By Katie Azevedo, M.Ed. Study tips for students in graduate school are fundamentally the same as study tips for students in high school or college. That’s because the cognitive processes involved in learning are the same no matter what grade you’re in. However, students in graduate school can benefit from changing up their study systems, routines, and habits to better suit grad school expectations.  The Two Foundational Study Tips for ALL Students, Not Just Those in Graduate School No matter what grade you’re in, there are two study methods you need to be using. Every additional study st ..read more

By Katie Azevedo, M.Ed. The Feynman Technique is a 4-step study process that can help you learn material more deeply and more intentionally. In other words, it’s a study method that gets you to learn things better and faster. Yes, please! If you’ve been around SchoolHabits awhile, and if you’re familiar with the study tips and skills I share here on the blog, on Instagram, and on YouTube, then there’s a good chance you’re already doing bits and pieces of the Feynman Technique without knowing it. In this blog post, you learn how to use the Feynman Technique to study in a way that’s intentional ..read more

By Katie Azevedo, M.Ed. Good school habits, strong study skills, and the ability to stay focused are essential for academic success. I think we all know this. But what’s less frequently addressed is how successful students think.  In this blog post, I share the top 3 mindsets of top-performing students. These are the mindsets that nearly every straight-A, not stressed-out student has, which results in good grades and an overall better learning experience. Top 3 Student Mindsets of Top Performing Students A quick word on mindsets: It’s a term that gets thrown around a lot, especially in t ..read more

By Katie Azevedo, M.Ed. So, you failed a test. That stinks and I know you feel crummy. I’ll bet you want to throw the test in the trash, but before you do, hear me out: After the emotional dust settles, but before you move on to the next subject, it’s important that you dig in and figure out what went wrong. If you don’t figure out what went wrong, you’ll find yourself in the same situation over and over again. In this blog post, I teach you what to do when you fail a test so that you …well, stop failing tests. What To Do When You Fail a Test As much as a failed test stinks, it can also provi ..read more

By Katie Azevedo, M.Ed. We’ve all been there. We’ve all saved our reading homework until the end of the day because we had to do the “real” homework first, but then we start falling asleep after just a few pages. Why does reading do this to us? How can we be wide awake one minute, and then literally fall asleep with a book on our face the next minute? Why We Get Tired When Reading There are many possible reasons why reading makes us tired. Here are the main ones: A medical condition* The book is boring You are tired already The book is too challenging *If there’s a medical reason behind why ..read more

By Katie Azevedo, M.Ed. “I get good grades on my homework but I’m bad at taking tests.” If you’ve ever said or thought this, then keep reading because I’m going to reveal to you what’s really going on. It might be true that your class participation, projects, and homework grades are higher than your test grades. But by no means at all does that mean you’re bad at taking tests. Even if you’ve always been “bad” at taking tests, I still make the argument that you’re not really bad at taking tests.  In fact, I argue that there’s no such thing as a “bad” test-taker. Curious? Read on. Why You ..read more

By Katie Azevedo, M.Ed. The entire point of taking notes is so that they become something useful to you. If you’re taking notes that are disorganized, unclear or incomplete, they’re not useful, which is a waste of your time. In this blog post, I teach you how to take notes that are easy to study from. I give you 4 unique note-taking tips that will drastically increase how useful your notes are when you need them the most: for studying. You’ve been taking notes wrong I know that some teachers turn note-taking into assignments. For example, your homework might be to read and take notes on chapt ..read more

By Katie Azevedo, M.Ed. Everyone wants to study less – including you. That’s the reason you’re reading this in the first place, yes? The good news is that it’s totally possible. In this post, I teach you how to study less by implementing a few simple strategies into your daily school habits.  Curious? Read on. The myth about studying less  Studying is not a one-time occurrence. You don’t study once for something and call it a day, unless you’re already very familiar with the content and are simply reviewing it right before a test. But then again, that’s reviewing, not studying. Stud ..read more

By Katie Azevedo, M.Ed. There seems to be endless confusion around annotation techniques. “What do I highlight?” is one of the most common skill-based questions I’m asked, and so this blog post teaches you what to highlight when annotating novels.  In a future blog post, I’ll cover what to highlight when annotating other types of text. Getting started: Highlighting isn’t annotating Highlighting is only half of a good annotation strategy. Unless you’re only highlighting for one specific thing (explained below), you should always pair highlights with short notes about why you highlighted w ..read more

By Katie Azevedo, M.Ed. School stress is real. There’s stress about assignments, tests, social drama, sports, schedules, time, college applications, studying and grades – the list goes on. In this blog post, I share what I argue is the number one source of school stress for most students, regardless of what type of stress it is. In other words, there’s one common denominator for stress about tests, time, grades, assignments, and studying. Curious? Read on. The number one source of school stress for most students Nearly all school stress comes from a lack of clarity. When we don’t have total c ..read more