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You Be The Professor
Julianne LoBianco
Liberty University
General Psychology
Psyc101
05/01/2023
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You Be The Professor
Study Strategies to Recommend to Students and Why
Learning is a process, and students need to master the best ways to study. While studying,
the students need to read, understand why they are studying that specific topic, internalize the
information, and apply it elsewhere. They should be able to retain information for deeper
understanding and, lastly, apply the skills they have learned to a real-life situation. Many
students do not have skills on how to study. According to George, Kelly, and Piferi (2021), there
are different approaches to studying. There are behavioral and cognitive learning approaches. I
would recommend two major strategies from the analysis of the different approaches.
One of the learning strategies that students could apply is to be keen and observe what the
teachers are doing and, after that, imitate their actions. The social cognitive theory of learning
supports this strategy. According to the book, this theory helps understand how human behavior
is influenced by the surrounding environment and how the environment is being influenced
simultaneously. It is most successful through observation learning and then imitating the actions
or copying symbolic figures or models. The first thing is to observe how others are doing it and
imitate their actions. In such a case, the students can observe what the teachers are doing and
then imitate it, and in the process, they will learn. This is a good approach since it is hard to
forget entirely what you have seen.
The second strategy is to have positive and negative reinforcement. According to
classical and operant conditioning theory, when one expects something good to come from a
particular action, one tends to form a good habit and work harder. This approach is what is
considered positive reinforcement. Students should set objectives and rewards for meeting the
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expectations. After accomplishing the target, the students should reward themselves, and that will
motivate them to learn more (George, Kelly, and Piferi, 2021). On the other hand, when they
realize that habits discourage them from learning, they should establish ways to punish
themselves. Punishment discourages bad habits that keep students from learning.
Cautions to Give to Students About Multitasking and Why
Multitasking is the process of being engaged in multiple activities simultaneously.
Multitasking is harmless in some cases, but it could be catastrophic for learners and should be
avoided (Hahm, 2021). Studying does not work well with multitasking because it leads to
divided attention for the learners. The brains are wired, so they tend to switch to the simplest
task, and studying may not be the simplest task at any moment because it needs a lot of
concentration. If a student, for example, is in a lecture but also on Instagram, then the brain will
prefer to stick to Instagram rather than the lecture. The impacts are that the student will miss so
much and will not have effective learning. The brains are not conditioned to perform two
complex tasks simultaneously; therefore, one task wins against the other. Moreover, switching
the brain from one task to another eventually tires the brain, and a person does little or no work.
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References
George, S., Kelly, B., and Piferi, R. (2021). Introduction to Psychology from a Christian
Worldview: A customized version of Psychology in a complex world by Jennifer Bonds-
Raacke Design. KENDALL HUNT.
Hahm, H. W. (2021). The Distracted Learner: Exploring the Relationship between Media
Multitasking and Online Learning (Doctoral dissertation, San Jose State University).
