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Staying on task

October 31st, 2011

Here at Study Hut in Manhattan Beach, we know that there’s more to academic success than simply knowing the material. Organizational skills and general study tricks are perhaps the most important “subjects” we teach, because without them it’s difficult to stay on top of the ever-growing workload of high school.

We, the super smart and super awesome tutors of Study hut, develop customized study plans for every student that walks through our doors, based on their own habits and personalities. However, here are a few basic strategies that can work for anyone who’s having troubles with procrastination (read: everyone).

1. Designate Goof Off Time
Nobody is a machine. Sometimes you’re lucky enough to find a subject that you love so much that homework is actually fun (yay physics!)
However, a lot of the time you’re going to have to deal with subjects that you straight up don’t like. And that’s alright! However, there’s a physical limit to how much loathsome boredom a human can take before they get distracted and goof off.
And that’s alright, too!
The trick is to actually portion off part of your day to goof off – that can mean facebook, video games, TV, or whatever else.
These things are fine in small quantities, and they make your life more fun! So give yourself over to them, but for a set period that you’ve planned for ahead of time.
The other way – checking facebook every time you feel like it during your problem sets – is incredibly distracting, hinders your progress, and thus ends up stressing you out even more.

2. Page Blockers
If you’re having troubles staying off of fun pages, try downloading a page blocker. There are lots of them online, but a few great ones are “Concentrate” and “Self-Control”. They work by physically disabling your browser’s ability to visit certain sites for a pre-determined amount of time.
This serves as a sort of guardrail; if you feel like procrastinating for a tiny bit they’ll help keep you on track.
However, they aren’t cure-alls: just like real guard rails, if you’re really determined to go off the trail you’ll be able to hop over them easily enough. However, they do serve as reminders about where your priorities should lie.

3. Enjoy the process!
It is much easier to work if you enjoy the process. Sometimes that’s difficult, but there are things you can do to improve it. Choose a room that’s pleasant to you, one that you will enjoy working in.
Playing music while you study can be a big help. It can be marginally distracting, but sometimes that’s a sacrifice that’s worth making. If you have to choose between working at 90% efficiency because you’re listening to music, or working at 5% efficiency because you’re constantly getting bored and taking breaks, then that’s not really any choice at all, is it?
Enjoy the process, or if you can’t, make it enjoyable.

4. Healthful snacks in small quantities
Lay off the sugar and junk food. Small doses of healthful foods keep your energy up and keep you focused. Almonds, walnuts, carrots, broccoli, and dried fruit are all great choices. Overly sweet things like candy or poptarts send your blood sugar into a tail spin, and release hormones that make staying focused difficult. Don’t shoot yourself in the foot with a poor diet.

5. Don’t use these tips to procrastinate.
This is the important. It’s easy to think that “applying” tips like these is productive work. And to a certain extent that’s true.
But, if you find yourself spending twenty minutes reading reviews about the best page blockers, or preparing a gourmet snack tray, or meticulously organizing your iTunes folder into different playlists for each subject, then, well… We see the problem here, yes?
Apply these tips, but bear in mind that the final goal is to actually get your schoolwork done.

That’s it for now! Call Study Hut in Manhattan Beach for more information about how to study right and slaughter your coursework and SATs

Sports and tutoring are Similar

June 14th, 2011

When I’m not tutoring at Study Hut in Manhattan Beach, I like to volunteer my time as a baseball coach at Westchester Babe Ruth. I see a lot of similarities to coaching and tutoring. One of the most important aspects to both is being able to relate to players and students. I was never very receptive to the old, over the hill baseball coaches because it’s hard to relate to them. Besides baseball, there’s not too much we have in common and it’s very hard to build a rapport with them. I feel the same can be said with tutoring, because I’m not too far removed from high school its a lot easier for the other tutors and me to relate to the students. When you are in a comfortable environment, it just provides a solid learning experience. Another very interesting relationship is the amount of work both students and baseball players put into their respective fields. No one is born an All Star or brainiac, it takes a lot of effort and hard work. The best players on the field and the best students in the classroom share a common characteristic and that’s work ethic. The ones that put the extra effort in more often than not are the ones who excel in sports or school. One thing I try to stress to my students from Mira Costa and Manhattan Beach Middles School is that they should never sacrifice their schoolwork for sports. A few of my high school students think that just because they play sports they can just cruise through high school. This is most definitely not the case. If they have ambitions to play collegiate they first must have the grades to get in college, and they will also need strong study skills. Road games in college drag student athletes out of classes for days if not weeks. If they haven’t established strong study skills in high school, they are doomed in college. Luckily the student athletes have a resource like Study Hut at their finger tips, and can learn the skills to succeed in the classroom.

“I Hate this Class” “I Don’t get it”

December 21st, 2010

The best thing about tutoring is: the opportunity to find success through anothers’. For every achievement, milestone, and triumph over academia, you are there beside your student. The successful tutor takes pride in helping his or her students achieve their academic goals, as their accomplishments reflect the quality and care of the teaching you’ve provided.

The position of a tutor requires patience, flexibility, and often a bit of ingenuity to relate
material that a student is struggling with. Sometimes the struggle results from poor in-class instruction; other times, it results from a wall being put up, as is the case with the mutually hated subjects (read: Chemistry, Geometry, and Trig). From this wall, springs a fountain of: “I hate this class,” “when am I ever going to use this?” and the banal “I don’t get it.” Ultimately, the goal of every successful tutor is to cap this negative-thought fountain and establish a strong base for breaking down the barriers of understanding. If a strong conceptual understanding is established, the student can go forth and apply
what he or she has learned both in and outside of class. The development of acute critical thinking skills in high school, junior high, even elementary school, is imperative to their successful triumph over the multitude of problems that college, and life, will throw at them. It is our job, as tutors, to cultivate these skills through theoretical and practical applications.

I work with many Chemistry honors and AP students, and although I can’t convince all of them that being able to synthesize the Sodium Laureth Sulfate in their shampoo bottle is really cool, I can convince them that Chemistry is totally conquerable. By relating a subject’s facts and ideas to everyday concepts (i.e. combustion reactions produce water: that’s why some cars drip water from their tailpipes) and being upfront about what is expected of them in their courses (sorry, but the polyatomic ions are just rote memorization), I’ve found success as a tutor.

Redondo Beach tutor

February 19th, 2009

Attention students of Redondo Beach: Study Hut Tutoring offers tutoring for students in the Redondo Beach Area. Study Hut Tutoring is able to offer service to students from Paris Middle School and Redondo Union High School; the tutors at Study Hut are familiar with the area and many have taken the same classes taught by the same teachers as their students. Read the rest of this entry »