Defining study effectiveness

My last blog ended with an open question about 'defining the effectiveness of study'. If I have to momentarily jump away from the constraints of feasibility, the following key attributes (in no particular order) would define an effective study mechanism for me.

• Relaxing – The time spent in studying should be a relaxing experience. It is a cerebral exercise, which is best performed when both body and mind are relaxed and at peace. Given a choice, I would love to study in a darkened room, laying comfortably on a full length couch, in a blissful state of hypnagogia. Hypnagogia is the transitional state between being fully awake and fully asleep. It is in this state that, I believe, the mind is the most receptive and creative.

• Individualistic – Every child is unique when it comes to his way of looking at and absorbing knowledge. While the body of knowledge remains the same for every child, each child has unique hot zones which he struggles with. Hot zones can be related to confusing or highly verbose articulations, conceptual areas, chain of derivation etc. Effective study or teaching should be able to recognize and zoom in onto the child's hot spots as quickly as possible so that maximum effort both on the part of the teacher and the student can be focused on those areas.

• Coverage of knowledge – Traditionally and quite unfortunately, we have been conditioned to relate our successful coverage of end-of-chapter exercise questions (and the questions given by our teachers) as a measure of successful completion of the chapter. This is one of the core reasons why children struggle with questions which are extracted from between the lines in the text. Interestingly enough, some teachers use this strategy to make the exams difficult :). What we are dealing with here is the low coverage of knowledge. This is easily observed with a simple experiment – take a random chapter in any subject, go through the exercise questions and highlight the text in the chapter which answers those questions. At the end, we would be left with huge gaps which contains a treasure trove of knowledge. Unfortunately, most of this knowledge goes uncharted. An effective study should be able to increase the knowledge coverage to almost 100%.

• Zero frustration – There are questions and concepts which effortlessly seeps in into a child's mind and then there are some knowledge nuggets which keep bouncing back irrespective of how much you try. It is these questions that lay the seeds of frustration both in the minds of teacher and student. Frustration, unfortunately, manifests itself into corrosive statements, unproductive behavior and most poisonous of all – corrosion of self esteem. Effective study should attempt to eradicate the frustration cycles with an assurance of teaching/learning even the most troublesome of questions.

• Adaptive – As a child plows through the body of knowledge (chapter), encounters and masters his hot zones, the effective remaining body of knowledge for him should shrink to only those elements that he is struggling with. This helps channelize energies into zones which require them the most, instead of dissipating them by continuing to study linearly and spreading energy and attention on both easy and difficult questions alike. An effective learning mechanism should be able to individualize and adapt the body of knowledge to the child's individual needs.

• Gaming – Children love games, so why is study seen as a antithesis of playing? An effective study mechanism should provide a self-fueling motivating environment for the child to keep going. Study should be fun!

• Self reliance – The ultimate ambition of teaching is to make the student self sufficient. A mentor or teacher is only required to handhold the child in crossing the hot-spots or untying a complicated concept. Overbearing or non-participating parents (or teachers) do equal harm to the esteem and reliance of children. A teacher has to strike a fine balance between being non-participating and being overbearing. An effective study mechanism should propel the child towards self-reliance, but should be smart enough to loop in the teacher at the sign of a hot-spot.

Is this too much to ask for? 

Assuming such a mechanism can be built, would any price tag be comparable to the benefits it brings to the child?