Assignment 7A

Assignment 7A

Testing my hypothesis: 

1. The opportunity that I would like to address is how students are never taught how to study for tests, and what is the most efficient way to learn new material. 
2. The who: students that want to get better grades

The what: Students do not know how to study effectively, and feel lost when trying to learn new material.

The why: No one ever teaches students how to learn and study effectively, despite how important it is for everyone.

3. Testing the who: While this problem is most directly connected to students, they will not be of much financial help in order for me to carry out this opportunity. After talking to one of my friends about this idea, he mentioned that he thought this was a great idea, but not many students would be willing to pay enough money for this to be a profitable opportunity. He said that this opportunity might be one that should be targeted towards elementary schools, high schools, and parents that want their kids to excel in school. While targeting parents had already come to me before talking to my friend, targeting schools had not. It had never occurred to me that schools might be willing to pay for someone to teach their kids how they can better study and learn new material. 

4. Testing the what: I think that this problem is not that no one knows the most efficient ways to study, as there is lots of research out about which ways work and which ways do not. I think the problem is that students do not know about this research, and there is not any way for kids to learn about this at a young age. The problem is that schools do not teach their students how they should study. By informing school teachers and principals that their students could achieve higher scores if they were taught how to learn and to study, it would follow that schools would decide to teach their students the most effective ways to go about learning. When talking to my mom about this newly defined problem, she mentioned how it would be difficult for a principal or teacher to trust a college student without a degree. She said that there would need to be evidence that shows substantial improvements in grades for a school to dish out money for such a program to be adopted. This revealed to me that a complication in my opportunity would be convincing schools that significant improvements in grades could be achieved.

5. Testing the why: When talking to my sister about this opportunity, she agreed with me that the reason that students have this problem is that no one is there to guide them on how to study and learn. She also addressed a new issue that I had not seen. She said that it would be hard to standardize a course to teach principals and teachers about how they should inform their students since all classes are so different. She said that this might be why this opportunity had not previously been addressed. While this is true, I think that two separate courses could be offered: teachers who teach quantitative subjects and others who teach qualitative courses could be taught two distinct ways to tell their students how they should study. This would give students a specific plan to enact in their courses. My sister agreed with me that this would be beneficial to students, as these different types of course obviously need to be learned in distinct ways.

6. Summary: After interviewing my Mom, Sister, Dad, and two of my friends, there were a few clear takeaways that I could draw from these discussions. The first revelation I drew from these interviews is that I might not be the person who could exploit this opportunity because I do not have any credibility. Each person that I interviewed seemed to point out that it would be extremely difficult for schools to pay money to a college student to teach their teachers how they could better inform their students how they can learn and study more effectively. Another takeaway from my interviews was that while there is scientific evidence pertaining to learning and studying effectively, each of my interviewees pointed out that every person learns differently. While I disagree with this fact, it was useful to understand that people have this perception, because it reveals to me a misconception that will need to be addressed when convincing schools to purchase this service. I think that these interviews were revealing and somewhat disheartening, but I still believe this opportunity is one that could be exploited.