I had a horrible dream last night that I was back in college (that's not necessarily the horrible part) and it was the end of the semester when I realized...I had completely forgotten to attend a particular class throughout the year. I was anticipating receiving my report card and looking at all A's and B's -- but saw one giant F for a class that I didn't even realize I was enrolled in. When I woke up from this dream, I thanked my lucky stars that it was only a dream -- and then thought back to my days as an undergraduate at Bowling Green State University and an MBA student at Case Western Reserve University...
You see, my freshman year, I subscribed to the more "traditional" route of studying -- read the book, highlight sections, re-read those sections, repeat steps one through three...you get what I'm saying. Honestly, that first year for me at BGSU was not much better than average when it came to academic performance. In my sophomore year, I decided to shake things up by practicing some different studying techniques. One of the techniques I tried was recording the classroom sessions on a digital recorder. Some professors made it easy and even made their classes available on audio for digital download. That is a lot more prevelant today than it was when I first enrolled in 1999. Nevertheless, my grades started to get better and better after trying some of these "non traditional" techniques -- and I nearly graduated Cum Laude when it was all said and done.
I am sure that there were other factors involved aside from incorporating an auditory learning component to my techniques that helped encourage some improvement beginning with my sophomore year -- but thinking back, it is interesting how listening actually helped me academically. We've got some very cool things going on at Playaway in terms of educational programs on audio through partnerships with Pearson Education, Follett Education Services, and others -- so keep your eyes peeled. I only hope these programs we roll out help others like my handy digital recorder helped me.
Okay, back to finding a way...
