Why do students not plan when they start studying
“An app to start to study better” might be a mysterious title that requires an explanation. In the daily struggle to carry out school tasks, or what young people call “homework”, there is an important moment: getting started. Even for those students who don’t dislike studying, starting out often brings about feelings of rejection. In addition, it is the moment when you have to decide what to do and, although planning should be the key moment, it is not easy for two reasons:
-It requires a few minutes of reflection to compile the pending tasks, assess them, put them in order, calculate the time that is going to be dedicated to each of them …
-We do not see the effectiveness. Why waste those precious minutes?
To these two difficulties, it should be added that the younger the student is, the less patience they have. For this reason, planning seems very expendable to them and they prefer to do the things that occur to them according to their impulse and selective memory. The immediate tends to seem more attractive to you, and tasks they may take longer are likely to be saved for last.
As a teacher, I can affirm that the vast majority of my students think this way: “what can be done tomorrow, don’t do it today” which, as a motto, reflects a spirit contrary to planning. This is procrastination (learn more in this article).
Why is it so necessary to plan when you study
However, planning is one of the key moments in time management and an important ingredient to create a strong study habit. This step will significantly affect the quality of your study and the performance of the student, who will notice it in their academic results and, above all, in their self-esteem and psychological well-being.
Planning brings maturity, self-control, and mastery of time and life itself. For this reason, it is essential to educate in time management and accustom the student to planning the activity they intend to carry out. Planning is a task that will be present throughout life and should be something cultivated from early education.
Apps that help plan the way you study
It is curious that, in the middle of the digital age, we did not find specific digital tools to address this important need. Recently, three personal planners have appeared designed for academic tasks. Two of them are Spanish: Gokoan, mainly for people that need to prepare for a big exam; and Studeam, the planner app for study and general-purpose homework.
Can they help students plan? We are going to leave Gokoan aside for its specificity and its artificial intelligence system. It is a surprising application but linked to specific content. You need to start from some texts, such as the syllabus of a subject or exam, in order to plan your study approach. Instead, we will show what the startup Task & Time, creator of the Studeam app, can contribute to the educational challenge of independent time management.
Studeam study planner
Studeam is an app created to offer automatic, objective, pedagogical and safe planning with just one click. Of course, it does not replace the student in the fundamental aspects: deciding the work schedule in which the tasks are to be carried out, the objectives to be met and the estimated time that will be used to carry out each task. Studeam asks the student for this data as a requirement, thus introducing him to a time management learning process. The app then calculates an objective and immune response to self-deception. It does the tedious and repetitive part of planning, the one that takes the longest and the one that our impatience wishes to skip.
Who makes a square root by hand today? We learn the process in childhood and then let the machines run it. Something similar happens with planning: once you understand which rules should be followed to plan the way we study, a machine can automatically give you the answer. For this reason, Studeam offers a first departure planning, valid to start with and with criteria of maximum use of time, stipulation of breaks, review periods, distribution of long tasks … The best way to understand Studeam is to take a look at its DEMO video:
When it comes to educating young people in time management, we believe that with the Studeam app they will have a tool that will make it easier for them to do what they need to do at the appropriate time. Making a complete and concrete work plan available to the student can be decisive. In addition, if this plan is shared with a teacher, parent, or tutor– in cases where it is deemed convenient – it will be a powerful assessment and learning tool.
Luis J. Álvarez
CEO at Task & Time
