You have to be joking – learning fun!

A famous scientist was on his way to a lecture in yet another university when his chauffeur offered an idea. “Hey, boss, I’ve heard your speech so many times I bet I could deliver it and give you the night off.” “Sounds great,” the scientist said. When they got to the auditorium, the scientist put on the chauffeur’s hat and settled into the back row. The chauffeur walked to the lectern and delivered the speech. Afterward he asked if there were any questions. “Yes,” said one professor. Then he launched into a highly technical question. The chauffeur was panic stricken for a moment but quickly recovered. “That’s an easy one,” he replied. “In fact, it’s so easy, I’m going to let my chauffeur answer it!”

Okay it might have made you smile rather than laugh out loud and it may not be the best joke you have ever heard, but it will have changed your mood and as a result made you more receptive to learning.

The facts

But how does this work? Dopamine is the chemical neurotransmitter most associated with attention, memory storage, comprehension, and executive function. Research indicates that the brain releases more dopamine when you play, laugh, exercise and listen to stories. (Depue and Collins 1999).

Interestingly making learning fun also reduces stress which can impede the learning process.

During periods of high stress or anxiety, functional MRI studies show increased blood flow to the “emotional” portion of the limbic system. When the amygdala (part of the limbic system) is in this state, neural activity in the rest of the brain is profoundly reduced (Xiao and Barbas 2002; Pawlak et al. 2003).

But learning is not fun!

Of course something that is fun to one person may not be fun to someone else. And what do people do to have fun? One answer to this is they play games, in fact there is a whole industry built around playing games to learn, unsurprisingly and somewhat disappointingly its called game based learning (GBL)

A game is said to have several key elements.

1. Competition – The score keeping element and/or winning conditions motivate the players and provide an assessment of their performance. Note that players are not necessarily competing against each other. In fact, a lot of games have players working as a team to overcome some obstacle or opponent.

2. Engagement - Once the learner starts, he or she does not want to stop before the game is over. This engagement is thought to come from four sources: challenge, curiosity, control, and fantasy.

3. Immediate Rewards - Players receive victory or points, sometimes even descriptive feedback, as soon as goals are accomplished

Can learning be fun, yes of course and making it into a game is a great way of doing it. It might be as simple as writing the questions for a quiz based on a subject to be examined and testing a group of friends. Setting the quiz from a learning perspective is probably better than answering the question. Keep to the rules above though, so make sure you offer a reward.

Also it might be American football, which I have to admit I don’t understand, but if you do you will love Financial Football click here to play, its a free online game with cool graphics that aims to teach money management skills.

Have a revision party

Okay the idea might sound a little of the wall but watch this short video, it looks like fun to me…

Ps the loud one is my daughter.

And the outtakes 

Want to find out more then read this article by Dr. Judy Willis who is an authority in brain research and learning.

And just for fun Dawn French and the accounting joke.

Exam stress – Mindfulness and the “7/11”

I have been aware of the term mindfulness for a few years now, but had struggled to think how it could help with exams.  That was before reading an article in the Guardian, Could beditation be the answer to exam nerves? ‘Mindfulness’ is the latest big thing in schools. What is it and why is it so popular?

In the article they describe two ways in which mindfulness may be used to help with exams. One is called the “7/11” the other bedetation.

• The “7/11” is a relaxation breathing exercise. Matching the counting to the breath, you breathe in through your nose for a count of seven, and out through your nose for a count of 11. As with many mindfulness techniques this helps focus your attention, in this instance you use the breath as an object of concentration. By focusing on the breath you become aware of the mind’s tendency to jump from one thing to another. The simple discipline of concentration brings us back to the present moment and all the richness of experience that it contains. Watch this video, it shows exactly how to do “7/11” breathing.

• Beditation is simply the process of meditation whilst lying down. Meditation might sound slightly new world, but it is of course thousands of years old. On one level meditation is a simple yet powerful technique that effortlessly allows your mind to become calm and peaceful. Which is not a bad state to be in when you’re studying or in the exam room.

What exactly is Mindfulness?

Although mindfulness has its roots in eastern philosophy, many acknowledge the work of Jon Kabat-Zinn from the Medical Centre at the University of Massachusetts as being the founder of the modern mindfulness movement. Jon Kabat-Zinn defines mindfulness as “paying attention, on purpose in the present moment non judgementally.”

If you imagine that there are two modes of attention, thinking and sensing. Attention often gets drawn to what’s wrong, what’s threatening, our attention scans for problems and this is for good reason, it is a primeval survival technique. This triggers the thinking part as you attempt to solve the problem. Now there is nothing wrong with this but the mind needs a balance and there is a time to think and a time to relax and sense.

By moving your attention to the present moment and into the sensing mode you will instantly become more relaxed. The “7/11” breathing and meditation techniques are just ways of helping you do this. Research is showing that there are huge benefits of spending some time in the sensing mode and not in the thinking mode.

Listen to this TED lecture given by Richard Burnett who is the co-founder of the Mindfulness in Schools Project (also known as .b, pronounced “dot b”), whose aim is to introduce mindfulness as a discipline in the school curriculum.

How it helps with exam stress

Stress is often created by thinking what might happen if I fail, what happens if I am not good enough, or can’t answer this question? These are all examples of the thinking state of attention. Now as I have mentioned before in a previous blog, exam stress or is it your stress to feel stressed is a perfectly natural reaction; it is the result of being faced with a challenge that initially at least, looks impossible to overcome. But in an exam it is far from helpful, often cutting off your ability to think straight and sometimes paralysing your actions.

By using the “7/11” breathing techniques before the exam, to help you feel more relaxed, during the exam to stop a panic attack taking over, and even after the exam when you begin to wonder what you should have done but didn’t, can be incredibly helpful.

And meditation can help both in the short and long run, our mental health and intellectual skills are shaped by what we do with our attention, where we place our awareness. And of course intellectual skills are vital not just in the exam but whilst studying as well.

Is it just in the mind?

Brain-imaging studies show that mindfulness meditation can reliably and profoundly alter the structure and function of the brain and produce, for example, greater blood-flow to and a thickening of the cerebral cortex in areas associated with attention and emotions. As well its impact on specific problems, mindfulness has been shown to have a very positive effect on intellectual skills, improving sustained attention, visual special memory, working memory and concentration

The National Institute for health and care excellence (Nice) are recommending mindfulness.

Watch this short video on more ways that mindfulness may help in exams.

Can ‘Mindful’ meditation increase profits?

And for the more commercial minded of you, it might even help your business increase profits. Watch this to find out more.

 

Related articles

• Mindfulness through Meditation (psychologytoday.com)
• Dispatches: Mindfulness in Society Conference 2013 (mind-revolution.org)
• You’re Distracted. This Professor Can Help. (chronicle.com)
• Mindfulness from meditation associated with lower stress hormone (prn.fm)

There’s no such thing as a stupid question – Learning by questions

The Greek philosopher Socrates was born 469 B.C in Athens, and died in 399 B.C. He is considered by many to be one of the world’s greatest thinkers. He is known for the Socratic Method and the pursuit of knowledge. The Socratic Method involves asking a series of questions until a contradiction emerges invalidating the initial assumption.

Socratic questioning does not seek to find THE answer, there are often many answers. The primary goal is to explore the contours of often difficult issues and to teach critical thinking skills. This method encourages you to go beyond the simple memorising of facts, enabling you to develop a higher level of understanding.

Socratic questions

1. Questions for clarification – Why do you say that?
2. Questions that probe assumptions – What could we assume instead?
3. Questions that probe reasons and evidence – What would be an example?
4. Questions about Viewpoints and Perspectives – What is another way to look at it?
5. Questions that probe implications and consequences – What are you implying?
6. Questions about the question – What was the point of this question?

If you can formulate a question – you have 60% of the answer
When you pass one exam the bad news is you are often faced with another. Exams at times can seem endless. But as you progress, what you are asked to do will change. When you first start studying a subject you will be asked relatively simple questions such as, what is the capital of France. To answer questions like this you need little more than a good memory. However when you get to the final level, examiners are more interested in understanding and application, not simply knowledge. What they really want you to do is think….

And so you may need to form an opinion, a view of your own. I am sure that you have many opinions now, but how informed are they, what facts support your view and how much have you thought around this view sufficient that you can deal with challenge.

This is where asking good questions can really help. When studying on your own, if you can formulate the right question you are more than half way to answering it yourself. Because to even get to this question, you will have had to think deeply about what you are trying to do, how it might work, what resources you might need, why has no one done this before etc. And only when you have thought this deeply will you be able to ask your question.

The next step is to post your question on the internet, someone will have the answer, the interesting thing is, by the time you come to do this, you may have the answer yourself!

Questions really are a great way of learning.

Judge a man by his questions rather than his answers.
Voltaire

The last word will go to Scott Adams
If there are no stupid questions, then what kind of questions do stupid people ask? Do they get smart just in time to ask questions?

Or should it!

Blogging to learn – Learn to Blog

Writing a blog can sometimes be a challenge, and sometimes a joy. Yet I have to admit I am not always sure as to my motives for writing one. Why would you want to share your thoughts on a particular subject with the world?

In years gone by it seemed everyone wrote letters or kept diaries. Now people keep in touch using social networks and only politicians keep diaries, needing them for the inevitable autobiography.
 

Never talk to strangers

Maybe blogging fills a void left by the letter writers and diarists of the past, being both a record of your thoughts and a means of communicating with others, even if you don’t know them.

Motives for blogging

There are said to be more than 180 million blog pages in existence, that sure is a lot of motivated people, but why do they bother?

Here are a few reasons and many of them are related to learning.

• Firstly It’s a great way to learn – one reason that making notes is so helpful when trying to learn is that you have to externalise your thoughts and physically write something down, blogging is no different.

• It helps clarify your thoughts – the process of writing also helps clarify exactly what you think, it gets you to question what you know, and as a result you begin to develop a deeper understanding of the subject or topic. Micro blogging (Twitter) is especially effective, not only do you need to be clear in what you want to say, you have to be incredibly concise, less than 200 characters in fact. And yes that includes spaces, full stops etc.

• It becomes a permanent record – others will of course be able to see what you have written but so can you. This means you can look back and reflect on what you thought at a point in time. A modern day diary! Published in weekly or monthly installments

• You become an expert – the more you think and write, the more you engage in something, the better you get. In order to support your views you will probably need to undertake a certain amount of research to check your facts. This again is something that will expand and deepen your knowledge. Remember you can add videos and pictures to the blog; it makes it far more interesting when you do.

• Do you have something to say – ever had a thought in your head and just needed to write it down? Ever had an opinion or a view and wanted to share it with others to get their reaction? A blog is a great medium to express your views and provides you with a much wider audience.

• You get feedback from others and intern learn from them – so having shared your view, the blog becomes a focal point for debate, allowing others to comment on what you have said. Perhaps challenging your views, teaching you new things and forcing you once more to think more deeply.

Learning blogs

You can blog about pretty much anything, but if your studying why not blog about the subjects or even the techniques you find work best when it comes to learning.

Every day you go to University, college or school you come across something new, let the events of your day inspire you. Happy Blogging!

Want to Learn more – wikis and blogs

Appy Christmas – Apps for learning

It’s always interesting writing a Blog in the holidays, maybe it’s because you have more time than normal so think you should come up with something different, dare I say original. The reality is that when you have such a large canvas on which to think, you can’t think of anything!
The answer is to narrow it down, give yourself something specific to think about. So whilst staring at my ipad for inspiration, I stopped thinking about “everything”, focused on what was on my ipad and then it happened, an idea… ..Why not write about the apps I use most and how you might use them to improve your studying, so here goes.

It’s not about the technology stupid
First a disclaimer, although technology can be all absorbing, learning is a human quality, technology in many circumstances only makes learning more convenient, you still have to work at it. What it does do is provide you with the ability to study when you want and where you want. Time that would be wasted waiting for or actually on a train/bus etc can be much more effectively used learning. How good would it be if you had finished studying before you got home?

Google calendar – Helps plan your studies
I have written before about the importance of timetables and calendars. Sitting down and planning what you will study and when not only helps you become more organised it is essential for setting targets and challenges. And remember target setting is key to motivation.

 Evernote – Organise and store notes
I am finding that I am using Evernote more and more. It is in effect a cloud based folder system. Consider setting up a folder for each subject you are studying. Then within each subject folder you can type notes, attach PDF’s, photos, maybe of places/objects/people relevant to that subject. You can even attach video. And if you want to collaborate with others just share the link. Maybe have a folder for revision with the questions you want to attempt linked via PDF, comment on what you found difficult and share with your friends. Evernote has so many uses.

Penultimate – for making hand written notes and drawing mind maps
If you prefer to write rather than type, penultimate is for you, although I don’t think there is an android version at the moment. It is part of the Evernote family and links with Evernote so is easy to use. It is just like a paper based note book with a front cover showing the subject, page numbers and has a nice page turning feel. Unlike a paper based note book however, you can change the paper, plain/lined etc, save your work, add photos, and share with others. It also has a very clever way of making sure your hand when resting on the screen does not interfere with what you are writing.

Put simply it’s the best handwriting software I have come across, and comes close to replacing paper, close but not just yet….

Dropbox – for file storage, back up and file sharing
Many of you will already be familiar with dropbox, it is free simple to use cloud based storage. Dropbox is great for saving/backing up all your files. This means that as long as you can get electronic versions of your text books and question banks you will be able to have them with you anywhere…

And you can share folders with friends.

Adobe reader – keep all PDF notes in one place and you can write on them!
This is just for Adobe PDF’s but as most documents can be turned into a PDF format that should not be a problem. Imagine having your notes in a PDF file, opening them up wherever you are and then updating them either by typing or writing on top of the PDF. You can also make margin notes that open up in a speech bubble, little reminders of what you were thinking, or additional work you need to look at.

Explain everything – become a teacher and teach yourself
Explain everything is a white board that you can add in pictures, shapes etc, and then the really clever part, record what you are doing in a high quality video. What makes this so good is how easy it is to use.

This would be ideal for working through a question, talking out loud explaining your thoughts (Explain everything will record your voice and your white board actions) and then when you get to the part that is difficult or simply don’t understand, ask your question out loud….? Then send the Mp4 file to your tutor/teacher or study colleagues for an answer. Unfortunately as with Penultimate I don t think there is an android version just yet.

Twitter – limitless knowledge and support
Twitter can get a bad press when it comes to studying, it can be very distracting! But if used properly it can be great. The key is to follow people that have answers to your problems or are like you. If you are studying accountancy for example you will find lots of tweets from experts providing you with up to date news and information often linking to more in depth guidance, websites/PDF’s etc. Twitter is the most up to date text book you can get.

Okay a word of warning; just make sure you are not too far ahead of you teachers and the exam. Also that the people you are following are credible.
The other use is to follow fellow students who are studying the same subjects as you, it can be very reassuring that you are not the only ones who doesn’t understand something.

The big secret to twitter is is very selective who you follow, delete people that are not helping and keep the list down to about 200.

Mobile
Most of these are accessible on all mobile devises and for me that is the real benefit of the technology.

Happy 2013 and more apps
Hope you are all having a good Xmas and here’s to 2013, what will be new this time next year I wonder?

Related articles

• Quick Tip Friday: 5 Ways to Accomplish Your New Year’s Resolutions with Evernote (evernote.com)

Rocky boxing No – it’s about motivation

In 1976 a relatively unknown actor, Sylvester Stallone, wrote and starred in Rocky, a film that grossed $225m and won three Oscars. What a success story, “unknown actor becomes a star overnight”. But there is another story, the story as to how Sylvester Stallone came to write the script and got to star in the film.

This is even more interesting and it’s not about boxing or Hollywood it’s about motivation.

I wrote about motivation back in January 2012, but it is so important because it impacts on your ability to study and as a result exam success I think we should explore it in more detail.

If you’re motivated you will work harder, study longer and if you study longer guess what, you significantly improve your chances of passing.

In my earlier blog I described motivation as the wants, needs and beliefs that drive an individual towards a particular goal or perceived outcome. I went on to talk specifically about goals and how to set them, but there is much more to being motivated than simply setting goals.

A structure to help with motivation

I recently came across a framework* that provides a great way to think about motivation.

Engage – with yourself

Firstly ask yourself a few simply questions. How come you have got this far, what has been your motivation, what is it you want and why do you think that passing this exam will help you? Okay the idea of talking to yourself might seem odd, but trust me its normal.

If you can identify what it is that has motivated so far and there will be something, you can use it to motivate yourself even more.

Stallone recognised in himself a hunger to be an actor; he fed that hunger because he knew that it would help him succeed.

Structure

This is where the goal setting fits in. Set yourself a goal, exactly how to do this is described in detail in my January blog. Click here motivation – how to want to study.

Most thoughts and ideas have structure, motivation is no different.

Stallone clearly had a goal, it was vivid, very much within his control and positive, something he wanted as appose to something he didn’t want.

Relevance

Ask why is this goal important to me? What will it give me that I don’t have now? Repeat the questions several times, what pictures do you see?

The goals that you set have to be relevant to you, they have to have meaning for you, they are personal.

There was something that made wanting to be an actor highly relevant for Stallone. From this story we are not exactly sure what it is, just that it was powerful.

Beliefs

What do you believe about yourself, do you believe you’re clever or not? Do you believe you should pass? What do you believe will make the difference to your exam success?

Beliefs are probably the most important element of motivation. As Henry Ford once said “Whether you believe you can do a thing or not, you are right.” Challenge what you believe and ask yourself one very simple question – Does this belief help me achieve my goal or not – if not change it!

Stallone had a huge amount of self belief; he first turned down $250k, said no to $325k and finally accepted $35! Ask yourself would you have done that, honestly I don’t think I would.

Listen to Tony Robbins tell the Stallone story

Click this link to hear Tony Robbins, I would recommend you listen, it’s well worth it.

 

 

 

*A framework for motivation – Motivational Drivers, Alan McLean

Seped rdeiang – speed verses comprehension

Woody Allen on speed reading

I was asked recently by a student if there was anything they could do to speed up the way that they read. As a student there are many situations where it would be great if you could read more quickly.