Fall 2022 Cognitive Workshop Series

The Stanford Learning lab is holding a 4-part cognitive workshop series, available to all Stanford students during the Fall 2022 quarter. The purpose of this workshop series is to provide an immersive space to learn and practice scientifically-informed strategies related to academic success and well-being. Dr. Mitch Dandignac will cover the cognitive science behind several essential areas for excelling in academia and facilitate guided practices. While each of us bring our own unique strengths and learn differently, this is an opportunity to reflect on how we think, learn, and behave in our academic lives. Through a cognitive psychological lens, we can better understand our mental processes and how to enact desired changes in our approaches.

Workshops occur on Mondays from 5 to 6:30 p.m. Refreshments will be provided. The workshops will be held in-person at the Student Services Building, Room 101, located at 563 Salvatierra Walk. You can register for some or each of these individual workshops. Note that the workshops have a limited capacity.

Register here.

Cognitive Workshop Series Overview

• Monday, Oct. 17 (5-6:30 p.m.): Studying Smarter, Not Harder
  • In this workshop, we practice high utility study strategies and address misconceptions about how our minds process and retain information. Whether we are transitioning from high school or are several years into our higher education, adopting a few core learning principles can help us thrive on tests, research projects, manuscripts, and a variety of other academic endeavors.
• Monday, Oct. 31 (5-6:30 p.m.): Learning to Sleep, Sleeping to Learn
  • In this workshop, we explore the science of sleep, how it affects memory retention, and establish goals and strategies to get our sleep back on track. Sleep is often the first thing we sacrifice to create more time to study or entertain ourselves. However, steady and healthy sleep habits can have a positive and enduring effect on our immediate and long-term academic success and well-being.
• Monday, Nov. 14 (5-6:30 p.m.): Building & Breaking Habits
  • In this workshop, we cover why the habits we set out to do don’t last and how restructuring how we think about habits can help us build good habits. Whether it is lapsing on our New Year’s resolutions or habitually engaging our vices, we often have experiences of good habits not sticking and bad habits not breaking. By leveraging a few key principles of how people think, we can increase the likelihood that this time around our habits will stick.
• Monday, Dec. 5 (5-6:30 p.m.): Overcoming Procrastination
  • In this workshop, we examine the science of procrastination, the causes of our own procrastination tendencies, and practice strategies to keep us on schedule. There are a variety of reasons why we delay our work. We might have a fear of failure, require entertainment until our motivation returns, or not know how to proceed on a complex and confusing task. By identifying these patterns and building in measures of accountability, we can complete our work ahead of schedule.

For questions, email mitchd@stanford.edu.