Study Hints

Here's another post from Lindsay... What is the Ultimate Study Aid? I’m often asked for study tips or to instruct students on study skills and study habits. As a teacher and as a tutor, I always feel that I’ve failed miserably if my student(s) didn’t learn how to study on his own. There’s a reason for this – I won’t always be there to hold his hand, and at some point, he’s going to have to do it himself! With that in mind, I’ll offer up a few select suggestions on how to study more effectively. I’m not a big advocate of “don’t” rules so these are all written with a positive spin. Five hints for five fingers! 1) Identify how you learn best. Every person has some strength in learning, and there are three basic learning types: auditory (listening), visual (seeing), and kinesthetic (doing). Every person learns differently, and while individuals combine these learning styles, specific tasks require different learning types for different people. Take me, for example. I’m a visual learner when learning academic things. I can read text, look at diagrams, or watch a video, and retain the information. Ask me to you change a tire without showing me AND giving me a book, and I’d be completely lost. For those tasks, I have to perform the task (kinesthetic learning) and read about it (visual learning) in order to learn how to accomplish the task and remember how to do it. (Just ask my dad who taught me how to change a tire one very cold Michigan evening when my leg was in a cast!) If you don’t know your dominant learning style, you can take a quick online evaluation and identify yours in 30 or so questions. 2) Organize your time and assignments. Use a calendar, day planner, or PDA to track your assignments including when the assignment was given and when it is due. Keep different classes in different colored folders or binders. Put dates on every assignment. Label assignments with the class, page number, and assigned problems. Intricate systems using highlighters, colored pens, colored stickers, alphabetization, and numeration that challenge the Dewey decimal system are unnecessary as well as redundant. 3) Take notes. This doesn’t necessarily mean that you have to make an outline with Roman numerals and letters; however note-taking is an important skill that will serve you throughout life. If you don’t know how to do this, NOW is the time to learn. Whatever style you like to use, whether it is graphic organizers, outline format, recording the session or another, one thing is extremely important – ORGANIZATION. Organization includes the neatness and the overall presentation. All notes must include a header that has a topic and the date. (For example – History class or HIST 1113 on May 17, 2006 or 05/17/06) More detailed headers such as “HIST 1113, 05/17/06, Post Civil War Era Outcomes” may be helpful and some individuals use them. Just remember - notes should be written so that if another person needed to learn what you learned, he or she would be able to do so without requiring your help to decipher your chicken scratch and abbreviations. For those auditory learners out there, a tape recorder or digital recorder is a great device. Turn it on, record the note-taking session or meeting (that’s your header), and review at a later date. For those visual learners, note-taking includes writing the notes that the coach or instructor provides or listening to the lecture and identifying the important points. For kinesthetic learners, it’s a little more difficult. The writing process engages you temporarily, but you’ll need to combine your auditory and visual processing while you’re note-taking and then add in an activity (writing letters in the air or developing a jumping pattern for example) when reviewing in order to learn concepts effectively. Thankfully, most of us develop our auditory and visual skills because school trains us to do that – you see a lot of kinesthetic learning in kindergarten (centers and manipulatives) but those tendencies are “trained” out of us in later years. 4) Develop GOOD study habits. A habit takes 21 days to create. You need to steadily repeat something for three weeks in order for it to become a habit, good or bad. a. Have a place to study. Find a place that is conducive to studying. This location should be free from distractions including televisions, music, cell phones, computers, etc. Having your favorite metal band blaring from the speakers while you study might be your favorite study habit, but I assure you that it’s NOT helping your concentration. Turn your cell phone off for an hour; you’ll be able to concentrate and focus on your studies and your text messaging and voice mail services will store those messages for you. b. Have good lighting. Studying by the light of a candle might have served Abe Lincoln, but it isn’t necessary. Don’t give yourself a headache because you didn’t have adequate light sources. c. Have the materials you need. Sharpen your pencils; keep your pen container full; have notebook paper; connect to the Internet; and have your books at hand. Leaving your Geometry book in your locker won’t help you study the theorems that you need to do proofs. While resources are available on the Internet, nothing replaces your textbook or course materials. d. Find out if your textbook has a website. Many of the textbook publishers and their authors now have companion websites for your class texts. USE THESE SOURCES. They often have flashcards and vocabulary reviews, chapter review quizzes, chapter pre-tests, critical thinking essay style questions, and final exam questions. Textbook publishers offer professors and teachers CD-ROMs with “pre-developed” test questions – those generally come from the same bank and are the same type of questions as on the websites. 5) Get together with a study group. This is a study group not a social gathering. Remember that everyone can learn from someone else. “Chunking” (making assignments smaller by breaking them into smaller units) and “jigsaw” (assigning each person a portion of the lesson to teach to everyone else) are great techniques to help break up large assignments into more manageable parts. Be aware – members of your study group should be dedicated to learning. Everyone knows that one person who in a small group assignment that sits back and lets the “know-it-all” do all the work and then gets an “A.” Don’t be an energy leech and drain everyone else. Do your fair share, and make sure that others are doing theirs.