Experiment to peer into the minds of students...
A room was filled with art supplies, and a table laid out with a buffet of objects for the artists to use for a still-life drawing: A velvet hat, bunch of grapes, brass hornm antique book, glass prism. Each student came into the room alone, and was told to examine, chose, and arrange the objects before they drew them.
The students were timed→how long did it take to pick out the objects? How long did they take to arrange them? How long did they spend fiddling, playing, thinking, sketching, and forming a plan?
Two distinct groups of students
Group #1: Those who began drawing immediately. They said they had only one concept, and stuck to it. "As soon as I saw the objects I had an idea of the final design." Instead of generating a lot of ideas, they spent most of their time executing their initial plan.
Group #2: Those who spent most of their time playing with the object instead of drawing. They looked through the prism, pet the velvet hat and tried it on, read through bits of the antique book, and when they started drawing they did so in an exploratory way - without a sense of the final outcome. Instead of coming up with one idea and executing it, they spent most of their time observing, discovering, improvising. "I let the drawing grow...I felt it alive until it was done"
Several panels of judges looked at the art, and picked the best pieces. Group #1 was given low scores. The judges loved the art created from Group #2. Later in life, the same students were tracked down to see what careers they had ended up with. Group #1 students had mostly given up being artists, Group #2 had become successful in their careers.
In short - the successful students spent far more time exposing themselves to new ideas.
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I gave both lucky and unlucky people a newspaper, and asked them to look through it and tell me how many photographs were inside. I had secretly placed a large message halfway through the newspaper saying: "Tell the experimenter you have seen this and win £250."
This message took up half of the page and was written in type that was more than two inches high. It was staring everyone straight in the face, but the unlucky people tended to miss it and the lucky people tended to spot it. ...[Unlucky people] miss opportunities because they are too focused on looking for something else.They go to parties intent on finding their perfect partner and so miss opportunities to make good friends.
They look through newspapers determined to find certain types of job advertisements and miss other types of jobs.
I asked a group of volunteers to spend a month carrying out exercises designed to help them think and behave like a lucky person. One month later, the volunteers returned and described what had happened. The results were dramatic: 80% of people were now happier, more satisfied with their lives and, perhaps most important of all, luckier.
Here are Professor Wiseman's four top tips for becoming lucky:
- Listen to your gut instincts - they are normally right
- Be open to new experiences and breaking your normal routine
- Spend a few moments each day remembering things that went well
- Visualise yourself being lucky before an important meeting or telephone call. Luck is very often a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Staying up all night to study for a test? hmmm.......
Chapter 7: Succeeding in the classroom
Some random tips:
1. Learn from Failure, don't be scared off by it.
The only way you can really fail, is if you stop trying.
'The way you learn anything is that something fails, and you figure out how not to have it fail again.” ― Robert S. Arrighi, Pursuit of Power: NASA's Propulsion Systems Laboratory No. 1 and 2
2. It's ok if you don't know everything.
No one knows everything.
3. It's ok to be a little insane.... most successful people are.
4. Be a team player, and be the MVP.
5. Be patient, go with the flow, your chance will come.
- this book is a best-seller for a reason!
Habit 1: Be Proactive
Take initiative in life by realizing that your decisions (and how they align with life's principles) are the primary determining factor for effectiveness in your life. Take responsibility for your choices and the consequences that follow.
Habit 2: Begin with the End in Mind
Self-discover and clarify your deeply important character values and life goals. Envision the ideal characteristics for each of your various roles and relationships in life.
Habit 3: Put First Things First
A manager must manage his own person. Personally. And managers should implement activities that aim to reach the second habit. Covey says that rule two is the mental creation; rule three is the physical creation.
Habit 4: Think Win-Win
Genuinely strive for mutually beneficial solutions or agreements in your relationships. Value and respect people by understanding a "win" for all is ultimately a better long-term resolution than if only one person in the situation had got his way.
Habit 5: Seek First to Understand, Then to be Understood
Use empathic listening to be genuinely influenced by a person, which compels them to reciprocate the listening and take an open mind to being influenced by you. This creates an atmosphere of caring, and positive problem solving.
Habit 6: Synergize
Combine the strengths of people through positive teamwork, so as to achieve goals no one person could have done alone.
Habit 7: Sharpen the Saw
Balance and renew your resources, energy, and health to create a sustainable, long-term, effective lifestyle. It primarily emphasizes exercise for physical renewal, prayer (meditation, yoga, etc.) and good reading for mental renewal. It also mentions service to society for spiritual renewal.
Take initiative in life by realizing that your decisions (and how they align with life's principles) are the primary determining factor for effectiveness in your life. Take responsibility for your choices and the consequences that follow.
Habit 2: Begin with the End in Mind
Self-discover and clarify your deeply important character values and life goals. Envision the ideal characteristics for each of your various roles and relationships in life.
Habit 3: Put First Things First
A manager must manage his own person. Personally. And managers should implement activities that aim to reach the second habit. Covey says that rule two is the mental creation; rule three is the physical creation.
Habit 4: Think Win-Win
Genuinely strive for mutually beneficial solutions or agreements in your relationships. Value and respect people by understanding a "win" for all is ultimately a better long-term resolution than if only one person in the situation had got his way.
Habit 5: Seek First to Understand, Then to be Understood
Use empathic listening to be genuinely influenced by a person, which compels them to reciprocate the listening and take an open mind to being influenced by you. This creates an atmosphere of caring, and positive problem solving.
Habit 6: Synergize
Combine the strengths of people through positive teamwork, so as to achieve goals no one person could have done alone.
Habit 7: Sharpen the Saw
Balance and renew your resources, energy, and health to create a sustainable, long-term, effective lifestyle. It primarily emphasizes exercise for physical renewal, prayer (meditation, yoga, etc.) and good reading for mental renewal. It also mentions service to society for spiritual renewal.
7.2 Attitude
Ability is what you're capable of doing
Motivation determines what you do.
Attitude determines how well you do it. - Lou Holtz
7.3 Goals
Habit 2: Begin with the End in Mind
Create a mission statement - define a standard, and strive for it.
7.4 Keys to effectiveness
Take time to study! 2 hours of study outside of class for every hour in class.
Practice - read example problems, then solve a few problems on your own.
Study in groups
7.5 Test Taking
Come prepared (be there early, with pencils, paper, etc.)
Skim through entire test before starting
Do the easy problems first
keep track of the time
Go for partial credit - don't leave anything blank - if you know it's wrong, explain that you know it is wrong, and write down your thinking process.
Don't erase your work - just put a single line through it (you might get more partial credit)
Check over your answers, and re-check them. Don't leave early.
Go over the graded test - correct mistakes, study it for the next test.- 7.6 Make the most of your professors / tutoring centers
You paid for it - might as well use it!
http://www.lonestar.edu/learning-kingwood.htm
- 7.6 Make the most of your professors / tutoring centers
1. Do your math homework.
2. Form good study habits.
3. Get to know your professors.
4. Work in a study group.
5. Get a life. Have friends, hobbies, recreational activities.
Group Discussion:
1. Think about a time when you struggled in either a class, or at a job. In hindsight, if you could go back and change something that you did, what would you change?
2. Think about your classes and work load this semester. What is your biggest challenge? What are you doing to meet that challenge?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iADTpgRXYrk
