How to Study?A Simplified learning approach

8/7/2015Mounir Rafik Aziz Maurice

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Outline

About the Author

What is studying?

The problems we face when studying and its outcome

Steps of studying

1st Step: Planning

2nd Step: The actual study

3rd Step: Summarizing and reporting processes

Key notes on successful learning

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About the AuthorMounir Rafik Aziz Maurice is a graduate of the Arab Academy of Sciences and Technology & Maritime Transport in Alexandria, who majored in accounting and finance with a minor in business administration.

He is a 23 years old accountant, at KPMG Hazem Hassan auditing and consulting firm, who lives currently in the city of El Giza.

His favorite hobbies are drawing, playing video games, listening to music and exploring the vast world of knowledge.

Message of the author“Dear friends,

I would like to welcome you as this is my first time to write a message to my dear audience. I’ m sending this message to tell you the importance of seeking knowledge and always learn new things whenever is possible.

We are all familiar with the quote of “knowledge is power”, but we don’t believe it until we are faced with a situation, where we regret things we should’ve learned in the past.

It is important for us to know that each and every piece of information we acquire through formal and informal learning, is a building block used in our pyramid of knowledge and experience, hence reflecting our true identity!

Yes, the fact that we are the outcome of the accumulation of past experience is what makes me stress the point that what we learn, directly affects ourselves, our appearance and our behavior.

In this article, I will be sharing some of my experience in studying, and how to make learning a productive process without the negative feelings associated. Again welcome and I hope this topic will be to your liking.”

Mounir Rafik Aziz

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What is studying? If we look up the word (study) in the dictionary, we’ll find out something like this:

“It is the process of investigating, examining and acquiring the knowledge for a

certain period of time.”

So, studying involves, careful investigation and examination of information, or we

should call it (data), because it will be the raw material to our outcome

(information); it involves time.

To make it simpler, we gather the raw material (our data) which will be our input;

the process is studying, and finally the output is the simplified understandable

information which will add up to our body of knowledge and experience.

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Input

Data

Process

Mental effort spent

Output

Information & expirience

The problems we face when studyingNow that we know what is studying,

let’s know why the majority of the

people hate studying. It is simple, the

bad practice of studying results in a

poor outcome with wasted effort and

resources.

The main cause of the problem is our

way of looking to the process of

studying, most of the people view

studying as a process which includes

lots of effort, time, and even money in

some cases. But we actually don’t work

on making the process neither efficient

nor effective; we just dig in the ground

without knowing where to dig for the

“gold”.

Of course the results of a bad practice

are poor outcome, lots of wasted effort, no motivation, stress, and other factors that

will result in losing interest in studying, and even greater than that, the fear of

studying.

The question now, how to make studying an efficient and effective process? First of

all, we need to agree on something, that studying is a process that requires effort,

there is no easy way. If you are looking for a way where you acquire information

without effort, then you ought to start putting some effort in that too.

We will discuss in the next page, on how to solve this problem through, an

organized and structured way for studying a certain subject, or topic.

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Steps of studying

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PlanningSetting the vision and objective of studying.Establishing Criteria of an efficient and effective studying system.Setting the study plan (Scope, Schedule, Quality Control, Communication Channels...)

Executing

Concentarte and focus all your mental effort in the process.Construct a productive and healthy environment.

Reviewing

Summarizing, reporting, Q&As, Storing of informationKey words, and mind mapping.

1st step PlanningThe first and most important step, is to plan the study, if you are familiar with

strategic management, this step should be a piece of cake for you.

The Vision

Start by asking yourself, why am I studying? This question is important, because

you will base all the next steps upon it. Let’s take a look on how this will affect our

studying process, if my goal from studying is to pass a certain exam in a short

period of time with no cost consideration, then my studying plan will be very

efficient in terms of time, and I will focus on just the milestones and the important

topics, with high possibility of coming in the exam. But if my aim is to make a full

understanding of a certain subject, then I will spend more time in research for

example.

After knowing our objective from the studying process, we need to explore the

subject by dividing it into smaller topics, and if necessary, we divide the smaller

topic into fragments until each fragment is at its simplest form (Which means, that

you can understand it in a single learning day).

To clarify this point, let me give you an image on how studying is like. Imagine the

studying process is your digestive system and the subject is the food, which vary in

nature and type.

The objective of the digestive system is to get the benefit from the food for the

body to use; the whole process of digesting the food from the moment it enters our

mouth until fully consumed, is the planning process, where you try to simplify the

information as much as possible, like the food, in order to be consumed and

benefited from.

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The fragmentation technique

There are several ways and techniques on how to make the data “consumable”, in

this article we are going to use a project management similar approach, which

consists of dividing the subject into topics, subtopics and smaller fragments.

We then analyze each fragment in terms of priority, risk, understandability,

sequence. In case of a new topic, you’d better seek guidance in the analysis process

by an expert, or from multiple trusted sources.

After analyzing each fragment, you should estimate how much time, effort, money

it will take you to finish the fragment in order to proceed to the next one. Establish

a schedule and budget accordingly.

Quality Control

On the other hand, one should establish a quality system in order to ensure that

objectives are met with efficiency and effectiveness. But first things first, what is

quality?

Simply quality is achieving the objectives set, following the standards, with no

delays, within budget.

Of course, we all know that the world isn’t perfect, and in the majority of situations,

we found ourselves behind deadline, over budget, and not achieving the highest

possible. Sometimes the problems could be because the plan isn’t flexible enough,

or the objectives aren’t clear and precise, so that’s why we need the quality control

process, to ensure that all other steps work perfectly.

Establishing the schedule

The schedule should contain the duration unit used, for example the week basis,

day basis or month basis scheduling system. Set a starting day and a deadline, and

then distribute each fragment in the working day according to the unit used.

The schedule should be flexible and precise in order to be efficient and effective.

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Communication channels

In case of studying with a group, a communication channels should be established

in order to access the information needed on time.

Communication channels should be agreed upon from the beginning with the group.

Environment preparation

The studying environment should be a clean, comfortable and quiet environment

with no distractions. Also the environment should contain all the tools and

equipment needed to make the studying process easy, such as IT support, good

lightning system and desktop equipment availability.

Now that everything is set, we know where we are going to dig for the gold, we

have prepared ourselves; have all the needed tools and equipment, now it is the

time to dig!

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2nd Step the actual studyAfter spending about 80% of our time in planning and simplifying the subject, we

are now ready to start in the 20% remaining part; which consists of the actual study

and review.

There isn’t much to say in this step, as we already covered the most important

parts, but let me highlight some important things. As we discussed before we are

going to use the LPR method which consists of learning, practice and review.

Learning process

Learning is the process of focusing mental effort by examining, inspecting and

analyzing the data, to come up with understandable information. Let me give you

an example, let us imagine our brains as CPU, this CPU only reads the coding

system of zeros and ones (e.g.: o1oooo1111o1o); the data on hand are written in

the analog system; so in order to understand the data and transform it into useful

information, we exercise some effort in order to transform the analog language into

digital language; that’s exactly what happens in the learning process.

So according to the plan, we must make a healthy and productive environment in

order to be able to focus all our mental effort in the studying process, remember

that our brain is very sensitive to outside effects, that’s why we need to maintain a

quiet environment as possible.

Practice process

After acquiring the information, we should apply it, through tests, Q&As, quizzes,

essays …etc.

The importance of the practice process is that it allows you to use the acquired

information in a simulated example, it is like an experiment, where you test a

certain chemical element, which is said that it has a certain effect, according to the

books, but you need to see it in reality.

In some cases, practice material are not available for us, what should we do then?

In my opinion, we can use the information gained, and construct our own tests, it is

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like a reverse engineering, although we need to be familiar with such procedure if

we are going to use it.

Review process

It is the process of comparing the practice with learning, and coming out with our

own conclusion and opinion. The review process is as important as the other two

processes, and we should spend enough time in it as well.

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3rd Step Summarizing & reportingWe have planned and established vision, strategy, and a system of studying, after

that we have conducted the actual study through the LPR method. Now it is time to

write down what we have learned.

The importance of the reporting process is to not just writing down the information

for storing purposes, but also to make it easier for you to reallocate the information

at any time in the future.

Let me use another figure in order to clarify things, imagine that the brain is like a

desktop, where all memories, knowledge, experience, daily problems, emotional

thinking and lots of other stuff are on this desk, if you were to allocate a piece of

information stored in the past month, you will find that this piece of information is

buried under the pile of other things.

So you have here two options, either to make this desktop organized, which needs a

lot of effort and discipline, or to just “label” the piece of information.

We can “label” by using techniques such as the keyword method or the mind

mapping, there are lots of other ways, but we are going to discuss those two ways

in this article.

Keywording

When we summarize the information, we are putting the pieces together again,

making it a bulk again, so we use the keyword technique simply to make our brain

recall the bulk using simple words. We can use other things than words, such as

graphs, smart arts, drawings for example.

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The mind mapping

This is a sample of a mind mapping chart, it is self explanatory; the subject is about

buying a new car, the aspects of the car are drawn in the first lines such as the

performance, setting, interior …. Etc

We notice that in mind mapping, the lines are drawn in a curvy shapes, not linear

ones; that because it is easier for the brain to absorb it that way. (For more

information about mind mapping, see Buzan mind mapping technique.)

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Key notes on successful learning Spend lots of effort and time in the planning process, as it is considered the

foundation which you will build on the rest of the pyramid of knowledge.

Be ready to face problems, problems are natural things that rise in a certain

situation, be sure to analyze the problems, to know its sources and solve

them as soon as possible. (For more information about problem solving, you

can find a whole article discussing about this topic.)

Always keep track of your plan, scope, quality control, schedule and learning

method for updates.

You need to be dedicated for the study. If you are not up to it, just don’t take

it.

Your schedule is your tool, not your master, make sure to update the

schedule in order to satisfy your needs and meet your objective.

Take a step away from the study from time to time, and make sure that your

schedule applies that; spending overtime in studying will result in an opposite

effect to what’s desired.

Make sure to reward yourself, in case of great performance.

Use your imagination when studying, it sometimes helps in boosting your

brain and motivating you; for example, you can imagine yourself as a great

scientist when you are studying chemistry.

I recommend to use notes, pen, papers, and pencils; I know that the IT and

software are better in a lot of aspects, but the traditional pen and paper

method has its perks too.

Keep track of your performance and evaluate yourself on a regular basis, let

this be an opportunity to discover new skills, new techniques and new

experience for you.

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