Students are More Stressed than Ever, as They Struggle to Catch Up and Compete Academically

 

Our high school and college-age kids are struggling. Not only are they anxious about fitting in, but the pandemic caused many to fall behind in school. College admissions are more competitive while ACT scores have hit a 30-year low. Even students with good study habits and high potential are feeling the pressure. 

New evidence-based learning techniques are quickly enabling thousands of students around the world to spend at least 30% less time studying while supercharging their brains to absorb, retain and recall information rapidly, no matter what the subject. 

"Learning isn't magic. It's a skill that can be trained, like playing a sport or an instrument. And training yourself to learn efficiently transforms your life and the opportunities you can reach," says former medical doctor and full-time learning coach Justin Sung, an internationally published learning researcher and lecturer. 

The truth behind studying smarter 

"Most students underestimate their potential because they are studying the wrong way," explains Sung, who started researching how the brain learns while he was a university student. "I was studying all day, every day with only a few hours of sleep. It was brutal!" he recalls. 

Faced with having to learn even more information once he entered medical school, he knew increasing his study time was not possible. In addition to his studies, he also dedicated more than 20 hours a week to running charities and pursuing other personal interests. "Even doing what I had been doing wasn't getting the same results. I had to learn different studying techniques."

Sung, who had earned a teaching certificate and tutored while in med school, ultimately developed methods to improve learning efficiency even under real-world pressures. He now serves as Head of Learning for iCanStudy, an international educational organization teaching these research-based learning systems and best-practice methodologies to thousands of learners from adolescents to retirees in more than 120 countries.  

These learning methods are an alternative to expensive tutoring  

Students need only spend two or three hours a week learning how to study more efficiently, and will see results almost immediately. They spend as little $1.57 or less/day to fix their root learning issues, while tutoring often addresses issues at a symptom level for typically over $50/hour. 

"This is the best and most affordable thing you can do to boost your student's confidence and foster sustainable lifelong learning," comments iCanStudy Head of Strategy Michael Tsai. 

Since it started in 2021, which was in the midst of the COVID pandemic, the platform has grown from about 100 students to nearly 10,000 active members across the world. "While the majority of members are high school and university students, around 36% of members are professionals looking to take their careers to the next level." 

Tsai explains, "Unlike many conventional methods of learning, students get better results when they learn how to work with their brain, to exploit how it tends to work." After four weeks:  

• 95.9% of students felt more confident about achieving their academic goals 

• 90.8% reported less procrastination about studying 

• 74.7% of students improved their studying efficiency by at least 30%. 

Students also experienced better retention of newly learned information, deeper understanding and greater ability to apply information for complex problem solving, faster skill development and more enjoyment of learning.

These efficient learning techniques may seem counterintuitive  

"Most learning tips and techniques are either isolated and unsustainable, hard to use in different contexts, or simply do not stand up to real-world demands," states Sung. He says students are often surprised to discover:  

• Studying is not the same thing as learning. "Studying is the physical process, such as  taking notes or watching a video. Not all studying processes activate the same amount of learning. For example, while flash cards help us to memorize and retrieve facts, they are a very inefficient way to learn how concepts relate to one another. We can change how our brains engage with the information." 

• Extra effort doesn't necessarily translate into better results. "Practice doesn't always make perfect if you don't know what you need to work on. When you identify and attend to the issues, there's nothing stopping you from achieving success. Be happy about finding mistakes and learning how to fix them before an exam."

• Their note-taking skills are interfering with their learning. "If you go through an entire lecture without taking any notes, you're using all of your brain's resources just trying to hold onto what's being said instead of connecting the ideas with one another.  Writing too many notes may be even less effective than taking no notes at all. Your brain is not doing any of the heavy lifting if you're just writing without thinking about it. You're by-passing learning completely! Plus, now you've got so many notes to go through that it's adding to your study time."  

Learn how to fast-track learning

Enrollment in the four-month iCanStudy exclusive incubator program includes the 30-day Rapid Start Program, which is personalized based on each student's time availability, circumstances and goals. For additional information or to enroll, visit icanstudy.com. For technical information explaining the research behind the methodologies in the course and how it has been applied to transform learning capabilities, visit icanstudy.com/how-it-works.

Testimonials 

"Since the very start of the course, I've only been improving. iCanStudy not only reduces your study time, but actually makes learning interesting for once. What's even better, is that you don't even have to wait months upon months to see some growth in efficiency, as a few techniques at the start are fairly simple to get down, and these alone improve efficiency by a LOT. 100% recommend getting this, especially during final years of high school where content is just piled on. iCanStudy prepares you to handle these in the best way possible." Kevin Arja 

"iCanStudy is an amazing course. Every aspect of studying is considered from procrastination to maintaining focus. There is [sic] also mindset, revision, time management and active learning strategies. All techniques are based off [sic] scientific research, and the research are [sic] always referenced if anyone wants to have a look." Yilin Z. 

Biography: Justin Sung, MEd, BMedSci (Hons), MBChB, Cert Adult Teaching and Learning

Justin Sung is a learning coach and consultant, ex-medical doctor, TEDx Speaker, and social entrepreneur. He often works with the faculty of education at Monash University
and has a combined social media of over 200,000 followers, where he gives advice on practical learning and self-management.

Sung has been involved in both teaching and social enterprise since 2011. Specializing in bridging the gap between research and practice, he is passionate about using ethical business practices to support gaps in the education system and creating discussion around evidence-based learning. He strongly advocates for educators to hold their practice to a medical standard of evidence and accountability.

He considers himself a research practitioner and has a strong interest in how research can be applied in highly practical settings, especially from learners' perspectives, as opposed to pedagogical or androgogical implications for institutions and educators. Sung has worked with tens of thousands of learners from ages 10 to 70+ across 120 countries, teaching them to learn more efficiently and manage their time, tasks, and mindsets more productively.

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/justin-sung/

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/justinsung

Biography: Michael Tsai 

For the past 15 years, Tsai has worked as a seasoned speaker, education consultant, learning designer, and professional coach. Furthermore, he has created multiple education start-ups as well as headed the training and development departments across a variety of organizations and fields.

From his experiences working with hundreds of schools and thousands of students, Tsai firmly believes that for the amount of effort, time and resources high-achieving students and professionals are investing in their learning pursuits via mainstream methods, they are only receiving minimal impact that is only temporary at best.

His mission is to educate everyone on what efficient and effective learning looks like according to cutting-edge research, on top of adopting a growth mindset crucial to achieving learning success in this ever-evolving and highly competitive world.