FAT Teacher — Study Skills

Why three hours of highlighting leaves you with 10%: the fluency illusion, the forgetting curve, and why active beats passive.

The four pillars — Fit to Learn, Ask to Learn, Test to Learn, Teach to Learn — how they reinforce each other, and how to start.

Encoding, storage and recall; what your brain keeps (relevant + different); and pre-study, the routine that cuts total study time.

Your health is the foundation: the brain's energy budget, and why consistency beats intensity every time.

Studying stores, sleep files: consolidation, deep vs REM sleep, the true cost of an all-nighter, and the two golden windows.

Exercise as study equipment, the 2% dehydration problem, steady fuel versus sugar crashes, and the pre-session checklist.

The habit loop, the 20-minute minimum viable routine, habit stacking, environment design, and studying at your own peak time.

The 23-minute interruption cost, building focus stamina, energy waves, the 15-minute stuck rule, and the no-zero-days rule.

Why questions drive learning, plus ready-made question toolkits for fact subjects, maths and English.

Six levels from no-questions to synthesis, Bloom's Taxonomy, the five elements of a powerful question, and six self-checks.

5W1H on any sentence, the Question Formulation Technique, prioritising foundation→mechanism→application, and question stems.

Testing as a learning tool: active recall, the forgetting curve, spaced repetition, and where to find practice tests.

Recognition is not knowledge: free recall, cued recall, elaborative recall, application practice and concept mapping — and why difficulty is the point.

The five question levels, the balanced 10-question recipe, three ten-minute question factories, and the five ways a self-made question goes wrong.

Expanding intervals, the three-pile system, interleaving, and a week of reviews that takes 15-25 minutes a day.

The four mistake types and their different fixes, the five-line error log, finding patterns, and the test-diagnose-fix-retest loop.

The Feynman Technique, the reality check, three ways to practise teaching, and drawing your own diagrams.

Write it plainly, mark the cracks, repair only those, then simplify — plus self-explanation prompts and the four ways students fake it.

Notes for a reader, diagrams drawn from memory, the one-page cheat sheet, the five-minute mini-lesson, and your own artifact library.

The protege effect, four audiences, study-group rules that work, handling questions you cannot answer, and a weekly teaching rhythm.

All four pillars in one session: the 60-minute cycle, the 25-minute version, daily/weekly/monthly rhythms, and what to do when it breaks down.

The transcription trap, Cornell notes, labelled concept maps, the ten-minute same-day pass, and matching the system to the material.

One pillar a week, a fifteen-second daily log, restarting after you fall off, and the five questions to answer on day 30.