What’s new this spring? A test-taking strategies workshop that highlights research-based approaches and focuses on test structures as guides for how students prepare. Students can join onsite – and enjoy dinner provided by the Stanford Learning Lab – or attend via Zoom for convenience. Cognitive Workshop Series facilitator and Learning Specialist Dr. Mitch Dandignac will be showcasing some favorite topics from previous quarters, including procrastination and sleep.
“One of the main takeaways that I try to convey when I talk about procrastination is that procrastination is not a time management issue, and it is not a character trait, and it is not a sign of laziness,” he says. Dandignac suggests procrastination has more to do with habits around engaging with less aversive activities and that we can actually break the task at hand into smaller, more actionable chunks to make it easier to start. “Adjust the challenging task to meet your current mood or level of motivation, so that you can try to get the ball rolling.”
Another popular offering is Dandignac’s workshop on strategies related to ADHD. While “there’s no one-size-fits-all strategy that’s going to work for everyone all the time,” Dandignac says there are research-backed methods that students could test to see if they work for them and emphasizes that the Stanford Learning Lab specializes in partnering with students with learning disabilities and learning differences.
In the workshops, students hear about the scientific underpinnings of each topic, then have time to practice the application of new skills in real time. There’s also plenty of space to share personal experiences and reactions. The floor is open for students to explore “how their experiences are mapping onto this concept that we are talking about,” Dandignac says.
Eight distinct workshops on topics related to how we learn are being offered across spring quarter on most Mondays from 5 – 6:30 pm. Students can attend one or several workshops, register through the quick registration link or Cognitive Workshop Series tab on the Learning Lab’s website and are simply asked to keep their rsvp up to date. More meeting details will be sent upon registration. The workshops are open to all undergrads and grads for free.
“These workshops are about topics that impact us greatly, but we often don’t talk about with others such as procrastination but also things like our sleep habits, our time management strategies, you know, this habit that I’ve been trying to pin down, but I can’t seem to get it,” says Dandignac. Normalizing these experiences forms community and new ideas based on learning research could lead to astonishing breakthroughs.
