StudyRight helps students evaluate how well they’re studying, not just understand new techniques. The following five questions every student needs to answer help give a framework for understanding what effective students need to know to achieve higher levels of student success.
1. What is my opportunity?
Successful students recognize opportunity when they see it.
They are motivated. They set goals. They can see the desired end, and they know why they are heading there. Dr. Weinstein led some Ph.D. work that proved this point. If you are interested in the material, check out the LASSI self-assessment. It’s extremely helpful.
2. How does an idea work?
Ideas make the world move.
Not every idea. Some ideas just sit there. They take up mental space, collect dust, waste tinkerers time.
Ideas in action change the world. Ideas in action cure cancer, create automobiles, and harness clean energy. Ideas in action find jobs for the unemployed, rescue families from debt, and find homes for puppies. They put people on the moon. They bring freedom to the oppressed.
Ideas in action start movements.
Education is all about ideas. Not facts. Not memorization. Ideas.
Successful students understand how ideas work, can follow the flow, and put that flow back on a test. Teachers are happy, students are happy, and the world keeps moving forward.
3. What makes an effective study session?
Successful students live and die on their study sessions.
Great study sessions leave students feeling sure of themselves. Their brains hurt. They’re tired. But the responsible adult inside all of them feels great.
Terrible study sessions guarantee an increased viewership of “Parks and Recreation” next week. Both activities accomplish little, but your attitude is much better after watching Ron Swanson eat two steaks than it is after a failed study session.
Study sessions will make or break a student. Successful students learn how to answer this question.
4. Does my lifestyle set me up for success?
Saved by the Bell was wrong – jocks and scholars aren’t that different.
Americans have believed– whether we realized it or not – that you can compartmentalize your life. Your internet life never meets your ‘real life.’ Your family life never meets your school life. Your school friends never meet your church friends.
Then parents got Facebook.
Welcome to the reality that you are a single person. And I’m not just talking about internet/school/family personas.
Your physical condition affects your emotional condition, affects your mental condition, affects your relational condition, affects your physical condition.
Consider depression. Sometimes chemical imbalances cause depression. Sometimes you haven’t slept in a week. Sometimes you got dumped by a girlfriend while proposing at a Yankees game. If that’s you, you should be depressed.
Successful students think about their whole life, not just their academic success.
5. Can I do the tasks required of me?
Some things in life just require the right know how. I don’t know how to fly a plane, scuba dive, change a my truck’s transmission, or build a salt-water aquarium.
But I could learn.
Successful students recognize that some tasks are hard just because they haven’t learn a good technique to get it finished. If you know what you have to do, you can find out how to do it.
These are just 5 simple questions, but they make a world of difference in the life of a student. If you can’t answer them right now, don’t worry. We have resources to help you in the journey of finding greater student success. The real question is, “When do you want to start that journey?”
