study skills - Blogs - DPG Community2024-03-28T08:28:34Zhttps://community.dpgplc.co.uk/blog/feed/tag/study+skillsModernise your study approachhttps://community.dpgplc.co.uk/blog/modernise-your-study-approach2018-05-25T10:53:32.000Z2018-05-25T10:53:32.000ZGary Norrishttps://community.dpgplc.co.uk/members/GaryNorris<div><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/125317011?profile=RESIZE_400x&width=400"></div><div><p>During my day job, I’m focussed on empowering students to get the qualification they desire. Rather than give students a prescriptive answer, I try to help them learn how to a find answers so that when I’m not online they still have tools to achieve – it’s all about study skills. Is ‘study skills’ even the right phrase or does that conjure up flashbacks of GCSE revision where teachers would tell you to build in to your schedule enough time to look at the crumbly old ‘study skills’ workbook issued to all students since the beginning of time (or was that just at my school?).</p>
<p><em>Yeah, like I’ve got time to study for a dozen or so GCSEs, watch telly AND you’re giving me extra stuff to read! Nah.</em></p>
<p>Later in life though, as a twenty-something, I started my CIPD studies. It eventually dawned on me that I was able to commit information to memory when it was given to me in a particular way. I started using mind maps, recording myself talking about a subject, making my own acronyms as memory aids, I had post it notes all over the kitchen – the usual stuff. It worked. The moral of the story: it is never too late for study skills.</p>
<p>There is plenty of advice on study skills out there so I won’t go over old (but useful) ground. Neither will I give you a ‘Gary’s opinionated guide to learning’.</p>
<p><strong>Instead, what I’ve tried to do here is curate some up to date tools and (slightly unusual) ideas that could appeal to the neophile in you</strong> <strong>and help upskill your study ability.</strong></p>
<ol>
<li>Take a holiday… from Facebook. A new paper in the <em>Journal of Social Psychology</em> showed a reduction in stress levels as a result of a break from Facebook. Less stress has to be good to keep you clear on study goals, right? <a href="https://digest.bps.org.uk/2018/04/26/taking-a-mere-five-day-break-from-facebook-will-lower-your-physiological-stress-levels-researchers-claim/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Click here</a> to read more.</li>
<li>If taking a break from distractions grabs your interest. Did you know that there are apps out there that will give you surprisingly decent material rewards (in the shape of credits you can spend) for taking time away from your phone? Take a look at the <a href="https://www.holdstudent.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Hold</a> and <a href="https://www.forestapp.cc/en/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Forest</a> apps.</li>
<li>OK, so this next article isn’t strictly about study skills, but I didn’t want this to be just another study skills post. Take a look at some detrimental effects of being a night owl by <a href="https://news.sky.com/story/nocturnal-night-owls-risk-early-death-study-finds-11327054" target="_blank" rel="noopener">clicking here</a> to see some (extreme) associated risks.</li>
<li>Following on from point three, if you are going to stay up with anything – stay up to date with the pop culture as this could help avoid negative moods. This will require a balance to points one and two, so I’ll leave that to you to work out. <a href="https://bps.us11.list-manage.com/track/click?u=ef6b58887f03b7e6e6ae5b2b9&id=624ce339c8&e=8bf9ad0101" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Click here</a> to find out about a ‘series of creative experiments’ on this subject reported in <em>Psychology of Popular Media Culture</em>.</li>
<li>Can the way you type help? <a href="http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/d-brief/2018/05/02/one-space-two-space-red-space-blue-space/#.WurybIjt6Uk" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Click here</a> to see a new paper from researchers at Skidmore College that provides some (extremely mild) evidence that leaving two spaces after a typed sentence can help information retention.</li>
</ol>
<p>I could go on all day, but you have studying to do ;)</p>
<p>So instead I’ll finish there and I’m going to follow up this post next week with more twists on the usual study skills. Get your think on.</p>
</div>Stress at work is good, apparently... sometimeshttps://community.dpgplc.co.uk/blog/stress-at-work-is-good-apparently-sometimes2018-01-29T14:26:38.000Z2018-01-29T14:26:38.000ZGary Norrishttps://community.dpgplc.co.uk/members/GaryNorris<div><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2217485?profile=RESIZE_400x&width=400"></div><div><p>Stress at work is good, apparently ... sometimes</p>
<p>This all depends on the mindset of the individual:</p>
<p><em>"For employees with a positive stress mindset, there was an association between expecting a larger workload and taking more proactive steps to cope... But for those with a negative stress mindset, this association was reversed"</em></p>
<p>So says the article 'What's your stress mindset?' at digest.bps.org.uk</p>
<p>I've radically shortened that paragraph from the original source as I really want you to want to read the full article. It talks about a recent study at the University of Mannheim led by Anne Casper, where it was shown that stress wasn't so much the pivotal factor in motivation and energy levels at work but more so the mindset the individual has towards stress. </p>
<p><em>"Casper and her colleagues said their new results show the benefits that could come from raising people’s awareness of the concept of stress mindset. Promisingly, they said there is <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23437923">some evidence</a> that people can be helped to develop a positive stress mindset."</em></p>
<p><a href="https://digest.bps.org.uk/2018/01/05/whats-your-stress-mindset/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Read the article on The British Psychological Society website be clicking here</a></p>
<p> </p>
<p>One of the things I appreciate about these BPS article is the critical thinking approach: towards the end of the articles there is generally an evaluation of the data where caveats and limitations are acknowledged. If I could make an additional recommendation to anyone <em>studying</em> at DPG it is to look at how they do this to evaluate any research they present. As students, having the ability to do this can make a huge difference to the standard of your submissions.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>P.S. Another thing I noticed is that, when I used the word 'stress' to search for an accompanying image to this post, almost all the images depict stress as a negative thing. Should that now change?</p>
<p>There were also a <em>lot</em> of images of fidget spinners, but let's not go there.</p>
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