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The Psychology of Being a Great Student
using Psychology to master learning
Psychology is the study of the human mind and behavior. At this point in your life you are a student
attending school every day. This is your primary, human responsibility. How is your mind working as a scholar
and what behavior are you daily displaying? Have you ever sat in class and not had a clue about what or how to
learn? Have you ever sat in a class and only heard the teacher saying ‘blah, blah, and blah, blah’? Do your
parents expect you to earn higher grades than you are? Have you ever waited until Sunday night to tackle your
homework – only to discover that you are not focused and you do not have enough time to complete it all? Does
everyone assume you know how to be a good, even a great student, but you sit there clueless, wondering how
that person next to you earned such a high grade and even handed in all of their homework perfectly completed?
Now, don’t tune out as if I were writing ‘blah, blah, and blah, blah’. You might be a good student, but there are
skills involved in being a good student that psychology can teach you. Maybe you can even improve your skills
and grades just in time for college using a few of these basic psychology concepts.
Why Do We Remember Some Things and Forget Others: Because our brain’s frontal cortex decides
what we are interested in. The frontal cortex is the smart part of our brain. Our frontal cortex sparks alive and
listens to any information that we can relate to. We already have what is called a frame of reference. In
psychology there is a term called self-referent encoding, or levels of processing model, which means we learn
what we think is important to us. Think about this for a moment, you learn what you are already interested in.
You already knew this! If I told you the combination to a safe that had ten million dollars in it, I’m sure you
could remember the numbers quite easily – even if you had to work hard to remember them. What we care
about we remember – it is a basic truism. Since you are daily committed to attending school and you want to
have a great and intelligent future – you simply have to Care about what you are hearing in each and every
class. I know it is easier said than done but sometimes you have to psych yourself up as if you had a cheering
audience in your head saying “Yes, I will learn this ‘Geometry’ and this ‘Theory of Black Holes’!” You have
the ability to make yourself care about stuff when you want to. Luckily, you chose some of your classes,
especially your AP classes. If you hate a subject, don’t take the course and torture yourself. If you are forced to
take a course and you don’t like it, then I strongly suggest you try to have the best attitude possible after all a
grade, success or failure is at stake. If you like a subject, then act like it. If you do not like the class, Psych
yourself up you; determine what you care about which is success, and dive into your future. The class will only
last a predetermined amount of time … not a lifetime. You can use your frontal cortex to learn anything.
Using Psychology to Study – There was once a Russian psychologist, Ivan Pavlov, who trained dogs to
salivate to a bell instead of meat. Since the dog associated food with the ringing of a bell, he drooled whenever
he heard the bell. In psychology this is called classical conditioning. You can use classical conditioning in
your study habits. Find something reliable to which associate productive studying and use it every time you
work to get into a learning ‘zone.’ You can choose a particular room; a specific space; regular time; a special
light or certain style of music for different subjects. For example, if you have a really long novel to read, play
the same music every time you return to the reading. When you associate your studying with something
reliable, you can turn on learning more easily. Did you know that if you study when you are tired, and then you
go to take an exam and you are all hyper from food or coffee, you will forget when you studied? Have you ever
sat down to take a test and forgotten everything you thought you had learned? This is called mood congruent
learning. So in other words, take that test according to the mood you were in when you studied: tired, awake,
happy, sad, frustrated, or full of energy. If you cannot listen to music or watch television when taking an exam –
then do not listen to nor watch something when studying! Remember mood congruent learning and the
information studied will simply flow into the exam and you will be successful.
Another famous psychologist, B.F. Skinner, was famous for training pigeons to play the piano and to even
discern the difference between great works of art. He did so using operant conditioning, meaning he rewarded
the pigeons with food for pecking pictures or the keys on a piano. Imagine if you could train yourself to enjoy
and master the art of studying by simply rewarding yourself. Set a goal for yourself, accomplish it and then
give yourself a reward: ice cream, television, Facebook, exercise, time with friends or simply spacing out.
Whatever reward works for you, then do it. Break up your assignments and even give yourself a schedule of
reinforcement for every chunk you have completed. If you wait until Sunday night to finish all of your work,
there will be no time for a reward, just punishment. Punishment does not change behavior according to
operant conditioning it just makes people feel frustrated and like a loser.
Memory psychologists have found that studying in smaller segments of time over the week will help you score
better on tests. Instead of studying for 90 minutes for your next test, study for 25 minutes on 3 separate
occasions before the test. You gain an extra 15 minutes of free time. Studies have shown that students who do
this score better! Repeat – you earn an extra 15 minutes for free time. It is a win-win strategy. In addition, there
is something called the Primary and Recency Effect. In memory psychology Primary means first (like primary
school) and thus we remember what we studied first. Recency means most recent, and thus we remember best
what we most recently studied. Have you ever started to study and everything is going well, then you get
overwhelmed and you begin to space out? Then before the test you very quickly cram the rest the last of the
material. On the day of the test, what happens? You remember some (Primary) (Recency) and a whole lot of
the material in the middle is totally gone! And so is your grade! Break up the material into that 25 minute cycle
and you will recall more material and even gain those 15 minutes for a wonderful prize - reinforcement.
New research into the brain and learning also gives us a few additional psychological tips. Let’s say you have a
procrastination problem. In other words you put things off until the last minute. One little trick that can help
you is as soon as the assignment is given, maybe right there in class, review the material. Our brains need a
network to learn, a file cabinet of sorts, to input the information and thus to remember it. This is called a
schematic framework. By flipping through the pages, after inspecting the assignment, you are actually creating
this schematic framework. Later that when you sit down to study the information goes into the right place in
your brain. Another Neuro psychological insight is, as you study, consciously stop every so often, and in your
brain daydream for a moment, then visualize placing that information into the brain’s filing system, the
schematic framework. We all drift away from our focus at times, but it is usually a meaningless distraction. By
consciously daydreaming learning is guaranteed because we are organizing the information and can then later
readily find it.
We have also learned from Neuro psychology that encoding into the schematic framework requires repetition.
Sometimes, once is not enough to truly learn something. So, you must practice the new knowledge at least a few
times. You can do this by asking lots of questions in class. You can try to make the material meaningful to you
by connecting to something already stored in your brain and in your personal experiences. You can Google the
term or question and explore it in a different way. Just the act of goggling reinforces the learned concept. Make
an analogy even if it is silly or perverse. Yes perverse! The stranger the association is the more contrary, the
more ridiculous, the better the encoding and thus the learning. Another way of encoding that is worth
repeating: using the internet. Just the act of searching and typing key terms or names into reinforces learning.
You might find some cool, strange and funny new ways of understanding what you are learning. Most
YouTube videos are short, so it really doesn’t take that much time. Just don’t let yourself get distracted … stay
focused on your goal. Imagine that you are trying to understand derivatives in math. If you type “derivatives”
into YouTube you never know what you can learn. In psychology, type Freud or Skinner. In history, type
Kennedy or Roosevelt. In science try Pasteur or Mendel. Science has shown that this is leads to maximum
learning with minimal effort. To easily learn material using repetition, Work with a partner! Remember when
you were young and mom helped you on vocabulary quizzes? This verbalization really works. It is called
rehearsal and we have already learned that we have to practice and repeat to actually learn or encode; just like
any skill, sport or hobby we actually love to practice. When you work with a partner, you never know what the
question will be, thus, the surprise element, the perverse aspect, jogs your brain in such a way that you better
remember the facts, or the material so much better.
Organize – Yes school takes up so much of your personal time, but so does everyone’s work in the real world.
You deserve to have fun and the personal time to blossom into a happy and beautiful person. But this cannot
happen if you are not well organized. Keep a calendar and daily visit the teacher’s web site. Most teachers
work very hard to assure that you have all of the information required to be a successful student. Stay on top of
their class calendars and their assignment pages. Write the information into your own organized calendar. Plan
your week carefully with a clear consciousness that choose to be well organized and successful. Organize your
time so that responsibilities, school work, are accomplished first. Of course, following all of the above
techniques learned from the field of psychology: break up your study schedule; keep a regular schedule; take
time to reflect; reinforce your accomplishments; pursue material before studying; practice, practice and
repeat. When your work is finished, play time can begin and play is ever more fun when you do not carry the
guilt of work left undone or done poorly. And what do we love – fun and fun in the sun with all of our dearest
friends!
Finally, it is your Education; Teachers are paid to educate you! You must commit to and demand a good
education, even if you have to rearrange the process yourself. Ask questions until the confusion is clarified.
Discuss your misunderstandings with the teacher and fellow students until you get it. People say that there is not
a stupid question, so believe it! Ask a million questions until you no longer feel stupid. Meet with the teacher,
develop a personal connection. Life is all about having a personal connection with others. It is a fact that if you
struggle with a subject you will have to work harder than everyone else. You may need additional tutoring and
support and you must seek it. There are many available resources for you – take advantage of them – if you
want to be successful! There is an old adage in psychology: you are only as sick as your secrets! This means
once you tell the world your secret: “I do not understand. I am struggling. I feel stupid” then you are not sick
but you become stronger. Your weakness becomes your strength and you choose to become a successful person
who strives for excellence not hidden angst, because you are no longer hiding from the truth. Communication
is the key. Talk, talk, talk, to everyone about your challenges and how to overcome them, someone will give
the right advice. Talk to your parents, talk to your teacher, talk to your counselor, talk to your friends about how
to tackle your struggles to achieve all that you know you want to accomplished in your own very beautiful, and
personally incredible life. Welcome to AP Psychology – the study of the human mind and behavior!
(Structural credit given to world famous AP Psychology Teacher Mr. C)