Learning Strategy 11: Maintaining Interest

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If you’re not paying attention in class or to an online presentation, you won’t learn anything. If you’re paying attention–or trying to–but just can’t keep interested or focused, you will learn a lot less than if you could maintain interest. Lack of interest flirts witih boredom, and boredom produces a loss of attention. Now, all of us occasionally experience a wandering mind, especially if the instructor or presentation is not very compelling by itself.

The good news is that there are many techniques to help you keep focused on the subject, both in class and when you’re reading or studying. And more than just keeping focused, you can actually increase your interest in the material with these techniques.

Maintaining Interest in Class

Use some of these techniques ot keep  yourself interested and motivated while in class:

  • Listen actively. Listen for cues to key ideas (“and this is the main reason,” “but the fundamental problem was”), create your own additional examples, connect the ideas to other ideas or to each other. Think of possible challenges to the conclusions or develop counter examples. (Challenging information is a good way to remember it.)
  • Take notes. Even if you never review them, the process of taking notes causes you to pay attention and process what is going on. And if you review those notes later, you’ll learn even more. Note taking is partly an intellectual process (using your mind) and partly physical (as you write or type). This two-part activity helps keep you alert, much more so than simply trying to listen. See Learning Strategy 9: Note Taking for more information.
  • Paraphrase. Whether or not you take notes, paraphrase the content as it arrives. Turning the information into your own words makes the ideas clearer and more familiar and more memorable.
  • Summarize. Don’t wait until the end of the lecture, reading, video or what have you before you start to sum up what’s being presented. Create sectional summaries as things go along. For example, in a cause to effects presentation, sum up the cause portion, then the first effect portion, then the second effect, and so on.
  • Make connections. Think how the material fits in with what you already know. Making some connections will strengthen the overall memory of the new material.
  • Apply the information. If you can think how what you’re learning applies to your own life, you’ll learn it much more easily and your interest in it will be strong.
  • Ask Questions. Questions are curiosity stimulators, and they provide a natural framework for learning. Ask a question, get an answer, have a nice little learning unit. Asking questions turns you from a passive recipient of information to a participant in the content and delivery. You are now stimulating your own curiosity and that of others in the class.

One of the secrets of maintaining interest with your mind is to bring your body to your assistance. The more alert your body is, the more alert your mind is. You’ve probably found it difficult to concentrate when you felt sleepy in a warm room just after lunch. That’s your body affecting your mind. So, get your body on your side with some of these techniques:

  • Make frequent eye contact with the presenter or instructor, even if you are at the back of the classroom or watching a video.
  • Use your head and face. Nod, smile, mime “yes” or “uh huh” (or say them quietly). If you’re watching a Webinar or video, make facial expressioins–doubt, surprise, shock, laughter–or at least raise your eyebrows or scrunch up your face. You might be surprised how alert this practice makes you.
  • Lean in and out. When the delivery is covering something less important, lean back in your chair. When the important stuff arrives, lean forward. Your brain will automatically become more attentive.
  • Breathe. Take long, slow, deep breaths to oxygenate your brain.
  • Write or doodle. If you are not taking notes, or between notes, doodle a bit. Random typing might only distract you, but many people can doodle and still pay attention. If that doesn’t apply to you, skip this idea.
  • Sip water. Sipping water, especially ice water, helps keep you awake and alert.
  • Chew on something. If gum is allowed, try that. Otherwise, get a plastic ball point pen or a pencil and chew on that.
  • Stretch your muscles.
    • Place your palms together and push hard.
    • Lock your hands together and pull hard.
    • Scrunch your shoulders and then roll them back.
    • Put your feet together and push them toward each other.
    • Lock your ankles and pull hard

Maintaining Interest When Studying

When you read, study, or review your notes, try some of these techniques to keep yourself alert and interested.

  • Avoid information overload. Trying to push too much information into your long-term memory too fast doesn’t work. Overcramming just pushes previous information out as the new info comes (temporarily) in. This is why cramming all night for a test doesn’t work, either. Instead of trying to learn everything in one sitting, try this:
    • Divide your study time into segments of 20 or 30 minutes each, with a five-minute break between each segment.
    • Before each segment break, take a couple of minutes to sum up or think about what you’ve just covered.
    • During each five-minute break, close your eyes and let your mind relax.
    • After each segment break, if you are having trouble concentrating, change subjects or approaches.
  • Use variety. There are many ways to keep learning interesting by varying the activities of learning.
    • outline your material
    • draw graphics representing the content
    • read the material aloud
    • reorganize the content
    • underline or highlight important  words, phrases, and sentences
    • sing important concepts
    • put the material in the form of a FAQ: write a series of questions that the material answers
  • Make it visual. Drawings and pictures are processed by the brain immediately while written words must be decoded first. So using visiuals will make studying easier and more interesting.
    • draw a diagram
    • create a flow chart showing the process, the logic of the argument, the organization of the whole or part
    • draw  map
    • graph the data
    • use symbols to represent ideas
    • mark up the reading with symbols like asterisks, plus signs, check marks, happy or sad faces, exclamation points.
    • read it backwards (each paragraph from the last to the first–for short items, and assuming you have already read it forward)

You really can “psych  yourself up” and increase your interest in a topic you might otherwise not be very excited about. Here are two ways to do that.

  • Tell yourself how interesting the subject is. In a classroom setting, do so silently, but when by yourself, say these things aloud:
    • This is really interesting.
    • I’m learning a lot of valuable and useful stuff in this [book, chapter, class].
    • This subject is really important for my [major, career, graduate school]
    • This is actually fun.
    • I’m enjoying this.
    • I wonder what’s coming next?
  • Reward yourself for studying. After every hour and a half or so, give yourself a reward.
    • A stick of chewing gum
    • A cup of coffee or soda
    • One song (mp3 player, YouTube, etc.)
    • One quick game

The bottom line is to do what works best for you. If playing a song or card game breaks your concentration, then don’t continue it. Find another motivating practice.

Concluding Personal Story

When I was an undergraduate studying for finals at the university, I started building  little houses out of toothpicks and white glue, attached to my study lamp. I would read a concept or a vocabulary word,  and then recite or think about it while I glued one more toothpick to the structure. It really helped me stay put and stay focused. This was good, because I usually found studying for finals (history, German, anthropology, political science) pretty boring.

A coworker friend had a large nut and bolt that he would fidget with while he was thinking. If you need a fidget tool, try it.

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