Summary Of Professor Chew's 'Beliefs That Make You Stupid'

Professor Chew starts the video off with listing “Beliefs That Make You Stupid” which are beliefs that undermine college students learning. The first belief is that students believe they can learn things and complete assignments faster than they can. The professor says if one wants to truly comprehend the material it takes careful reading and much review. One must plan for assignments to take longer than the allotted time and to always review readings prior to the test. The second belief is that students can memorize isolated facts. They will write notecards and only memorize definitions and not test their comprehension of the material. The third belief is that some students are inheritably good at a subject while others will always be bad
Many times, teachers want a student to just push back the information that was taught. Both my history class and phycology class was like that so I made flashcards to remember definitions. There was not really a need to go beyond that for I knew I was not going to get tested that way. Moreover, when it comes to a classes like math I never had to remember definitions it is all about actually doing the work. I always turn my phone off when it comes to studying because I know that I will stop studying to read a text or see a notification which interrupts my concentration on the subject. When I study, I try to go someplace quite so I can concentrate. Some people like to place music; but that is something I cannot due because I get to easily distracted. I am someone who has always struggled when it comes to math so I do fall into the category of believing there are some students who are inheritably good at certain subjects. This is a belief that is an excuse, as the professor alludes to, for me not to study harder for the class. A way to change that would be for me to carve out time and study more for the classes I do not like. For me it is easy to study history because I like it and sometimes I do spend too much time studying for that subject because I like it and not enough in the subjects I struggle in because they do not interest