Sometimes, it’s far too easy to fall into a passive style of study and working up the motivation or developing the skills to become an active learner can seem like a daunting task. But, given a few tips and tricks, you will hopefully be one step closer to achieving that desired grade.
Find Your Optimal Environment – Test out a variety of study places to find the one that suits you best and maximizes your efficiency in a given time frame. Try studying in the library, at home, a computer lab, or outside both alone and with a study group. Once you find your ideal place, try playing around with your courses in a variety of environments until you have a study plan tailored to you.
Make a Structured Study Schedule – If you know that the next couple of weeks are going to be busy with midterms, projects and papers, plan ahead! Set out specific blocks of time in which you are going to be studying for a particular class, and also set up times for quick study breaks. If you often find yourself taking extra breaks to get a snack, keep some next to you so that you don’t have to disrupt concentration.
Prevent Procrastination – First, identify what distracts you most while studying, then remove those distractors from your study area to where you will not have convenient contact with them. If the distraction is related to a computer, but you need it to do work with, then install a program which sets a permitted amount of time to use that particular website before it shuts down. Or, just simply ask a friend or family member to check in on you to make sure you are on track. If the distraction is within the environment, such as a roommate, then look back to the first point and decide whether you need to change environments.
Practice Positive Self-Talk – This may seem like a very cheesy thing to do, but engaging in positive self-talk will give you the confidence you need to stay active and motivated when studying gets hard. You are intelligent, you can achieve any goal, nothing will stop you-come what may.
Sleep – Often ignored by work-overloaded students, sleep is the most important – and easiest – way to maintain energy and motivation for active learning while hitting the books. Even if your schedule is far too demanding to get a solid eight hours every night, have short naps throughout the day. Just a 20 minute nap can make a world of difference to how you feel for the rest of the day, but be sure to have an alarm set!
PSYC 208 - Learning Environment 