Monday, August 27

Study Guides & Strategies to Think Like a Genius!

Study Guides & Strategies: http://www.studygs.net/
Exercises & Games: http://www.studygs.net/exercises.htm
Thinking Like a Genius: http://www.studygs.net/genius.htm

Study Guides & Strategies
"The Study Guides and Strategies web site is authored, maintained and supported by Joe Landsberger as an independent educational public service. Collaborative projects are developed across institutional, cultural and national boundaries. I resist advertising, registration, and distracting graphics or features that may interfere with maximizing learner access."

Copyright?
"Permission is granted to freely copy, adapt, and distribute individual Study Guides in print format in non-commercial educational settings that benefit learners. No request to link to the Web site is necessary. Please be aware that the Guides welcome, and are under, continuous review and revision. For that reason, reproduction of all content on the Internet can only be with permission through a licensed agreement ...more"

Any Juice?
The first time you visit the 'Study Guides & Strategies' site, you might be thinking "Big deal! Just a lifeless text-based site with a lot of hyperlinks to whatever! I better get back to the real life in my 'Second Life'!" Wait a minute, give this site a minute or two and you will discover some amazing articles or tools that could assist you in becoming a more effective learner (Don't judge a book or site by its cover!). In 2006 alone, this amazing site had 11.8 million page views. I wonder why? The best way to find out is to explore some of the wonderful study guides on this site covering topics such as learning (preparation), studying, classroom participation, learning with others, online learning and communicating, reading skills, preparing for tests, research, projects and much more.

This amazing collection of study guides are written using a simple and effective design philosophy, which enables us easily to digest and learn (No unnecessary jargon and graphics! Also, the study guides are perfect for handouts, too!). On top of that, many of these study guides are translated into several languages (around 30), including Arabic, French, Indonesian, and Spanish (The different language translations (clickable icons) are displayed on the left side of the index page). Interestingly, now they have also added some easy-to-learn/use exercises and games (developed by students for students!), which are intended to reinforce or complement the selected Study Guides topics (I had fun trying the speed reading game!).

Thinking like a Genius!
Are you getting excited? If not, I will just have to share with you nine (9) quick tips from the site on how to think like a genius:
  1. Look at problems in many different ways, and find new perspectives that no one else has taken (or no one else has publicized!)
  2. Visualize!
  3. Produce! A distinguishing characteristic of genius is productivity.
  4. Make novel combinations. Combine, and recombine, ideas, images, and thoughts into different combinations no matter how incongruent or unusual.
  5. Form relationships; make connections between dissimilar subjects.
  6. Think in opposites.
  7. Think metaphorically.
  8. Prepare yourself for chance.
If you are planning to develop a study guide for your students, you should perhaps consider using the 'Study Guides & Strategies' site as your main reference. Why reinvent the wheel (I mean Study Guides)?

Joe Landsberger (and his team) deserves a 'Honky Tonk Yamaguchi!' thumbs up for this amazing project :)

No comments: