JOURNAL ENTRY NO.

LEARNING TO BE A BETTER STUDENT

This week we discussed on how to become better students and effective learners. We
dived into how our brains work when we study as well as how it develops in the long run. To add
to this, we talked about effective ways of managing our time and many different views on setting
goals for ourselves.

We have developed our brains long before we even learned to be aware of our
surroundings. The neuron is the basic working unit of the brain, a specialized cell designed to
transmit information to other nerve cells, muscle, or gland cells. Basically our neurons are the
building blocks of our knowledge. We had the largest number of neurons in our body when we
were babies, thus making more potential to learn and acquire our knowledge as we grow old. To
keep it short, when we learn something new or when we study our neurons connect and
communicate with one another however the connections begin slow, but with improvement it can
establish fast communication between neurons. When we continue to practice the things we
learned the myelin sheath around the neurons will grow thicker allowing a faster communication
between them. We will then acquire the mastery in the skills we practice, and will let us require
less effort and attention when we do them, it is the state in which one can simply do something
without being conscious about it, and this is called the Zone. To me, I agree that learning and
practicing skills need time and effort to master. In my experience, I have more chance of passing
a test that I studied weeks for, instead of cramming for one night. Furthermore, I believe that
mastery of skills is equal to the time you spent improving it, whether it is on my online gaming
or in my studies, I realized that my times of success always came from when I exerted the most
effort to achieve it.

We also tackled on the importance of setting goals, they are a crucial a part of our daily
lives, they inspire and influence us to get one step closer to success. With goals, we become
driven and directed in our actions, we become motivated to succeed. Of the theories we
discussed, I highly admired Locke’s Goal-Setting Theory, and I want to implement it to my
schedule making. It stated that setting a specific and measurable goals is better and more
motivating than general goals. It means it is better to focus on one specific goal rather to
concentrate effort on finishing one task at a time rather than a generalized goal. To add to this
there are also guidelines in goal setting introduced by Locke and Latham which are clarity,
challenge, commitment, feedback, and task complexity. When studying, we are capable of
adjusting our behaviors so as to enhance our beliefs in our capability, intelligence,
effort, and therefore the way we choose the goals we set.

In conclusion, our brains all have the potential and flexibility to learn, however
without effort and hard work it there would be no mastery or knowledge acquired. To learn
a skill is to dedicate time to that particular skill. In order for me to become a better learner I
learned that I need to take time to study and practice in order for my brain to work at its’
maximum potential, and to help with this is to take the right amount of rest and careful goal
setting.