One very important thing I have learned in this module is how to effectively improve my concentration during study. The learning environment of college and childhood is different, college pays more attention to self-study. Often learning schedules are self-organizing, and it is impossible for professors to pay attention to everyone. This requires us to enhance our own learning motivation and self-supervision to adapt to the new environment. The biggest enemy on the road to self-management is distraction. Therefore, it is important to learn how to mitigate distractions and create a more productive environment. For example, when I study, there are always a lot of things that distract me and reduce my study efficiency. Therefore, I am used to studying in a closed and quiet space, which greatly ensures that I am not disturbed by outside noise. Everyone needs some physical area, no matter how big or small, that is his or her own — even if it’s only a small part of the shared space. You generally feel more secure and in control in your own space. At the same time, I turn off the phone, or play some concentration-enhancing music, which can greatly reduce the distraction of the phone.
Resources: https://open.lib.umn.edu/collegesuccess/chapter/2-2-organizing-your-space/

Before this week of study, I didn’t think search was a thing to learn. Searching the web for me is something I do every day, and it’s not that difficult. But this unit taught me a lot more about searching effectively. A very useful thing I learned in this module is boolean logic. The Boolean type is a data type supported by Python. The Boolean type has only two values, True and False, so no matter what type it is, the result of its true or false value must be one of True and False. False values: 0, None, empty string “”, empty tuple(), empty list[], empty dictionary {}, etc. Empty values ​​are all False. True value: 1. All values ​​such as strings are True, that is, all values ​​except false values ​​are true values. Web searches use Boolean logic to filter results, so understanding Boolean logic is essential. For example, if you did a search on “car dealerships,” the search engine would have hundreds of millions of matching web pages. If you add the word “Chicago”, that number drops significantly. The search engine, using Boolean algebra, retrieves a page that matches “car”, “dealer” and “Chicago”; in other words, the page must have all of the eligible terms. You can also specify “OR” conditions like “car” and “dealer” AND which gives you a car dealer page in Chicago or Milwaukee.

resources: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCY8jDqi-AsmocBDcDs0ltfw

A very important thing I learned in this module is learning how to take notes more effectively. The learning environment in college and childhood is different. College classes are often large classes with many people, professors cannot pay attention to everyone, and the learning pace is very fast, which requires us to improve our note-taking methods to Adapt to the new environment. Therefore, it is very important to learn some more efficient note-taking methods. At the same time, I also learned the difference between taking notes by hand and taking notes with a computer. Through this week’s study, I found that handwritten notes turned out to be more effective than taking notes on a computer! Because when people type their notes, they tend to try to take them verbatim and write down as many lectures as possible. And when they took notes by hand, they were forced to choose what was more effective to record. And the extra handling of the material they’re doing benefits them. Proper email format is also a very useful knowledge point I learned this week. When I first came to the US for college, I didn’t even know what to call my professors. I just emailed my question requests, just didn’t have the polite salutation and proper format. This will greatly increase the workload of professors, and may even be ignored by professors directly. So learning the correct email format is also very important.

Source：https://www.npr.org/2016/04/17/474525392/attention-students-put-your-laptops-away

This week I learned a lot of little tricks that help me read. Recently, I have been reading a book every day for no more than an hour and a half (90 minutes). In the past, even if I spent an hour and a half reading a book every day, it would take more than a week to read a book. For a book with a similar word count and genre, why is the reading time so different? How do I achieve fast reading? Through this week’s experiments, I found that reading speed can indeed be quickly improved in a short period of time. Ordinary people can also read ten lines at a time, and can read a book in less than half a day. The key is the method. Next, I will share some speed reading methods that I have learned that are easy to operate, fast and effective, and can be used for a long time. I hope that after practice, the reading speed can also be quickly improved. Before you begin to read, you need to check your PBID! Purpose, you will benefit greatly from taking a minute to identify the purpose of your reading. Background, read the abstract, and think about what you know about the topic. It may be easier for you to read the material if you have a high level of knowledge of the subject. Interest, if you shy away from the text for lack of interest, you need to take some action that makes reading bearable. For example, working with study partners Difficulty, the difficulty of reading material can encourage or discourage students from learning the text.

Sources：https://www.usu.edu/academic-support/files/pre_reading_strats.pdf