Preparing for iCanStudy

What can you do before starting iCanStudy to prepare for success?

1. Evaluate Your Current System

2. Start Retrieval Practice

3. Find Some Declarative Subjects

4. Find Some Well Defined Curricula

5. Download an Infinite Canvas App

6. (Optional) Read Make It Stick

Evaluate Your Current Study System

Write down or draw out your current study system.

At a high level, how do you approach an entire topic? Do you break it down? Do you use mindmaps? Flashcards?

At a lower level, how do you approach a single study session? Do you use a calendar? A pomodoro timer?

For examples of what a study system might look like check out Ahmni’s default study systems and how to use them. Or check out this good starter system from Zain on YouTube.

Over your journey in the iCanStudy course, continuously update the study system you wrote out to record your progress an keep track of your skill level.

Start Retrieval Practice

Start including retrieval practice in your studies. It’s incredibly effective. Retrieval is any study activity where you don’t get to look at your notes or the book. This could be flashcards, practice problems, or brain dumps. The book Make It Stick has a few good principles to follow:

• Spacing: Space out your studying and retrieval over days or weeks.

• Interleaving: Interleave your studying and retrieval of different topics rather than studying them each entirely on their own in a big block.

• Generation: Create your own questions and explanations.

Practically, I recommend trying Anki flashcards for retrieving small facts, and Ahmni’s revision board for retrieving entire topics.

Find Some Declarative Subjects

iCanStudy’s strategies are easiest to practice on conceptual, declarative topics. It’s possible to use iCanStudy for procedural topics like programming, but your journey through the course will probably be slower. Make sure to have some declarative subjects on hand for practice throughout the course.

Here are topics that lean more declarative:

• Cognitive Science

• Biology

• History

Here are topics that lean more procedural:

• Programming

• Drawing

• Language

Find Some Defined Curricula

iCanStudy generally assumes you are working with a well-defined curriculum. It won’t teach you how to create your own. To speed up your journey through iCanStudy make sure to have some well-defined (declarative) curriculum to practice on.

Here are topics that are well-defined:

• Chapter 2, “Operating System Structures” of the textbook Operating Systems: Three Easy Pieces

• The Wikipedia article, Toothbrushes.

• The entire book Deep Learning by Bengio

Here are topics that are not well-defined:

• Marketing

• Machine Learning

• Programming

If you’re struggling to find well-defined, declarative topics to practice on, use WikiRoulette to flip through random wikipedia articles until you find one that is Declarative.

Download an Infinite Canvas App

It’s no secret that iCanStudy teaches mindmapping. Here are some apps you can consider per platform:

• iPad: Ahmni

• Android Tablet: SquidNotes

• Windows: Leonardo (you’ll want a drawing tablet like the Wacom Intuos)

Join the iCanStudy Discord

The iCanStudy Discord has public channels you can hang out in before joining the course. https://discord.com/invite/icanstudy

(Optional) Read About Learning

If you happen to have some time on your hands check out some of the other resources on learning:
https://www.ahmni.app/blog/learn-to-learn-resource-list

Personally I recommend Make It Stick as you begin incorporating Retrieval Practice into your study system.