Cure to procrastination
When an assignment appears daunting to any student, it is quite natural that s/he will psychologically experience a strong sense of unwillingness in his or her heart against making a start. Next, s/he will escape from that unpleasurable feeling by turning his or her attention to other easier tasks or pastimes. Once this pattern loops for several times, s/he is probably in a state of procrastination.
The cure is to say to oneself that I am only going to spend 30 minutes on it and that's ALL. First, 30 minutes on a task sounds much more achievable than completing the whole assignment. The feeling of resistance very soon gives way. Second, once the student is 30 minutes into the task, s/he may well have no difficulty with carrying on for another 30 minutes – haha, I believe that is the beauty of the trick!
Cure to illusion of competence
Some students may think they have listened (remembered) very carefully in class and read (remembered) the notes for many times, so they feel that they already know the content well. However, they may still struggle at the mid-term test venue, staring blankly at the questions, trying to regurgitate what they know. However, they do not realise all they have been doing is just input and not output.
The cure can simply be any form of output. One suggestion is to take out a piece of paper and write about what the student has learned from the class. Writing is thinking. This is a simple test as well as an output exercise. Even better, s/he can try to explain the ideas to his or her classmates, that is output in the form of verbalising her understanding.
Lastly, please enjoy some links below related to this very useful topic.
The free online course, please click here.
Key points of the course in this TED talk by Dr. Barbara Oakley, please click here.
Their facebook page with many interesting links, please click here.