.Let us look at the life stressors in connection with memory. If your life is unorganized and over packed with activities, this will impact your memory. Constant turmoil and never allowing yourself adequate care will cause your memory ...
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What to look for when choosing a how-to book
2007-09-22 17:30:00
When you start your search for how to do something you will find there are many resources out there. You have a choice of online courses, seminars and even one-on-one training but sometimes the best way to learn is the old-fashioned way. This way is reading a book.The marketplace abounds with how-to books on subjects from making money to planting roses and many people new to a subject find them the best way to learn. Book s allow people to re-read passages that have a lot of information like math or science as many times as they need to fully grasp the concepts. You can see why a book has an advantage if you imagine asking the speaker at a large seminar to repeat themselves.The question is, which how-to book should you read? Most any field you choose has its share of pretenders and fakes, so be wary of any book that makes outrageous claims in its title. If you see statements on the cover like ‘Be a pro in an hour!’ or ‘Make millions while you sleep!’ be cautious. If a how-to ...

Diet Matters
2007-09-10 14:35:00
You will be glad to know there is an easy, but often neglected, way to improve and help you achieve success. Whether you work during the day and go to school at night or vice versa, a day of your life should be divided into stages to assure you get the right food for great performances. It doesn’t matter if you work form 9 to 5 or not you can adjust you food for the best results.Day laborerIf you are a day person, you are on your feet the entire day so the amount of physical effort you are making is great. Your body needs energy from morning till evening. You must keep the sugar level stable with the help of complex hydro-carbonates. You will stay strong if you start your day with cereals and milk, eat soup and vegetables with cheese for lunch and in the evening have some lasagna and salad.Night workerIf you are a night worker your schedule extends into the morning hours. You need food for feeling ok and fighting depression that can often occur during nights. Vitamin B1 is what yo...
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How Are You Investing Your Time
2007-09-09 22:50:00
Time is the most precious commodity we have because it is the greatest equalizer of human beings. We will lose if we don’t admit this and treat time with respect. It doesn’t matter if you are rich or poor, healthy or sick you only have 24 hours a day.Most of the time, we waste our time and energy worrying and thinking about trivial things. When we do this we usually forget about important things. A wise man will tell you “You can always make more money, but you can never buy more time”. How often have you looked at the ways you invest your time? The word “investment” is very accurate because the way you choose to spend your time is a true investment in yourself and your life. People usually spend hours in front of the TV, or they spent a lot of time browsing the internet with no purpose. Some of us even try to trade time at the cost of sleep hours that could benefit our health. If you wake up earlier in the morning just to smoke a few cigarettes and fill up wit...
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STRIVE TO LEARN MORE
2007-09-04 13:32:00
People sometimes find it hard to keep up and learn everything they are supposed to. This is especially true when they are learning about things that they have no interest in. Here are some tips to take you out of the they category. First, you need to not give up and use various methods to learn more.Get a mentor/tutorWhenever you see you can’t handle an assignment or you can’t get any further with it, you should consider getting a mentor/tutor. Many environments are meant for all and the group cannot wait for a few to catch up. The structure just does not allow it even if the individual falling behind is gifted but just slower.Do not get madYou are probably already upset if you have failed. To keep yourself from losing all interest in learning don’t get mad but sad. This change of emotion to a positive one is a step in the right direction. Focus on making yourself and others happy by improving your performance not dwelling on past failure.Reward good performanceThis has a goo...
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Methods of Home Schooling
2007-09-01 15:00:00
The controversy of home schooling vs. traditional classes might never be resolved. Similarly the correct method of home schooling might not find a definitive solution but the more we know the better it will be to make an informed decision. Maybe if look at them with an open mind we might able to apply a little of these methods to ourselves.Many people believe home schooling is two or three children sitting at a table, writing in their workbooks, while mom or dad stands nearby. The truth is there are different methods of home schooling that differ greatly from this notion. Below are some of the most influential and popular home schooling methods.The Charlotte Mason method:Known as the founder of the home schooling movement Charlotte Mason was a home schooler herself. Her passion was to lay out the foundations for an effective home schooling program. A need to be both fun and educational at the same time was essential. This method encourages a passionate awareness of literature, so be...
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TIPS TO HELP SAVE YOUR TIME
2007-08-31 15:32:00
Managing your time is important to all aspects of life from studying to leisure. The next time you think ‘There are not enough hours in the day’ try these tips.1. Some things can be done fewer timesThink about everything you do often and decide what can be done less often. Some things can be done once instead of twice. Identifying those things and acting upon them will help save a lot of time.If you haven’t already, make a schedule to inform yourself of ongoing projects. Look at it daily but try to update it twice a month instead of every week.Repetitive things like cleaning the house once every ten days instead of every 7 days may not seem like much but every little bit helps. The house won’t get dirty in those three extra days.Another example is if you make a work report. Do it every six weeks instead of every four weeks if possible.The list of things that can be done fewer times can go on forever.2. Make yourself your competitionBe aware of the clock and resolve to finish...
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10 Tips For Efficient Learning
2007-08-21 16:55:00
Learning is a lifelong skill. From birth and throughout life, a person goes on a journey of acquiring knowledge. How this knowledge is gained varies from one individual to another because each one is created unique. There are some people who make little or no effort to learn and yet they do well in school. Others spend endless hours over their books but do not excel at all. Genes may have something to do with this, but more than the hereditary factor, it is the attitude towards learning that increases one’s ability to perform well. How one efficiently studies makes a capable learner. Here are a few tips to make the most out of learning:1. Take care of your healthPeople, like machines, also need downtimes. Stress and fatigue due to studying for long periods of time render the brain less effective to absorb data. Hence, adequate rest should be taken. A healthy mind needs a healthy body - see to it that proper nutrition and regular exercise is always maintained.2. Develop a passion f...
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Mind Building
2007-08-20 17:06:00
All exercise for the mind does not need to be boring. Going away from the how to lists we find many times hobbies can help us improve. One of the more productive hobbies is mind puzzles. Mind puzzles can be fun to solve but also rewarding. Often times they encourage and challenge you to look for new ways to solve problems.There are various types of puzzles including some of them to help you build your vocabulary. Vocabulary puzzles can be built in several ways but remember as you start a puzzle, your mind will naturally start to look at all angles of a problem to find solutions. The puzzle should be used to break away from preconceptions that stop us.Using the same grid of letters we’ll start with a simple puzzle and move onto a more difficult aspect of the same puzzle. Look at the puzzle below and create a list of words. Notice that the first set of letters is the English alphabet. You will probably be able to find words like, wet – much – honk – me – take – we – can ...
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The Key is Concentration
2007-08-15 20:34:00
A skill that will be used for the rest of your life is learning to concentrate. It is a skill you use while studying and can be applied to any kind of work. The key to concentration is focusing on the task at hand to eliminate any possible distractions. It is common to read through material and discover you have no idea what you have just read or, attend presentations and have difficulty paying attention to what is being said. To help you stay focused here are some suggestions. When scheduling, try to stick to a consistent and efficient routine. If possible avoid studying at different times. Studying one day late at night and the next day in the afternoon is counter-productive. Once decided, avoid conflicts, by marking down these times in a scheduler or on a calendar. Where you study needs to be quiet. Find a designated study spot free of distractions. This is so necessary that if you live in a noisy house or dormitory you may even have to go to a study room like the library outsi...
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Every Learning Process Has a Beginning and an End
2007-08-13 22:49:00
Are you not sure what to take notes on? Does it stress you out to look over your notes? Do you get stressed when you prepare for tests? If the answer is yes to any of the previous questions here are some suggestions to take you through the studying process. Before going to any lecture, read the assignments. This builds a background for the information that will be presented. It will give you some familiarity with vocabulary and concepts, which can be especially helpful if the subject matter is unfamiliar. Try to make time to actively read. As you go over the material, underline and highlight important information. If you don’t have time to read the entire assignment, skim the material. This way you at least have some advance knowledge of the important points. It may seem so rudimentary that it does not need to be said but I have to say it anyway. You need to go to the lecture and take notes. Most presenters will emphasize points of importance. Be ready, be attentive and wri...
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Develop The Skill of Skimming
2007-08-11 22:31:00
Remember the last time you looked something up in the phone book. You looked for the name and didn’t read any more than was necessary. You might even have used your finger to guide your eyes. We call this type of reading scanning. We do it everyday with book indexes, dictionaries, etc. Another type of reading is skimming. It uses the same type of skill mechanically as scanning but a different skill mentally. The difference is with scanning you know what you are looking for and, with skimming you don’t.Because of everything we have to read, learning to skim material is getting more important all the time. There always seems to be a never ending supply of material like manuals, proposals, and news stories but less and less time to read them.Since you don’t know exactly what you are looking for, first read the title, source, author, and look at any pictures.Then ask yourself four questions.1) Who is this piece likely to be focused on?2) What is this piece likely to be focused on...
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Keep Supplies in a Homework Kit
2007-08-09 18:56:00
It’s time to do homework. You scour the house looking for a pencil but then you need a pencil sharpener. Ten minutes later you find one and finally sit down to start your work, but then where’s the calculator? You find it, only to discover that it is low on batteries. There have to be some in the house, but where? If you find your typical study session unfolding like this, then here are a few suggestions to help make finishing your homework easier. Don’t waste a lot of time looking for homework supplies and making sure they are ready to be used when you are ready to study. Instead you can use a homework box or supply kit of some kind to keep it all together so when it comes time to do homework, everything is in place for you. You will enjoy no running around, no scouring the house and no wasted time. Any kind of box will do. You can use a storage tote, an old shoebox, or even a drawer. The key is to keep everything you need in one place, ready to go. M...
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Creative Notions
2007-07-29 16:23:00
People seem to have the misconception that only a select few are able to unleash a steady flow of creative genius. The fact is, creativity is very much like a muscle that needs to be exercised in order to consistently give out great results. If you don't practice harnessing creative thinking, this skill will very much atrophy into inexistence. But keep working and this skill can come to anyone.So how do you unleash your creative thinking? Well, the first thing is to become a human leech. No, we're not talking about just sucking the blood out of every living being available, we're saying that you should take in as much knowledge and learning you can find. Read everything available (good and bad), and keep your mind open to the infinite possibilities of the universe. The more you know, the more you'll want to know, and the more your faculty of wonder will be exercised. Prepare to be amazed at little facts that add a bit of color into your life. Focus on a creative activity everyda...
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Speed Reading Basics
2007-06-27 13:07:00
by: Jonathan Mayheart Speed reading is vital in today’s business and academic world, with the vast information that the internet offers, and the huge amounts of reading tasks an average manager or student faces, there is really no choice but to try and increase the intake of information. In the last forty years there has a been an explosion of information, we are living the information revolution and that requires a lot of young professionals a great deal of effort in digesting this information and making good use of it. Most of the people who attend speed reading courses and classes have some kind of problem, or believe they have some kind of problem, with their reading, here are a few of these potential problems. Lack of concentration or partial/impaired concentration is an obvious problem for speed reading, the effects of the environment on ones reading rhythm and the general tendency of some people to be able of acceptable reading rate only in ideal situations. This problem is...
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The Five Proven Ways to Combine Job and Studies
2007-06-22 17:25:00
by: Linda Correli On any course there is always at least one student who manages to succeed with studies, while others are doomed to fail. My friend Sally was like that. With an agenda of tasks to accomplish at work and a younger brother to look after, she always had good marks at university and even got her First-Class Degree with no troubles at all!After my astonishment was dispelled, I started wondering how it came that Sally could successfully combine her job, studies and private life. And since I was about to start my own career being yet a university student, I kept a close eye on my friend trying to figure out her success formula. Step by step, I learned her tricks and adopted her studying methods, which were a good start in life.1. Understand What You Need to Succeed atThe first thing Sally taught me is that getting a degree is not just about learning biology, history, English or whatever. It is all about understanding what you want to succeed – what, in fact, the universi...
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Adding From Left to Right -- A Better Way to Add
2007-06-12 14:15:00
by: Peter Waycik More than likely, when you learned how to add, you started on the right and moved to the left. If you were adding whole numbers, you added the ones, "carried" if necessary, and repeated for the tens, hundreds and so on. This works well on paper, and it is the most efficient paper and pencil method; however, adding in the other direction has several desirable advantages: the left to right method promotes a better understanding of place value, it can be done mentally with much greater ease, and it does not require that numbers be lined up in a column. Students can learn left to right addition, so they have another method to choose from when presented with addition problems. Left to right addition involves adding the largest place values first. As you move from left to right, you keep a cumulative total, so it is simply a number of smaller addition problems. To give you an idea of how it works and what it sounds like, consider the example, 677 + 938. Begin by adding t...

Sleep More To Help You Study
2007-06-12 14:11:00
by: Malcolm Moorhouse For those of you that are studying, here are a few ideas to help you succeed with your studies. Do you use your car for getting to school? You had better use your seat belt and buckle up considering many car crashes today are caused by lack of sleep. Chances are you are not getting the right amount of sleep at night. Sleep depravation doesn't just cause physical tiredness; it can affect the function of your brain too. This article looks at how lack of sleep can affect your learning potential. Figures given by the national sleep foundation indicate that 85% of students do not get enough sleep. What constitutes as enough sleep? While definitions can vary, it seems the average is about 8.5 hours of sleep per night according to the foundation. If the calculation is correct and 85% of students are suffering from sleep loss, then you could gain an edge on them just from lying in bed, relaxing, and getting more sleep. Sleep depravation can damage ones ability to stay...
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Foreign Language Memory Technique
2007-06-12 14:08:00
by: James Dunn Learning a foreign language takes a lot of time and effort. Even so, most people spend countless hours memorizing vocabulary lists, when there is a better way. The Dunn memory technique is a faster, easier, and more enjoyable way to learn a foreign language. In order to understand how the Dunn technique works, a little knowledge of memory is necessary. You have several levels of memory retention. Here are the levels of memory from worst to best. 1. You are able to relearn the material faster and more easily than new material. 2. You are able to recognize it in a group or list. 3. You are able to remember it if you are given a hint. (e.g. It starts with the letter H) 4. You can recall it without any help. The Dunn technique makes two assumptions. One is that when you study new words, some of them will naturally fall into the deeper levels of memory than others. The other assumption is that it is more effective to have many words at a lower level of memory than to be ab...
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Long Term Benefits of Positive Reinforcement vs Negative Reinforcement
2007-06-12 14:02:00
by: Sensei J. Richaard Kirkham B.Sc. Long Term Benefit s of Positive Reinforcement vs Negative Reinforcement by J. Richard KirkhamOver the years of tutoring students with behavior challenges, I've noticed a pattern of negative reinforcement by both parents and teachers in an attempt to diminish or stop such behaviors.Let's review some basic behavioral reactions from all human beings. This includes both adults and children since these are basic behaviors.Children and adults avoid negative stimuli.This includes but is not inclusive to spankings, getting yelled at by the boss, or even disapproving looks.Children and adults attempt to receive positive stimuliThis includes but is not inclusive to hugs, getting complemented by the boss, or even approving looks.In the absence of any stimuli children and adults will attempt to create situation wherein responses by authority figures or peers is motivated.In most cases I've witnessed in both children and adults the activity to promote this ...

Speed Learning With SQR3
2007-06-12 13:59:00
by: Michael Tony Jones SQ3R is a reading/study system preferred by many educators.It can add 10 to 15% more time to a study session. However, it can produce a 70% improvement in retention according to some researchers.The SQ3R acronym stands for:S = SurveyQ = QuestionR = ReadR = ReciteR = ReviewSURVEY:Take five minutes to get an overview of the material paying special attention to organization and content.Look out for diagrams, maps, pictures, charts. Take note of headings, boldface type, italicized words.QUESTION:Create interest in the material by asking the leading questions - What, Who, Where, When, How.Keeping the mind focused on these questions as we read maintains interest in the material.Ask yourself, "What is likely to be the most challenging part of this material for me to understand or remember?"READ:Look for answers to your questions from the previous stage. This means active reading. Summarize the main points in your own words, perhaps putting notes in the margin.Read th...
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Speed Learning Using The Pimsleur Method
2007-06-12 13:56:00
by: Michael Tony Jones The late Dr. Paul Pimsleur was one of the world's leading experts on language teaching. Dr. Pimsleur was a Fulbright lecturer at the University of Heidelberg and a founding member of the ACTFL - America Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages.During his career he was associated with many educational centers including Colombia University, Ohio State University, State University of New York.His years of experience and research revolutionized theories of language learning and teaching. He introduced many principles which made language learning much faster.Two of the key principles are:1. Anticipation2. Graduated Interval RecallAnticipation:Rather than having information drummed into us through constant repetition, the principle of anticipation gets us to interact in the learning process.After anticipating the answer from memory, the answer is then confirmed in the lesson. In other words, you receive information, then you recall it from memory and then use i...
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