Learning is one of the most hot-to touch buttons when it comes to efficiency and effectiveness. Stakeholders in the education industry have tried to come up with different ways and styles meant to help students achieve academic success. However, many studies have shown that they have gotten it wrong when it comes to their perception and belief on what entails masterly study habits. Effective learning is not all about study styles, from the student’s side, but it encompasses factors such as timing, context and attitude of the learner and the tutor.
In his article, "Forget what you know about Good Study Habits," Benedict Carey has brought out the conflicting scenario on effective learning and the events on the ground in various learning institutions. In schools, tests have become the centre of evaluation on academic progress (Carey para.2). However, educationists, fail when they insist on immediacy of tests after learning activity (Gurung and Schwartz 189). This brings a wrong perception of understanding of the topic learned. Learning is all about the long-term effect and not the short term alone.
Many parents would blame their children for not being ‘sharp’ or steady in class without acknowledging that learning has two persons involved- student and teacher. How the teacher interacts with his students will affect their ability to understand various concepts. From Carey’s article, we are able to understand that a child might get on well with a certain teacher and fail to get on well with another. This implies that rounding down to concentrating the student of learning techniques may not be the ultimate solution if the best results has to be obtained (Richardson and Morgan 441).
Ability to learn and grasp various concepts at the classroom level would be seriously affected by the child’s personality and mode of learning that they are comfortable using. Some students may be comfortable with the auditory mode while others are comfortable with the visual mode of teaching. This would imply that whatever technique the students use or operate in would either facilitate effective learning or still create inefficiencies (Carey para.6). It is wrong for parents to assume and force their children to be always on the table without putting this factor into consideration.
There has been an ardent misconception as to how the physical environment plays a role in learning. Many stakeholders in the educational sector, parents and teachers included, have the notion that learning would require an attractive and quiet environment. This does not bring out the truth in its entirety. From various psychological researches, it is clear that learning do0es not depend on the physical environment under which learning takes place but how the student perceives that environment (Richardson and Morgan 221). This would put many parents to shame on why they struggle to curtail some of their freedom at home in the name of "providing an ample learning environment".
It is sad that what many view as good study habits is not what it is. The stakeholders in the education sector should review their take on learning if positive results have to be achieved. With many misconceptions on what good study habits entails many students have had their academic fortune turned to misfortune. Few have benefited from these misconceptions but unknowingly. It is time we changed our take on what entails good study habits (Carey para.4).
Works cited
Carey, Benedict. Forget What You Know About Good Study Habits, New York City, NY; New York Times. Accessed on 28/10/2011 from http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/07/health/views/07mind.html?pagewanted=all
Richardson, Judy, Raymond Morgan and Fleener, Charlene. Reading to Learn in the Content Areas, Canberra: Cengage Learning, 2008. Print
Gurung, Regan and Schwartz, Beth. Optimizing Teaching and Learning: Practicing Pedagogical Research; London: John Wiley and Sons, 2011. Print
