Forget what you know about Study Habits
pretzellogic
December 22, 2010, 10:36 AM posted in General DiscussionI suspect this is why shadowing is at least partially effective.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/07/health/views/07mind.html?pagewanted=all
pretzellogic
December 22, 2010, 12:23 PMFor those of us that are data driven:
What matters? Variation, timing, and performance. Students learn better when presented varied material in varied settings. Students do better when spacing out their studying, coming back to the topic multiple times. And students do better when they have to put what they’ve learned into practice, for example, through practice exams or studying one day and getting tested a subsequent day rather than simply two days of studying material.
maybe we should create our own exams.
http://blogs.plos.org/neuroanthropology/2010/09/13/from-good-study-habits-to-better-teaching/
a good summary of some of the thinking about ingrained study habits as well as the teaching of courses.
pretzellogic
December 22, 2010, 12:37 PMAnother paragraph summary from the same articles in the links above:
Varying the type of material studied in a single sitting — alternating, for example, among vocabulary, reading and speaking in a new language — seems to leave a deeper impression on the brain than does concentrating on just one skill at a time. Musicians have known this for years, and their practice sessions often include a mix of scales, musical pieces and rhythmic work. Many athletes, too, routinely mix their workouts with strength, speed and skill drills.
pretzellogic
December 22, 2010, 02:49 PMFrom the original NY Times article. It appears that we're lucky; language learning seems to be a focus of some of the cited quotes.
But individual learning is another matter, and psychologists have discovered that some of the most hallowed advice on study habits is flat wrong. For instance, many study skills courses insist that students find a specific place, a study room or a quiet corner of the library, to take their work. The research finds just the opposite. In one classic 1978 experiment, psychologists found that college students who studied a list of 40 vocabulary words in two different rooms — one windowless and cluttered, the other modern, with a view on a courtyard — did far better on a test than students who studied the words twice, in the same room. Later studies have confirmed the finding, for a variety of topics.
HongKongNik
December 22, 2010, 04:27 PM
Very interesting read! Thx for sharing!
It seems my way of "mobile studying" actually makes sense. I am constantly on the move and I like to make use of every minute. So I study my vocab and sentence patterns while on the way to work, while waiting in a queue or on the plane. The NYT article suggest this helps slowing down forgetting things. Yaay for that! :)
But I also understand from that article that the type of exercises or exams should be varied so you don't know the strategy to use before you read the problem. That's certainly something I need to improve. Maybe there is a way to bring more variation to the exercises CPod offers with every lesson. How do you guys do that?
pretzellogic
I'm with you there on the last part. I'm not sure what we should really be mixing up though. The Times article implies that maybe merely reading the dialogues in Chinese only, along with speaking them from memory would be the way to go. Also, buying Chinese newspapers and reading them on the bus/train/plane would be helpful. All doing these things on the go.
pretzellogic
October 26, 2011, 11:03 AMAnother data driven article about effective study habits, this time from the Wall Street Journal.
pretzellogic
December 22, 2010, 12:21 PMhttp://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/everybody-is-stupid-except-you/201009/study-habits-the-times