UCLAtte

They know enough who know how to learn. 

Hopefully, this post will provide you a partial answer to two questions mentioned above. 

The pyramid below shows how much we remember by participating in certain activities. To quickly sum it up: We learn the most by teaching others. 

Learning is a skill. It can be acquired and improved. Following methods and tips have been proven to be efficient when it comes to learning:

Do not learn by heart, sooner or later you’ll forget what you’ve learned

Have a positive approach

Take good notes (write neatly, use colors)

Use more or all of your senses

Underline only key words and cruical terms (approx. 10% - 20% of text)

Make a study plan

Do your homework

Divide topic into groups, systems, visualize it, make it more familiar

Make associations

Try to understand what you are learning

Participate in class if you can

Ask your teacher if you don’t understand

Be focused when studying

When studying take breaks (30-50 mins)

Write questions and then answer it

Be active when studying - make mind-maps, graphs, tables, summary of notes …

Repeat, at first more oftenly and then less.

Make sure you study somewhere where there are minimal amount of distraction and where you feel comfortable.

Every person has its own unique style of studying, so not everything will work for everyone. You have to figure out what style suits you. What I’ve written above is only a few of things you can do to memorize and learn things easier. In the end the outcome of learning is dependant on learner’s mental abilities, motivation, feelings, phyisical state, environment, family, friends and school. 

Tutorial: how to make a study schedule.

Make a reference sheet with separate lists for each subject. This reference sheet is used to orient your daily studying.

List the material you need to study for each subject. Be more specific than you would be on a study schedule and make sure you put down everything you need to go over.

On your schedule, highlight the exam dates and deadlines and put down any relevant information. (Get the template here)

Using your reference sheet, assign certain material to go through each day.

Scheduling tips

If you haven’t been working on study material throughout the semester; schedule days before your study leave to work on study sheets for revision, flash cards, summaries, whatever you use to study. 

Take a day to gather your study material before your study leave begins. Like the weekend classes end or so. This will save you a lot of time when you sit down to study every day.

Schedule your studying so that you start studying for the last final first, and the first final last. Make sure you start this early enough to give yourself time to revise for the subjects you need to.

If you have a day between each of your finals, take the night of the final off and revise for the next exam the day after. If not, take the couple of hours after your exam off then revise for the next one.

Schedule the harder/heavier material in a subject first, so that you work on that material when you have more energy.

If you’re taking subjects that you have difficulty with, or subjects with a heavy workload; schedule catch up days. However, don’t let that encourage you to slack off. Try to stick to your schedule and only rely on the catch up days if you really need to, and if you don’t; then it’s a day off!

Also, schedule days off… a day or if you can’t afford it, half a day. I can’t stress how important it is to take time for yourself, it’ll help you avoid burnout. 

Disclaimer: this is the way I’ve been making study schedules since I started college. By no means am I claiming it’s perfect or that everybody should follow it.

Who’s Alex?

As we now know the Earth is round. Therefore, the challenge of any world map is to represent a round Earth on a flat surface. There are literally thousands of map projections and each has certain strengths and corresponding weaknesses, but the one you’re now picturing in your head most likely isn’t the area accurate representation.

The most widely used map today is the Mercator projection map. Mercator maps often appear in businesses, in libraries and in classrooms where geography is taught. This popularity is surprising, given the fact that the Mercator projection was first constructed in 1569. The more accurate representation of land mass is the Peters Projection Map:

Here’s a direct representation of the previously assumed factual map with the real flattened version:

The Peters Projection Map shows how Africa is larger than the combination of China, the US, Western Europe, India, Argentina, three Scandinavian countries and the British Isles. 

Mercator maps show Europe as being larger than South America. In reality, South America is almost twice the size of Europe. Alaska appears to be three times larger than Mexico, although Mexico actually is larger than Alaska. Greenland looks roughly the same size as Africa, when, in fact, Africa is fourteen times larger than Greenland. Africa also looks considerably smaller than Russia, even though Africa is actually 33% larger.

To see how big the western countries have become, it’s hard to see how this has nothing to do with suppression; to make us believe they are ‘bigger’ and ‘on top’. A simple change in the look of a map can cause a reconsideration of your fixed ideas about a place.

Bonus:

The world turned upside down.

No. Here’s my advice for you, if you’re in high school: Don’t worry about your job or career at this point. Try as many things as possible. If you want to make radio, make radio. If you want to join a band, join a band. Be curious, be open, don’t be locked in. Take a job to make some money but don’t worry about what it is. I worked in a swim club and read books for a summer. It was fun.