So Many Words, So Little Time

If there is one thing that is difficult about MSHE, it is completing weekly reading assignments. As Graduate students, most of us were the overachiever types in undergrad, so when we are struggling to complete simple reading assignments, it causes extreme anxiety and imposter syndrome. It's not that we are lazy or unmotivated. It is just A LOT of reading in addition to work and other family responsibilities.

From the start of our program, there has been a significant emphasis on finding your study groups. In study groups, we split up reading assignments. Group members share reading notes/outlines that essentially create textbook cliff notes. Instead of reading 200+ pages a week, you might get assigned to 60 pages. At an average speed of 2 minutes per page, you're in for 2 hours of just reading the text. Assigned reading does not include comprehending the materials or taking notes. Plus, there's dedicated time to discuss the reading with the study group, and then you'll need time to look over everyone else's notes before class begins each Monday. It's two classes, but it's more than meets the eye.

Staying organized has been the most helpful skill. Our resident resource genius Jimmy offered up the study group Notions, a customizable All-in-One Workspace organization tool that has been brilliant! It's provided a space for each of us to create a custom organization to suit our styles.

It's also important to know your style of learning. Do you learn better by doing hands-on activities (Kinesthetic)? How about listening (Auditory)? Watching a YouTube video (Visual)? For myself, I'm a balance of all three styles. So how do I incorporate all those learning styles together?

Over the last year, I've been checking out audiobooks from my local library "reading" through tons of books while I did errands such as cleaning the house. I didn't even think of this as an option; no one records entire Textbooks as audiobooks. However, another cohort mate had introduced us to PodCastle AI Chrome Extension, recommending the AI's reading voice as the most natural reading tone. How ignorant of me to not think of ADA tools that had help visually impaired students for the last decade get through textbooks!

Enter Read Al Extension and my iPad. I chose to use Read Aloud because it was an extension to upload my pdf versions of my textbooks. Read Aloud is not perfect by any means, but it's better than struggling through textbooks on your own. It's been a game-changing tool for reading textbooks.

Question: What's your learning style? Comment below!