In our previous post ‘Multitasking and Your EPPP Exam Prep (Part 1)’, we talked about the importance of achieving the right work-life-study balance. Most students studying to pass their EPPP inevitably have several projects on the go at once, such as employment, family and internship work. Because this type of multitasking is an inevitable and natural part of life, it is important to learn to do it effectively.
Category: Brain and memory
Multitasking and Your EPPP Exam Prep
Wouldn’t it be great if you didn’t have to think about anything except your EPPP exam prep?
Wouldn’t it be great if you could put all your other responsibilities on hold until you became a licensed psychologist?
If you find yourself asking questions like this, know that you are not alone. Most students who are busy with their EPPP test preparation also have to navigate around numerous other commitments including jobs, internships, housework and family commitments. In fact, TSM’s customizable schedule is tailored for exactly this sort of situation.
What Rising IQ Scores Tell us About the Modern World
In this fascinating Ted Talk by moral philosopher James Flynn, we learn why IQ scores persistently rose throughout the last century, and why they continue to rise today. If Flynn’s findings are correct, it’s not that past generations were more stupid than we are, but that they interacted with the world in ways that were profoundly different to how people began to perceive the world following the rise of modern science and technology. What was lacking in traditional societies was an ability to think hypothetically and to make logical inferences from abstractions. Flynn’s findings are a fascinating testimony to the power of neuroplasticity and the role that cultural and environmental factors play in the processes of cognition.
Further Reading
Waiting Too Long to Take the EPPP Could Lessen Your Chance of Success
Motivational speaker Wayne Dyer once said that “Procrastination is one of the most common and deadliest of diseases and its toll on success and happiness is heavy.” Despite the toll that procrastination takes on our happiness, many of us would rather put off for tomorrow what we could do today.
Nowhere is this truer than when it comes to procrastinating for the EPPP. After completing your internship and postdoctoral hours, it’s easy to go into cruising mode. Instead of taking the bull by the horns and studying to pass the EPPP right away, you tell yourself that you deserve a break. Ordinary life takes over, and although you keep saying “I need to prepare for the EPPP”, all you do is put it off. Meanwhile, your career goes on hold.
Decay Theory
Procrastination doesn’t make things easier. In fact, delaying to get started with your EPPP test preparation makes it less likely you’ll pass the exam. This is because of something called the decay theory.
New Study Reveals Importance of Mindset in Career Success
Believing that talent is innate may hinder your chance of career success, a recent study suggests.
The study, published earlier this year the journal Science, had set out to discover why women and African Americans are underrepresented in certain academic fields such as philosophy, economics, music and math.
Drawing on data collected in a nationwide survey, the authors of the report found that this under-representation correlated with academic disciplines where practitioners believed that raw innate talent is the main requirement for success.
Myths about innate talent are particularly strong in philosophy, music, economics and math. By contrast, in molecular biology, neuroscience and psychology, practitioners tend to hold the more accurate view that success is based on practice and hard work.
The Archimedes Principle: Leveraging the Power of Rest
Since the mid-90s there has been a growing body of research showing that what you’re doing when you’re not studying is often just as important as when you are studying. This is because during our rest periods the brain organizes and stores the material we have learned.
You know what I’m talking about if you’ve ever had the experience of struggling over a difficult problem, and then finding clarity after a rest, a shower, some exercise, or a good night’s sleep.
The Do’s and Don’ts of the EPPP Study Break
In an earlier post, ‘How to Effectively Rest From Your EPPP Study,’ I explained the importance of taking breaks at regularly structured intervals. I gave various ideas of things you can do when resting from your EPPP study prep.
Neuroscience supports the benefits of regular structured breaks from intellectual labor. Neuroscientists have developed techniques to monitor activity (usually defined as electrical impulses) and chemical changes in the brain during study or thought processing. The monitoring of brain activity and chemical changes indicate that studying/reading too long results in a depletion of chemicals in the brain cells necessary for efficient processing of information. This is known as the Principle of Neurotransmitter Depletion.
Don’t Overcrowd Your Working Memory
As you prepare to pass the EPPP, one of the most important things is to stay focused.
In their book The Mind and the Brain: Neuroplasticity and the Power of Mental Force, Jeffrey Schwartz and Sharon Begley explain that there are certain built-in limits to the amount of stimuli our short-term memory is able to process at any one time. “Our minds have a limited ability to process information about multiple objects at any given time” they write.
Protecting your working-memory from overload can be a difficult job given the type of society we live in.
How many times have you gone to your computer to study, only to find yourself being distracted by things like Facebook, email and text messages?
What the School System Never Told You about Remembering and Forgetting (Study Myths Part 3)
The traditional view of learning (which is often unconsciously assumed rather than explicitly stated) goes something like this:
If you have really and truly learned a thing, then you won’t forget it; and if you do forget it, that just proves that you never truly learned it to begin with.
Under the influence of this myth, we tend to think that the key to successful studying is to work extremely hard, making sure we really know a thing before we move onto the next. Then, once we have truly mastered the new thing, we move onto something else. Inevitably, however, reality kicks in and we forget the earlier thing we learned, leading to guilt and frustration.
This implicit myth about learning is embedded in our school system and influences us from our earliest days. The only problem is that this paradigm has been proved completely false by the discovery of what is known as the “spacing effect.”
The “spacing effect” refers to the principle that human beings and animals learn best when their learning sessions are spaced over a long period of time rather than crammed into a briefer interval. Although it may seem counter-intuitive, studying less, if spaced appropriately, is more effective than studying more.
Three Skills for Online Learning that no one is Teaching
There can be no doubt that online education is the way of the future, as I pointed out in an interview with Robin Phillips last Spring. Few would deny this, yet it is puzzling that most online programs routinely fail their students through giving them insufficient instruction on the skills required by this new learning environment.
Imagine asking a class of students to study texts in Greek without instructing them on the Greek alphabet and grammar, or requiring a class of math students to use a slide-rule without teaching them how it works. That is almost what it is like now with the advent of online learning: universities are folding entire classes, or portions of them, into online platforms without instructing their students about the skills needed for effective internet learning.
On one level this is not surprising. Most teachers, let alone students, do not even realize that special skills are needed for studying effectively online. After all, almost everyone imagines he or she is already an expert at using the internet. The idea that a unique set of skills might be required for studying online will strike many in the younger generation as odd.