By Katie Azevedo, M.Ed. Motivation is one of the trickiest subjects I cover here on the blog. That’s because motivation is complicated and is influenced by many factors. Some of these factors you have control over, and some are less controllable. Low motivation in school …
3 Signs You Don’t Understand What You’re Studying
By Katie Azevedo, M.Ed. It’s a crummy feeling to think you’re prepared for a test, only to realize too late that you don’t actually understand the material. Our brains have this obnoxious tendency to avoid pain, and while I suppose this is essential to our …
How to Make School Easier: 9 Tips for Struggling Students
By Katie Azevedo, M.Ed. School can be hard for one million different reasons beyond the obvious, which is that class content can be challenging. (AP Physics, anyone?) In a recent YouTube video, I shared 10 ways to make hard classes easier, but in this blog …
An Anti-Procrastination Secret of Students Who Aren’t Stressed Out
By Katie Azevedo, M.Ed. You know when your teacher assigns a huge project that’s due next week, and it’s a big deal, but you’re not that stressed out about it because it’s not due until next week … and you have plenty of time? … …
What to Do After You’ve Been Accepted to College: Tips for High School Seniors
Katie Azevedo, M.Ed. Woo hoo! You’re a high school senior and you’ve been accepted to college! That’s incredible. For many students, college acceptance is both a relief and a stressor. It’s a relief because you no longer have to worry about the college application process, …
How to Study Using Mind Mapping: A Study Method for Visual Learners
By Katie Azevedo M.Ed. In this blog post, I am going to teach you how to study using mind mapping. Mind mapping is a great strategy for brainstorming, taking notes, and studying. It’s a particularly helpful study method for visual learners, or students who prefer …
How to Turn Your Quizzes into Study Guides for Tests
By Katie Azevedo, M.Ed. If you’re in the habit of throwing away your quizzes when the teacher hands them back, stop immediately. Quizzes can be seriously valuable study resources – and yes, even the quizzes you bomb. What you need to know is this: There’s …
How to Stop Procrastinating When You Don’t Even Know You’re Doing It
By Katie Azevedo, M.Ed. We usually know when we’re procrastinating. We usually have a strong sense of I should really do this thing right now but I just don’t want to. Where things get tricky is when our procrastination habits are so ingrained that we …
What’s the Purpose of Annotating? 3 Hidden Benefits of Annotating Text
By Katie Azevedo, M.Ed. What’s the purpose of annotating? I’m asked this a lot because annotating text has a bad rep. Throughout a week, I hear every kind of resistance, from it takes too long, I don’t know what to annotate, I don’t know how …
How to Stay Motivated Until the End of the School Year
By Katie Azevedo, M.Ed. Motivation is a tricky thing. It’s fueled by a combination of factors, including your skill level, sense of urgency, brain chemistry, mindset, and more. While we can control some of these factors, others are beyond our control. This can make motivation …