On the first day of class, I often shared my list of “Six tips for success in school.”  With the start of a new academic year upon us, I fondly recall former students who made great efforts to do well in class after hearing my simple suggestions.  I realize now that these life-changing tips can be applied to situations outside the hallowed halls of high school.

Spoiler alert and disclaimer:  The list contains eight tips, not six!  A list of six tips is 25% less daunting than a list of eight, especially on the first day of a new class.  I tricked my eager students by sneaking in two unnumbered tips at the end of the presentation.  So, if you have only counted six tips after reading this series of posts, perhaps you should have paid more attention!

Tip #1: Study actively

Information is more likely to be understood and retained if active studying modalities are employed and passive studying is minimized.  Passive studying is a trap—it wastes time and tricks diligent students into thinking they are well-prepared for a test.  When a student’s grade on an assessment is lower than the student expected, he or she may get dejected and deflated.  “But I studied so much,” was a remark I heard repeatedly from well-meaning students for 17 years.  I never heard a student say, “I studied as passively as possible so I could earn a disappointing grade.” 

Students do not study passively on purpose.  It is crucial for students to recognize habits that are passive and replace them with active ones. 

Consider my least favorite study skill: highlighting.  A student might consider highlighting a form of active studying because his or her hand is actively moving a marker across a page.  After hours of highlighting, the student thinks knowledge has been retained—in reality, the student’s brain could have been off-task the entire time! 

Suzie Throckmorton (a fictitious student) actively highlights key figures in her AP US History text for Mrs. Willcox’s class, but Suzie doesn’t realize she is daydreaming about an upcoming vacation.  Her five-year old sister, Sally, could be rewarded for highlighting those same names and not be able to tell you anything about history.  Suzie expects a reward on her history assessment after hours of highlighting, but she let her brain off the hook by using such a passive method of learning.  She loses motivation to study after earning a D+ on her first US History test and thinks about dropping Mrs. Willcox’s award-winning AP class. 

To turn this coloring activity into something productive, Suzie must first realize that she is studying passively.  Asking herself the question, “could Sally do this?” might be one way to sort out passive from active studying.  If five-year old Sally was familiar with the alphabet, she could probably copy an entire paragraph from the history book and not know anything about the topic.  Highlighting and copying are therefore passive. 

Suzie could make a list of key historic events from the reading and note causes or consequences of each in her notebook.  When she reviews the material later, it will be more meaningful because it is in her own words.  As Suzie reads, she could jot down new terminology and return to this list to ensure full comprehension of the material.  By the same token, Suzie could generate a list of questions that might be asked on an assessment.  If she were to ask, “could Sally do this?” Suzie would realize that she was indeed studying actively—she employed skills that her young sister does not possess.  These techniques force her brain to pay more attention and actively synthesize knowledge in a meaningful way.  It is also a check on her level of focus—if Suzie has just read ten pages of history and did not write anything new in her notebook, it’s possible that she zoned out and wasn’t paying attention to the reading. 

Adopting habits to improve our health and wellness yields more results if we actively employ our new life changes.  For many years, I was not seeing significant improvement in my fitness.  Thinking I was increasing the weight and reps each time I exercised resulted in years of wasted gym time.  At age 44, I now see improvement in my strength I could have seen years ago had I been willing to actively take notes during my workout.  I exert more pressure on the weights over time (progressive overload), and this has resulted in markedly increased strength over the last year.  This transformation has only been possible because I actively write down the numbers (weight and reps) associated with each set of exercises. 

There are times when I wonder why my apartment is still messy, even after months of pandemic isolation.  I must be honest with myself and admit I have been cleaning passively and not actively.  I thoughtlessly move piles of junk around, like young Sally could do.  If I actively ask questions like, “why do I still have this collection of keychains from 1994?” or “do I need four dark grey sweaters?” perhaps some of my excess will find its way to the trash or to goodwill.  Until I am willing to change my passive behavior, I will continue to live in a cluttered apartment.

Suzie is earning higher grades on her history assessments and loves Mrs. Willcox’s AP US History class more and more each week.  I look forward to going to the gym more than I have in the past because I now see results.  In each case, passive habits were replaced with active ones that changed the status quo.  Tasks become more enjoyable when positive results are observed; frustrating situations become success stories when we work actively toward progress.