How talking to a dead cat got me top grades

I'm not crazy. Really.

In this video I talk about my theory of learning, which is that truly effective learning and revision takes place in a cycle:

1. Precondition yourself to learn
2. Learn new material
3. Process new material
4. Evaluate your learning experience

You progress from steps one to four, and then use step four to inform how you approach step one in the future. It's like the circle of life, but with more revision headaches.

What I was doing by talking through my days and plans with my cats was exactly the last step in the cycle - just in slightly esoteric form. But if something is stupid and works it's not so stupid, right?

---------- II ----------

I am Simon, a fourth year PhD candidate at the University of Exeter. I upload videos on bits of science which are relevant to what I do, and sometimes just because they're really cool.

Thanks to Vlogbrothers for their sponsorship of this video. Money from the Foundation to Decrease Worldsuck contributed to equipment used in this video.

Dedicated to Henry and Snowy. Love you always.

[chesster]

Did you say you had to, CATegorise new material? :D

[YourNerdyVlogger]

I suppose this means the cat was both dead and alive until you found out.

[daibhidh]

I truly absorb myself in studying and material, especially in the run up to exams. The thing that helped me was using an MP3 player to voice record notes or areas I found challenging. Then on the 50min bus journey in the morning, instead of listening to music, I would listen to my notes. I think if you amalgamate your written notes and diagrams, with audio techniques it really helps. Especially when you record your notes on an MP3 player, you must condense the information into an understandable format...almost as if you are lecturing yourself.

[krishramesh]

Schrodinger : Schrodinger's cat ::: Simon: Henry. ( Every hero has a cat behind his success).

[filipvlcan]

What an awesome video, I kind of expected you to talk about Schrödinger when I saw "dead cat" in the title but this was even better, I might start talking to my cat.

[frostyboyken]

No, dude, you're not crazy. Cat people rule! Hearing this story basically tells me everything I'd need to know about you to evaluate you as to what type of human you might be -- one of the good guys, I can tell you that much. I recently discovered your channel. School was many more years in my past, but I'm finding your channel quite interesting and can apply much of what you say to everyday life. Thank you and good fortunes to you, Mr. Clark.

[alicedoesphysics]

I know it's really simple, but for my A levels (Maths, FM and Physis) I made a sticker chart of all the available past papers for each subject and stuck them on my wall across from my bed. Every time I did a paper, I'd add a sticker and the date. It really helped me see how much I was actually doing (rather than spending ages procrasting and judging it based on time) and it was really motivating being able to see the progress every night before I slept 😊 I ended up with A*A*A*, which obviously wasn't down to this alone, but I think having a physical record of my progress really helped me keep up with revision and not give up. I do the same thing now at uni, but with textbook chapters instead

[anonym]

That's basically what I do all the time! Well, I was repeating everything to myself instead of a dead cat (... I mean, I'm not crazy after all)

In my opinion, the most important thing when learning is that at some point, you just put all your materials away, take a little break and then write down everything you remember.
I know it's quite Simple and Probably an obvious thing to do but it gives you a great overview about what you already know and what you still need to revise.

[adriandewambrechies]

What I use to do is to record myself explaining some topics about my daily work. As always it may sound strange, but the fact of explaining things to others makes you realize if you really understand them... in addition, watching me talking about things makes me spot problems I have for exposing my ideas, which is very useful for oral presentations!

[mangafreak]

The story at the beginning was really sweet and funny. I never thought about learning as a cycle, but it sounds like a great way to look at it. I'll try to keep it in mind in the future.
The most helpful for me was to find people study with who are the same type of learner. And I explain things to myself out loud. It's a bit weird at first, but really I like it more than just going over things silently.

[hijack]

I can't believe you thought your cat was dead. You're a physics student..you know it's both dead and alive at the same time

[ibee]

Yes! Reviewing or reflecting on what you have completed is so important. Im old fashion a day use a planner/agenda, I make sure to get a big one with lots of writing space. I break down the day into: appointment, to do list, reflection and meal planning. I find these categories keep me on track. Sometimes all I write in the reflection is having a hard day writing my thesis. It's funny because even if I didn't take progress that normally would stress me out, seeing that makes me sympathize and I feel okay about the lesser progress, and I know a good day will come where I'll catch up. That's my long explanation of what keeps me on track.

[SomethingNick]

I do a similiar thing with a bullet journal, after everyday I write down a little summary of what I learnt (in computer science) then what I didn't understand then I make plans to fill the gaps in my knowledge the following day. Took me three years to learn just how important reflection and consistent study is!

[MexieMex]

I've always found one of the best ways to learn something is to teach it, your dead cat chats seem to be a variant on this. Every time I've had to teach somebody something (physics, guitar playing, languages, magic, whatever) I've _always_ came away with a deeper understanding of the subject than I had beforehand. Oh, and cats may be great listeners, but not all Kats are (my wife is called Kat) LOL

[markhanna]

I completely agree with your steps to learning. I like to find out exactly what I have to learn (/understand) and then plan the stages in which I will study it in the time I have available. Planning out my learning is very important for me as it helps me stay motivated as I know exactly what I need to get through. When planning I consider my previous learning methods and adjust them to try to learn even more efficiently (what you call the evaluate stage).

[AM-xtjj]

I usually use hand written notes as they seem to make information stick way quicker. Especially as I have grown accustomed to using symbols as helpers and I usually put little infos about motivation or mood in there or little warnings if something took me longer to understand. When reviewing I know to look out for these symbols. When reading texts I like to write down questions that open up while reading and if they were answered. These questions usually help me staying focused and motivated on stilling my curiosity.

[untitled]

I imagine talking about my day and things I've learned to random people. It's amazing how many times it's helped me to understand something

[yoyoetherington]

I love that you say that we think you are mad from the title then say "but this is an absolutely true story" as if the story makes you seem less mad!!!

[pizza]

Well it''s not really a revision tip but it happens to work for me: I make lists all the time! I always try to plan what I need to revise, and at which time of the day I have to do it. It's kinda like what you said actually, I try to organise what has to be done in the day so that work doesn't pile up.
However I often fail to actually do all I plan to do because sometimes I'm so much into something (especially when studying Engineering Analysis haha) I just won't stop until I get the right answer for example, and so it's time consuming and I end up doing nothing but one thing on the list!
Anyway, your videos are great!

[CaityLouise]

My main method has always been going through every course and boiling it down to put on notecards. What are the most important theorems, what key examples help me understand things, what do I find easy/hard. Going through it in that detail and deciding what are the most important parts can really help you see the big picture of where you are with the material and help you pinpoint where to focus from there.

It's also a great feeling when you get through a whole book of notes and end up with say 40 keycards as opposed to 140 pages! Makes it feel a lot less intimidating. That's my 2 cents for all it's worth