Maximizing Study Efficiency: A Coaching Session with a First-Year College Student

let's go into the after the lecture so what's happening afterwards nothing when's the first time that you'd

actually go through and start like studying at again before the exam how long before the exam do you start 2 days

so what's happening in the meantime in the meantime nothing I think for you the thing that's

actually limiting you is just literally the number of sessions you have to hit the different levels of Mastery I have

had the most productive week of my life this week your whole life wow very honestly every couple of months I find

some members in our I can study program who are active and supportive in our community and I offer them some 30

minute free coaching sessions some of you do seem to really like my coaching style content so I've decided to record

some of these and post them on YouTube before we jump in I'd appreciate if you give this video a like and if you're

interested in joining the full program yourself then you can check out iin study.com there's a link in the

description the idea here is that in 30 minutes I basically want to just help you as much as I can make some make some

meaningful difference in that amount of time we'll see where we get but if you could just start start off by telling me

a little bit about yourself you know like where you're from what you're what you're studying what stage of Education

you're at things like that okay I am a first year college student my name is Daniel I come from Kenya I moved to

Canada about 3 years ago when I was 15 I got a chance to go to a boarding school in an IB system I came from an igcc

system and then I went into the Canadian Dogwood system for high school I recently started watching your videos

and analyzing how I can change my learning methods 2 months ago and I realized that doing it by myself was

much more inefficient and that the investment of just spending money to buy the course would be much better for the

long-term my long-term goals and my long-term achievements that I wish to attain awesome that's great thanks for

that so just tell me a little bit about your long-term goals my long-term goals as um as I go into college I want to go

into Psychiatry so I have to go through medicine I want to go through Psychiatry to research particular dissociated

disorders so I will need to spend a lot of time going and focusing on the psychology aspect as well as the

medicine aspect on top of that I am a musician music is part of my soul the reason I have such an expensive

microphone is because I love music there's a piano in my background right now that I can totally play and let's

just say that that takes up a lot of time in my life I am very storm trop likee in what I like to do I have too

many passions and not enough time for it so I have to be efficient because there's no other option aome well on

that note let's just jump into that part so on the diagnostic assessment that it gave you a trooper what were your actual

scores deep for deep processing and self-regulation deep processing was two self-regulation was two everything else

was three just give me a indication about your overall background achievement level like what do you

normally tend to get when you do tests and exams and things 80 plus okay let's jump into a little bit about your

learning methods and your learning system is there a particular aspect that you feel like is holding you back that

you have a problem with re revision and retrieval okay why do you say that I don't feel like my encoding elements are

perfect but when it come if I'm left alone with a topic whichever topic it may be I am able to spark my engagement

for the topic which I have over time learned how to do consistently I'm very confident in that initial exposure to

that topic being very beneficial for me getting at least 75% of the topic in but when it comes to revision afterward when

it comes to the retrieval and learning how to um get back to that and see what I've forgotten that's where I have a big

problem just explain that a little bit more in terms of getting back to see are you talking about just finding knowledge

gaps finding knowledge gaps okay so when you said you can get around what 75% of it are you saying that 25% is

essentially knowledge gaps uh 15% is stuff that I know I don't know and 10% of that would be stuff I don't know that

I don't know yeah sure and obviously there's multiple types of knowledge gaps like broadly speaking we can say that

there are the gaps that you learned and then forgot and then there are gaps that you learned and then it's not that you

forgot it but you never really saw it from that perspective and then there are things that you didn't even cover gaps

that were like completely missed do you have any indication of the proportion of gaps that you feel like you have like

how many let's start with the biggest one which is what percentage of gaps generally speaking and it might be

different depending on subject do you feel are the types of gaps that you like completely missed in the first place

like you didn't even study it to begin with very very few you I I do like going back and forth and in terms of my learn

learning processes and as I go back sweeping back and forth I usually don't miss many things completely or at least

I don't I always Mark out what I need to do in the first place okay and then so of the gaps that you find uh or or

struggling to find how many of these are ones that you have learned and you learned it the right way but you have

forgotten it um a very few no okay not very few but few okay so yeah okay so definit so generally speaking this is

the lower one wait sorry is that because you didn't learn it the right way the first time round didn't learn it the

right way the first time round okay so it's a master so the main gaps are really a Mastery Gap issue I see so

rather than a pure retention Gap would you agree with that the main types of gaps you have are in discovering Mastery

gaps yes okay but the ones that you do learn the right way to the right level of Mastery you feel that you've got a

good level of retention on it yes I do okay cool we can look at this in two parts I know that You' have said that

the revision and retrieval is a big one but I want to make sure that you're first round encoding is done you know

like good enough that it's not going to have you know massive gaping holes in it because obviously even if we get the

retrieval right if a lot of what you're missing is because you didn't learn the right way in the first place there's

something to look at there and then we can have a look at the retrieval stuff so just tell me a little bit about the

learning process for when you encounter information for the very first time I ask lots of questions about why this is

relevant why I need to learn this and which parts of it are going to be the the most important parts that I need to

learn so let's just rewind a little bit like when is this even happening like what's the first moment that the first

piece of information for that topic like enters your scope before the lecture how far before usually the day before yeah

usually the day before yes okay so you so day before is the first time you'll be exposed to that topic yes and so

you're going to proactively just go through and do a little bit of pre-study or priming for that subject yes are you

ever priming more than one lecture at a time um yes because the pace that I tend to Prime at is is faster than what I'm

currently being taught at so how many like lectures roughly is one whole topic two three lectures okay and how many

lectures are you able to Prime on two lectures two so you're doing almost the whole topic yes yes for priming okay

you're doing a priming that is like almost whole topic and so tell me a little bit about what that priming

process looks like what are you actually doing okay um learning objectives uh I go through the learning objectives I

have my sheet of paper on the side I'll quickly scope through the um scan through the content I'll write down any

keywords that I don't understand completely or a concept that I've noted it could be important and I do my best

not to to think too much into the details of one specific keyword then once I'm once I'm at the end of the of

the lecture notes or the slides that I've taken I'll take my keywords and then I'll try and make a mind map okay

and how long does that whole process usually take 45 minutes this is very good by the way like everything you're

saying is you know it's like a really really solid foundation of pre- study so if it's taking 45 minutes you know I I

think overall by the end of that you're pretty confident with what that topic is going to talk about like the main ideas

and like the overall flow yeah okay that's okay so now let's go into the actual you know day of like the the

lecture itself are you going to the lectures or are you watching recording or how's that happening I'm going to the

lectures the pace that the lectures go at is very not followable followable for me so I don't it's too slow and too fast

at some points yeah sure there's times when I know that okay I need to sit here for a second and there's times that okay

I really don't want to do this because I feel like I I should go to that more pressing issue how do you try to manage

that I don't I basically study by myself outside of school and then when I'm getting into school into my lectures I'm

taking down notes on what I know is going to come to the on the exam so when the teacher says this is going to come

on the exam or this is one kind of model question that might come I'll take notes of that and then that's what I should be

using for revision but then my self-regulation gets in the way and I don't use that for revision later on oh

okay what's your note taking process during like while it's being explained to you physically I do not do anything

because I have a very hard time focusing on on two tasks at once usually I'm I'm sitting there and I'm waiting to ask a

really a good question or not waiting I'm trying to ask a really good question so why is um examples would be with

hydrogen bonding in my recent chemistry lesson why a hydrogen bond and a dipole are different when they're technically

the same thing but that's the details um move on from there yeah okay okay sure okay now let's go into the after the

lecture so what's happening afterwards nothing okay so when when's the first time that You' actually go through and

start like studying it again and consolidating before the exam okay so what's happening in the meantime in the

meantime nothing and and why is that I started the course recently I started the course 4 days ago I think on the

last Sunday actually yeah 7 days ago after realizing after the first getting into the Rapids about urgency and

importance and the difference between those two things I've realized that I've been completely on urgency and and not

really thinking about the importance so by the time the exam comes it's like I'm it's like I'm a deer in headlights I

just oh wait I need to study and then I study that and then I go through the same cycle again when you say before

exam like how how long before the exam do you start two days one day two days jeez man you you're not a deer in the

headlight you're a deer that's like already sniffing the front of the the Bonnet you're mid impact exactly exactly

okay so tell me about how you're doing your revision brain dump and see what holes there are and then I I

specifically Target the holes that I that I end up seeing linear brain dump mind M brain dump so I have brain dump

based on lecture objectives or just self queuing and just your own kind of flow I usually go through the lecture Aces

first and then I see okay I'm very sure that I don't remember that I'm going to put that aside and uh I know I'm going

to focus on that and then I put I sort out what I know for sure I do not remember and then after that I start

making m a mind map and then I might end up getting queued into remembering the stuff that I knew that I didn't remember

and then I'll start realizing okay I'm done I'm going to go check how accurate this is and I'm going to go check the

parts that I wasn't confident in because even if I was right what matters is whether or not I was confident in it or

not and then I'd go I'd repeat the cycle okay so here's what I'm seeing overall you're doing some priming and the

priming looks like it's it's doing good for you and actually probably the reason why you're able to still do pretty like

reasonably well even though you have essentially no study to speak of until just before the exam yeah um is probably

because that priming is actually helping you a lot I would say and then in the lecture you are asking good questions

and that's that's going to be good it's going to help you to keep engaged and get a deeper level of Mastery obviously

there's a big gap there in terms of what happens after the lecture and then before the exam although it is rushed I

mean it's relatively targeted you're looking at lecture objectives you're trying to identify gaps you're you're

actively Gap seeking and you're trying to Target your revision for that so yeah yes like there's lots of things that can

be improved with the retrieval system but I I think that's not really the lowest hanging fruit here for you I

think the thing that's going to make the biggest difference is to figure out why is it that you know there's such a big

gap between you know after the lecture and then your pre-exam revision and also um what can you do during the lecture

that really takes what you did in your pre-study and Carries that forward to build on it a little bit more so let's

just I'll start with that second one first have you ever tried to just take your pre-study mind map into the lecture

with you and then just try to build on that as they're speaking no do you think that you would find that difficult to do

uh I would but I can try yeah give it a go I don't think you'll find it as difficult as maybe you might think

because you're already asking good questions and when you have the map in front of you it's going to help you to

think of more questions because you can literally see it and when you add things to it it's going to help you to like

organize the discoveries and insights you make and it also means that when some when you know when they say hey

this is going to be in the exam this is going to be really important you can think about how that thing fits with

what you've already got so that later when you do your revision it's actually anchored there on your map as well like

you've already tried to integrate it on the spot right because the alternative is otherwise if it's too fast or too

slow either way if it's hard to follow then that information is not really doing much for you anyway so spending a

little bit more time inside your own head integrating thinking about how it all connects together that's going to be

time that's worth spending all right so that's the first thing that I'd recommend for you to try out and the

second thing that we should look at is you talked about the fact that you've really been like trapped in that urgency

so now you know that you shouldn't do that do you think it's going to be easy for you to try to change that and have a

little bit more of that regular consolidation like the day after at the end of the week or do you feel like it

will still be difficult there'll be more barriers I I have had the most um the most productive week of my life this

week your whole life wow very honestly yesterday I had a 12h hour or 13h hour workshift I woke up 5:00 a.m. today to

get to my family's place on another Island to to be here for a family relations because this is very important

and I still managed uh I kind of messed up my timing with the buses and needed to go to needed to walk 30 minutes back

home to get all this gear so that you could have some proper good audio for for this video and in all with all of

this happening I was able to have buffer time I had contingency plans I have contingency plans for what I'm going to

do tomorrow and how I'm going to get to my job that I have to attend to and that's a that's amazing I think I think

people that watch this video are going to want to have you back on to just ask you how you able to do that but anyway

okay so so one week is one week really really productive is good do you feel that it's sustainable yes because it's

not motivation based anymore right okay so hopefully that's something that will then just fix itself and that you will

be able to have that day after the lecture you know the week after the lecture the thing is that when your

knowledge Gap is because of let's say that the knowledge Gap is because you just completely miss something it's not

even on the board these are relatively easy to fix because it just means that the scope that we're looking at is

usually not align and there's some easy things that we can do like for example looking at the lecture objectives a

little bit more clear clearly being more inquisitive exploring outside of the scope doing practice questions you know

having conversations with people so that's kind of easy to solve if there's an issue with the retention

again this is not as easy to solve but it's the answer is relatively straightforward usually the lowest

hanging fruit is to work on having a better quality encoding and pre-study step which primes the brain to hold on

to that information more in a more sticky way but in your situation your knowledge Gap is a Mastery issue Mastery

issues there's really only two ways that we well there's fundamentally only one way that you can address a Mastery issue

and that is to think at the level of Mastery more but because higher level lels of thinking are more integrated and

relational there's many more angles to think through and it can be quite overwhelming and I think for you the

thing that's actually limiting you is just literally the number of sessions you have to hit the different levels of

Mastery M you're hitting a high level of Mastery like superficial and depth but Broad and relational in your pre-study

so that's good you're heading some deeper level of depth and details and still somewhat relational in the lecture

through the questions that you're asking and then by building on your mind map during the lecture that's going to help

to to turn that into more of an asset that moves forward but then you're probably getting like a very extended

per of knowledge Decay and your Mastery is going to be fading before your exam and so even though in your exam you're

doing a relational brain dump which is targeting the higher levels and you're looking at Gap seeking which is going to

look at multiple different levels there's just not going to be enough like sessions to be able to hit some of the

finer details ideally what you should be doing is that whole revision thing that you do where you get the lecture

objectives you target you do the brain dumps you you seek the gaps and then you try to fill those that should happen

like one week after the lecture so at the end of every week that's the session that you want to have so that before the

before the exam your revision is more focused around just getting like a a more Nuance level of of Gap seeking the

gaps that are not obvious you don't want to you ideally don't want to know where your gaps are until you have tested them

before the exam like the gaps that are obvious that you can look at and be like I definitely know I've got these they

should be already handled earlier on so that by the end you're looking for the gaps that you haven't discovered already

and all you need is maybe just like one or two additional sessions throughout the termal semester to be able to fit

that in and that's I think you know as you mentioned that's kind of more of a time management or a task management

related issue so those are probably the two things that I'd recommend for you to work on and in this case I think it was

fairly obvious you probably could have figured that out yourself actually what do you think about those recommendations

the one about bringing my I kind of gave up on my class honestly not that I hate the teachers I don't hate school

whatsoever I think it's a wonderful um the one that I go to is wonderful even if the student culture around

examination and learning isn't the best I just felt like I gave up on class and you just gave me a chance to you make

that time more useful because I will be keep on going to class because these these these lectures have been paid for

and I have I have a lot to give back to my family this is part of my respect towards that so I'm very I'm just very

thankful that now I have a way to to go through it less painfully yeah you know one thing that I just thought of to add

on is that because you're actually pre- studying in multiple lectures in one go if you can extend out your pre-study

session by a little bit to try to cover the whole topic if it's if you're able to do like two lectures and there's only

one more to go just just do another 15 20 minutes and just get that other one done but that means that when you're in

the lecture you can go deeper as you build the map out but you can also use part of of that class like for example

if they're talking about something and they're going over something for like a long time and you're just thinking like

I don't even have any good questions to ask about this there's nothing to even build here use that time to just do some

Gap seeking on the spot okay oh that's efficient I like that yeah it's one of those things it's like if you're going

to be there anyway you may as well use that time for something and if it's not going to be useful for just you know CU

you know a lot of the times like teachers or lecturers like you know if they might be tier they might just you

know have whatever human yeah or sometimes they've just clocked out like literally you know sometimes you get you

know teachers or lecturers that are like I'm kind of just waiting to retire yeah so you know in those situations you got

to make do and and try to do what what you can but you know your motivation behind it and giving back to your family

you know that's a it's a beautiful thing to hear and it's really you know it's a really it's a really good like wholesome

way of thinking about education in a way because a lot of people are very like entitled you know it's refreshing to

actually hear someone talk about education in a way that it's like I've paid for it this is something that I can

have and like this is a way of giving back and showing respect to the the people that have helped me get to the

position that I'm in which is [Music] awesome