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Saturday, March 3, 2012

Good Grades: 5 Easy Study Habits to Boost Your Grades Up

It amazes me every time to see that students never think about study habits and think good grades come just from studying ‎hard. That is: if you sit down and spend a lot of time doing homework and prepping - you'll ‎get good grades.‎
The truth is that it might work for some of us - a small percentage, in fact - but not for all or ‎even most of us. For most of us social people, it is changing the WAY WE LEARN, or our Study Habits, rather ‎than HOW MUCH we learn, which will bring our grades up.‎
My story for finding these study tips is simple. I used to be a straight A (or straight "smiley ‎face") student back in 1st and 2nd grade, all the way up to 6th. At 7th grade I "got a life" :) , ‎stopped listening in class and doing my homework and my grades immediately went down. ‎I struggled for two years, in a new school, in the lower performing half of my class, doing ‎homework here and there and generally underperforming. At 9th grade, one of my ‎teachers did me a HUGE favor and transferred me to the front row. I had no choice but to ‎listen to the class, and lo and behold: my grades in that class went up! I move to first row in ‎the rest of my classes, and started behaving as I describe below in my first two tips. Tips ‎‎#3&4 came a little bit later, when I wanted to get rid of homework as soon as possible, and ‎got another boost. Tip #5 came at high school, when I needed to choose my classes. It ‎worked so well, I was having real trouble to choose from so many classes, which all seemed ‎suddenly so relevant! I ended up doing almost TWICE the amount of classes needed to get ‎a high school diploma, and I would have done more if I could.‎
Several years later, when I became a university student, I immediately applied all those ‎rules. I ended up with a 9.4 average.‎


So what's my secret? These study tips, which I happily share with you.‎

Study Tip #1: Sit in the first two rows
This simple enough rule is enough to make the best effect in the least effort. The idea here ‎is to force yourself into the best position possible to learn. Sitting close to the teacher, ‎you'll hear what he/she has to say loud and clear. You won't be distracted with playing your ‎mobile or any other non-learning activity simply because you cannot hide.‎If you think the above is bad for you; you want to hide from the teacher and you want your ‎space to play - maybe you should think again if you want to improve your grades at all!‎Let me give you the #1 reason why I think you SHOULD pay attention in class: you're ‎spending the time there ANYWAY. Whether you'll devote your entire time to‎ Facebook ‎, or play Mobile games, or sit and listen - you'll be spending the same amount of time. So, if ‎your grades are important to you (and they should be!) - you might as well take this time to ‎actually LEARN and improve your grades.‎


Study Tip #2:‎ Get acquainted with your teacher, if possible
I think this tip was the most influential in improving MY grades. The basic misconception ‎lots of students have is that grading is done in a neutral way. i.e. if you score high on your ‎tests and papers - you'll get the average (or weighted average) score for your class. Wrong. ‎Scoring is done by HUMAN BEINGS, and there is almost always room for grade ‎‎"adjustments". Along such factors as "class participation", many teachers in fact do modify ‎the students' scores based on their personal experience with them in class. I encountered ‎very few cases where the grade actually went down because of bad behavior, but I know ‎of A LOT of cases, where a dedicated student got a bump up. So what's my advice? Get ‎your teacher to notice you (and in a good way, yeah?); participate in class, ask questions, ‎show real interest in the material. Do this earlier rather than later; show your presence ‎right from the first or second week of class (why? read "‎ Halo Effect ‎"). If you're the talkative, social charismatic type, this will come natural to you, but even if ‎you're a little shy, don't worry. You don't have to be a lead actor or actress. Just asking ‎some questions and showing genuine interest is enough. Don't worry; you're teacher will ‎almost always get that this is a real effort on your behalf; he or she will notice that despite ‎the fact that you're a little shy (yes, they will see that you're shy; experienced teachers ‎read us like open books :) ), you are making an effort and this won't be forgotten come ‎grading day.


Study Tip #3:‎ Do your homework the moment you receive them
This tip will save you a lot of time. The basic idea is that after class you remember the fresh ‎material, and in each passing day you remember less and less. Doing homework late means ‎that you're going to spend a lot of time rehearsing what you've learned in class, often ‎trying to remember what exactly the teacher meant. Doing homework the same day you ‎got them will focus your efforts on going beyond what was learned in class, rather than ‎trying to remember it. I assume it won't be a shock to you when I tell you that in doing your ‎homework early, you'll, on top of saving time, actually do a better job, so if you're being ‎graded on homework this is an added bonus.


Study Tip #4:‎ ...and read them before next class‎
This takes one minute of your time, but can be a world of difference. It's basically the same ‎effect as my previous tip. If you review, very quickly, the notes from last lesson, or your ‎homework, you won't need to remember previous material in real time, but rather focus ‎on absorbing the new material. This is especially important in math and science classes, ‎where the material builds upwards from one lesson to the next, and later material is based ‎on understanding the early lessons.‎


Study Tip #5: Find YOUR connection to the learned material
This is perhaps the most important tip of all. If you manage to do this, the rest will seem ‎effortless and easy. All you have to do is ask yourself WHY is this course relevant to what I ‎am or what I do. It's easy when you're an African American learning African American ‎history, but trickier when learning Trigonometry or Literature. True; some classes are not ‎that relevant, and a lot of classes are chosen FOR you, not BY you. However, the trick is ‎that if you do identify with them, the rest comes very easily and effortlessly. It's easy if you ‎have a good teacher; good teachers know how to draw students to the material (did you ‎see "‎ Dead Poet Society ‎"?), but if you're not blessed with one, or are still not swayed by the teacher's efforts - that ‎job is yours to do. Try to go beyond the learned material, and into your life, your ‎aspirations, and your interests. Some history courses you'll feel are important because you ‎want to grow up and become a politician (what can we learn from what happened in the ‎‎1920's that can help us in solving today's problems?), some literature courses will teach you ‎tools to appreciate YOUR favorite books from another angle (is the escapism from "Catcher ‎in the rye" similar to what is shown in the "Harry Potter" books?), and there's no end to ‎what Math classes can do for your ability to translate everyday problems into easily ‎solvable mathematical presentations (you have NO IDEA what advantages this ability can ‎give you in your adult life, both personal and professional). Get the idea? You have to be ‎your own motivator. If you don't, every homework will be a chore and following the above ‎tips will be much much harder. If you're motivated, homework is fun (or, at least, as fun as ‎they can be...) and you'll have no problems gathering the willpower needed to change your study habits and do what's ‎necessary to improve your grades.‎


So there they were; my 5 study habit tips. For more study habits and tips, you might want to look at this additional Study Habits Guide , or just go back to sCoolWork.