Video: How to do Well in College?
Summary:
“Do not work hard. Work smart.”
Three Main Ideas:
1. Before class: Do the PRE-READING and take notes
2. During class: FOCUS and TAKE NOTES
3. After class: Spend 15 mins REVISING your notes
Interesting video. Nothing new but all common sense. However, common sense of how effective learning happens has become rare among many college students (and even teachers).
If you are a college teacher:
Send/Email pre-reading materials, articles, videos, etc. May be once a week or twice a week. Before you start a new topic or a chapter.
Start a class with a quick quiz based on the material you had sent.
Or, ask a few of the students to share their summary or insights based on the pre-readings.
Or, pre-assign a couple of students to present their understanding
Or, attach a quiz on your email and every student has to respond before they come to the class.
Make sure you are sending the pre-readings with an intention. If it adds unnecessary burden or provides irrelevant information or doesn’t make the students come prepared for the class, don’t send them at all.
In the class, tell the students when and how to take notes. Show them a strategy. Give them a model.
For instance, in my MBA class, I ask students to “not take notes until I say so”.
Or click a picture of the slides.
I pause occasionally and give them 30 secs to a couple of minutes to recall and write notes.
Usually, I end my classes with a written reflection.
And if there’s a question, they can ponder over it and we can deal with it in the next class.Try to create a distraction free class. :) One of my instructions (non-negotiables) is “Make your phones invisible” and when they need to make/take a call, they can go outside of the classroom.
If you are a college student:
Just like the video suggests, always go in prepared. Pre-tasks or pre-readings help you “predict” what’s going to happen in the class. If there are no pre-tasks assigned by your teacher, at least go through the lesson objectives or themes.
Do not multi-task at all. Every time you multitask (like, check your phone while your teacher is doing a presentation), the chances are you will miss the important bits.
Don’t take your phone out or start doodling because you think your class is boring. May be you this preconceived notion that the class is boring and thus you take your phone out. May be you are not bored. You are lost or confused.
Take notes. You might believe that you will “remember” the stuffs because your teacher explained the concept so smoothly, but you are simply suffering from the “illusion of knowing”.
Write them down. There are some studies that found out that hand written notes are way more effective than notes taken on your laptop or other devices.
Remember to revise. Don’t just take notes. Go through them at least once after the class.
Hope this was helpful !