Part 3
7.
Successful students understand that actions affect learning. Successful
students know their personal behavior affect their feelings and emotions that
in turn can affect learning.
If you act
in a certain way that normally produces particular feelings, you will begin to
experience those feelings. Act like you’re bored, and you’ll become bored. Act
like you’re disinterested, and you’ll become disinterested. So the next time
you have trouble concentrating in the classroom, “act” like an interested person:
lean forward, place your feet flat on the floor, maintain eye contact with your
professor, nod occasionally, take notes, and ask questions. Not only will you
benefit directly from your actions, your classmates and professor may also get
more excited and enthusiastic.
8.
Successful students talk about what they’re learning. Successful get to know
something well enough that they can put it into words. Talking about something,
with friends or classmates, isn’t only for checking whether or not you know
something, it’s a proven learning tool. Transferring ideas into words provides
the most direct path for moving knowledge from short-term to long-term memory.
You really don’t “know” material until you can put it into words. So, that next
time you study, don’t do it silently. Talk about notes, problems, readings,
etc. with your friends, recite to a chair organize an oral study group, pretend
your teaching your peers. “Talk-learning” produces a whole host of memory
traces that result in more learning.
