By Josh Ewen/reporter
The proper attitude with study will lead to improved information recollection recall, the South Campus counseling director said last week.
With his April 8 presentation Improving Your Memory Helps Improve Your Grades, Cliff Dobbins aimed to help students gain better recall abilities by changing some of their study habits.
Dobbins began with a quote from Charles Swindoll, an evangelical Christian pastor, author, educator and radio preacher.
“The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life,” he said. “Attitude, to me, is more important than facts. It is more important than the past, than education, than money, than circumstances, than failures, than successes, than what other people think or say or do. It is more important than appearance, giftedness, or skill.”
Swindoll credited attitude with the success or failure of homes, churches or businesses, but he said everyone can choose their attitude each day.
“We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude,” Swindoll said. “I am convinced that life is 10 percent what happens to me and 90 percent how I react to it. And so it is with you. We are in charge of our attitudes.”
Dobbins said attitude, as it pertains to education, makes a large difference in what information people retain. Students must engage in study with a positive attitude, and not see reading as a chore that is to be done and out of the way.
“Repetition is the fatherhood of learning,” he said. “Read, read, and reread.”
After students have done their reading, Dobbins said they must ask themselves “What did I just read?” Without comprehension there will be no recollection. If students cannot recall what they just read, they should take the time to go through and read it again.
“People make the mistake of studying too long without a break,” he said.
Dobbins said students need to break study sessions into 30-45 minute blocks. The human mind maintains focus at a high level for this time frame. After that, information retention begins to go down.
“Early morning study is much more effective than late night,” he said.
Students are much better off studying for a test in the morning before they take it as opposed to staying up and studying late into the night, Dobbins said.
Other tricks for remembering information involve mnemonic devices. Dobbins said acronyms and acrostics can both be effective ways to recall information.
Acronyms are more common in everyday life. People remember simple things like FBI and DMV, which stand for Federal Bureau of Investigations and Department of Motor Vehicles, because of repetition. The average person knows more than 50 acronyms just from coming in contact with them on a daily basis.
Acrostics are words made from the first letter of a sequence of words. A couple of the common ones are Every Good Boy Does Fine for the musical staves and Roy G. Biv for the colors of the visual spectrum—red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet.
Dobbins explained other ways of remembering information studied.
“Information you write and recite, you won’t forget,” he said.
Writing down information helps students to retain it more effectively than just reading it alone. Reciting study information aloud helps students to recall that information when it is needed.
“Read your homework to yourself aloud after reading it once, and if that is not possible, write down the key information you need to remember,” he said.
