Archive for the 'Study strategies' Category

5 Day Study Plan

Here on our campus, final exam week is almost upon us.  The last day of classes is next Tuesday and final exams begin in just over a week.  Many students, unfortunately, tend to go into a bit of a panic mode during finals. It can seem a little overwhelming. If you have multiple exams on [...]

Mnemonics

A mnemonic or sometimes a mnemonic device is something we use to help us remember things.  Even if you don’t know what a mnemonic is, you have most likely used many of them over the years.  Songs, acrostics, and acronyms are common mnemonic devices.  For example, you may have learned the colors in the light spectrum [...]

Music and the Brain

If you pay attention to other students when you are walking across campus or look around you when you are in the library, you’ll no doubt notice that a large percentage of students are listening to iPods or other MP3 devices.  I’m sure a few of them are dutifully listening to podcasts of classroom lectures [...]

Urgent vs. Important

One of the most vital skills for college students to master is effective time management. In fact, if you have looked carefully at the SLC website (and I’m sure you have!), you may have come across something we call the Four Core Competencies. We have them listed for you on our SI page. The last [...]

Aggie Notes

With the new semester starting, this is a good time to get into some good habits including taking good notes.  A few years ago, some of our SI supervisors created a form for the SI leaders to use in order to help them use their class notes to develop strategies for SI sessions. It dawned on me [...]

Learning and the Brain #2

I introduced the concept of Brain Rules several weeks ago. One of the brain rules is that stressed brains don’t learn the same way. This time of the semester I usually try to address the topic of stress in my classes. Final exams begin next week and students are frantically finishing up papers, completing class projects, [...]

Finding the Perfect Place to Study

If you haven’t found your “perfect place”, I have some good news.  There really isn’t a perfect place to study. I have some more good news: lots of different places can be good settings for learning.  In fact, the most recent research on learning suggests that varying study settings and study strategies increases our ability to [...]

Learning and the Brain #1

It may seem like an obvious thing to say, but your brain is the most important learning organ you possess. I’ve labeled this post “Learning and the Brain #1″ because I plan to post something about the brain and learning multiple times in this blog. One of my favorite resources for understanding how the brain [...]

Academic Two-a-days?

Even though the heat index is 105 degrees this time of year in College Station, I know that fall is upon us because our fall sports athletes (football, soccer, volleyball, etc..)  have already started their grueling two-a-day practices. For most of the students who are starting classes in a little over two weeks, there is [...]