My most difficult class this semester, and probably my entire college career, is Human Anatomy. I have already struggled with sheer magnitude of information that I am required to know and all the different applications of that information. So this past week I worked on my growth mindset and applied it to my studying for my human anatomy practical coming up this week.
One of my favorite study techniques is studying information for a set period of time and then quizzing myself on what I have learned in that time period. Often times, I find myself stuck in remembering the same things and not remembering the same things each time. I start to think things like "I can't learn these new things" or "I must just know what I know and that's it." These types of thoughts are in a fixed mindset that I am only as smart as I am and can only learn a fixed amount of things, like my brain only has a certain amount of space for this information.
This past week, however, I worked on focusing on how exciting being able to learn all of this new information was and how much room I had to grow. Instead of just rote memorizing the words on my flashcards, I worked to think about how I could use this information and how much potential I have. I found my studying to be so much more enjoyable and I feel like I learned more. When I quizzed myself, I didn't get discouraged by the things that I didn't know, instead I got excited to work to really learn them.
I think the challenge presented to me in Anatomy can be seen in almost any fact-based class that I have taken or will take. Often it seems that you are only able to learn so much, like your intelligence directly decides how much information you can remember. In the future, I will try to apply a growth mindset to these classes and learn to love to learn, not just try to memorize!
Just an idea of what I look at all day!
Photo of the bones of the arm and shoulder
Source: Wikipedia
I really enjoyed this post too, Ann-Marie! I've never taken a class like anatomy, but studying foreign languages is a similar kind of challenge. On the one hand, there is all that vocabulary you have to memorize and be able to use... it can be overwhelming. But just like you say here, when you think about how to USE the information, that's when it is motivating and exciting. Vocabulary is boring... but being able to read and write stories, being able to have conversations with people, being able to understand the lyrics to songs: that is all exciting! It sounds like the same thing is true with anatomy: it's the context in which you frame the knowledge that can make it more motivating to learn! :-)
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