Studying vs. Learning

What exactly does a successful student look like? Would you know a successful student if you saw one? Is that student staring back at you in the mirror? If you want to maximize your learning and success, you need quality thinking skills, learning skills, and psychological skills far more than you need studying tips. This book will help you develop those skills, making you a more confident, efficient, and productive student. It is a practical guide to developing essential college skills, many you have never learned about before, with straight-forward suggestions you can put into practice right now. When you’re dealing with hard classes, difficult material, deadlines, negative feedback, bad teachers – not to mention all the stuff in your life outside of school – studying skills won’t help you. When life is tough, you don’t make flashcards and memorize definitions. You need the personal skills and habits described in Studying vs. Learning to deal effectively with the challenges you face, inside and outside of school. The ideas offered are supported by the author’s 20 years of clinical and teaching experience, along with hundreds of scientific research findings. It is all described in plain English, so you can know what scientists and educators know about what works (and what doesn’t) when it comes to learning and succeeding in college. Ordinary “studying” books do not give you that. Studying and learning are not necessarily the same thing. To learn, you must know how to think. This book will help you learn the skills and positive habits you need to succeed in the classroom and beyond.

Troy Dvorak, the RockinPsychProf on social media, holds a Master’s degree in clinical psychology and is a psychology professor at Minneapolis Community & Technical College. Prior to becoming a college professor in 2005, Troy provided psychological assessment and treatment services for children, teenagers, and families at an outpatient mental health clinic in Canada for seven years. As a clinician, his areas of expertise included behavioral and emotional disorders in childhood and adolescence, family therapy, and school counseling. As a college professor, Troy's expertise lies in the area of student success. With the growing popularity of "grit" and mindsets, Troy began reviewing the research on psychological factors related to student success in 2009. After combing through over 600 peer-reviewed articles, he wrote Psychological Keys to Student Success, published in 2014. The book was written for students, giving them insights into the thinking skills and personal characteristics commonly associated with college success. In addition to the essential thinking skills described in the Psychological Keys, Studying vs. Learning: The Psychology of Student Success, is a practical guide to developing more effective learning and studying strategies, those supported by psychological and educational research. It further describes five important psychological principles that students can use to develop the personal habits associated with success, not just in school, but in life. Troy is a self-taught drummer and loves the pounding beats, rockin' guitar riffs, and vocal hooks in hard rock music. He is a fan of 80's hard rock and "hair metal" and describes himself as "pathetically monogamous to the genre." Whether at home, in the car, at the gym, or in his office, hard rock music is almost always cranking. He even plays it before his classes start. For Troy, psychology truly ROCKS!