By Katie Azevedo, M.Ed. You close your notes after studying and you think to yourself, yeah, I’ve got this. Or you flip through your teacher’s slides before a test and you think, yes, this makes sense. But when the test asks you to produce that …
Why Your LMS Is the Worst Way Ever to Manage Homework Assignments
By Katie Azevedo, M.Ed. If the only way you keep track of homework assignments is by checking your learning management system (LMS), you’re making one of the biggest school mistakes with the biggest consequences. That may sound dramatic, but I stand by the claim. In …
Why Your Study Systems Don’t Work Anymore
By Katie Azevedo, M.Ed. You spent all of sophomore year perfecting your study system. Organized, color-coded flashcard, easy to review: it worked beautifully. Then junior year hit, and suddenly those same study methods feel completely useless when you’re preparing for exams. What happened? Well, here’s …
School Advice that Will Probably Hurt Your Feelings
By Katie Azevedo, M.Ed. Disclaimer: You might not like what you’re about to read. And I’m okay with that, because my goal is to make school easier for students, and sometimes that means facing reality and being open-minded to hearing hard things. If you put …
Why You’re Good at Homework But Bad at Tests
By Katie Azevedo, M.Ed. You get solid grades on your homework all week. You get full points for all your assignments completed in class. And you generally feel like you understand the material. But when you get your test grade back, it’s a completely different …
How to Use the 3-2-1 Study Method
By Katie Azevedo, M.Ed. There’s no one study method that works perfectly for every student and every type of content. In fact, the best students often combine multiple study strategies and vary their techniques depending on their material. The more study methods you know, the …
What to Do When You Don’t Understand What You’re Learning
By Katie Azevedo, M.Ed. School is basically one big exercise in learning things you’ve never seen before. So, it makes sense that you’ll sometimes be confused. Getting confused isn’t the problem. Not doing anything about your confusion is the problem. In this blog post, I’m …
How to Make Studying Easier: 5 Study Rules Every Student Should Know
By Katie Azevedo, M.Ed. I must begin this article with something important: Studying is supposed to be hard. Learning something new and building the neural networks in our brain to store that information is a challenging process that is supposed to make us feel uncomfortable. …
Should You Go to Graduate School? A Practical Guide to Making the Right Choice
By Katie Azevedo, M.Ed. Getting a graduate degree is a big decision, and it’s not one to take lightly. It can open doors, boost your career, or deepen your expertise, but it can also cost you years of time and tens of thousands of dollars. …
10 Things to Do at the Beginning of Every Month to Make School Easier
By Katie Azevedo, M.Ed. Most students think about goals and fresh starts at the beginning of a new school year or the beginning of a new semester. But if that’s been your approach in the past, you’re missing out on an awesome opportunity for growth. …