"About this time last year, my brother called me to tell me we were both going to run a 5K in March. Now, he's eight years younger and in excellent shape whereas I haven't run any distance longer than to the nearest bathroom in over 15 years. In my prodigious wisdom, I knew that there was no way I could run that distance without some preparation on my part. Watching other people run, thinking about running, fretting about running, and planning to run were not going to cut it. Guess what - I had to start running myself and I had to do it several times over several weeks in advance of the big day.
So, please, stop passively taking notes, phoning in the homework, allowing your partner to do all the work/thinking during the lab, not actively constructing your own mental schema of what we are doing in class, and generally procrastinating your engagement with the material until the night before the test. Bad, bad, bad." (shakes head dramatically)
Mr. Rideout ends speech with dramatic finger pointing at his audience in general (sensitively making sure not to single out any particular students out as he recently attended a workshop titled "Being Nice, A Primer for Those Who Never Knew").
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I'm always thinking about this issue, but it is on my mind today because of a paper on the best methods to study and learn material which I recently summarized for my students and the fact that my bro and I committed to run the same race this year again.
Easy to say, but like many things in life, harder to carry through. Start now! (finger pointed squarely at myself now)
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