[SPEAKER_00]
Chapter
five,
building
academic
skills.
All the so-called secrets of success will not work unless you do.
The researchers conducted two experiments.
In both experiments, seventy-two college students were assigned to one of the following three groups.
Re-read, students read the passages twice.
Note taking, students took notes on the passages while reading but were not able to use notes at the time of testing.
And three R, read, recite, review, where students read the passages once, then recited what they remembered, and finally read the passages again to review, determining if they accurately captured all the information.
All the students read several passages and then answered test questions about what they read immediately after the task and then again one week later.
Some of the questions were fact-based and others required higher-level cognitive skills such as inference and problem-solving.
Students who used the three hour method performed better on the fact based recall questions as compared to the note taking and rereading groups.
This finding was true for the immediate test and the testing that occurred one week later.
The students in the three hour method and note taking strategy groups performed equally well on problem solving tasks.
Both performed better than the rereading group.
However, the three hour method was less time consuming
than the note-taking method.
The re-reading group took an average of nine point two minutes in the first experiment and twenty point nine minutes in the second experiment.
These findings show that simply reading and re-reading your textbook will not lead to high performance on exams.
The three R method is the better option to maximize your success.
The note-taking strategy is also very effective for more challenging test items.
The act of recalling information verbally or through writing is what will really assist you with mastering the material.
The three-hour method does not take much longer than simply re-reading the chapter, less than a minute in the second experiment, and it leads to much better results.
, it therefore seems worthwhile to add in this additional step of reciting what you recall before you read the material again.
In your classes, you will have to master much more information than what was asked of students in this study.
Taking notes while not looking at the book may therefore be the best strategy to use so that you can refer to and use these notes when you are studying.
If you are crunched for time though, simply adding in a verbal recall activity can work.
Making the most of your in and out of class learning experiences is important.
As you know, actively participating in class and reading are two of the best ways to learn.
During your class, your professors will share their expertise and engage you in learning tasks.
Outside of class,
Your professors will assign you readings from books, articles, and other sources.
There are several strategies you can use to maximize your learning during lectures and other class activities as well as from reading tasks.
You will likely forget most of what you learned in class unless you take good notes and actively use or repackage these notes after class.
Research has shown that students who take good notes, learn more, better understand the material, and ultimately perform better in their classes.
Taking notes in all learning environments, including online courses, is important.
Unfortunately, many students do not take notes in their online courses.
This is problematic because an organized set of notes serves as an excellent study tool.
Luo found that different note-taking approaches can work well in different learning environments, but that learning depends on whether notes are reviewed.
This was illustrated in an interesting study by Knight and McElvey, where students were assigned to one of the following learning conditions.
Provided with lecturer notes, take your own notes, or do not take notes.
The results showed that studying from notes was connected to the highest performance, with those who studied from lecturer notes performing the best.
This result highlights the importance of having good notes to study from when preparing for a test or exam.
Interestingly, students who did not review their notes did not perform any better than students who did not take any notes at all.
, this finding emphasizes that the act of note-taking does not result in learning, but rather that learning happens when you use your notes as a study tool.
One particularly effective after-class strategy is to combine your notes from the lecture and the readings.
Organizing concepts from your notes enhances your learning.
The cognitive processes associated with note-taking and studying are what matter most.
In a study conducted by Wong and Lim, they found that students who took their own notes outperformed those who took photos of lecture slides or did not take notes.
They indicated that students were often less engaged in the lecture and that their minds wandered more when using the photo approach as compared to taking their own notes.
There are several different note-taking methods.
Salam and Thompson noted that the key is to use a strategic note-taking process that involves active listening during class, processing what is being learned, and documenting what is learned in writing.
Some students prefer to take notes in their notebook, while others like to use technology tools such as a laptop or tablet for note-taking.
Both can be effective.
Note-taking should not be an in-class activity only.
Taking notes on the reading prior to class is also important.
Repackaging your notes after class to combine your notes from the reading and from the lecture is also an excellent use of your time.
Because this is a high-level cognitive task, this action can be considered a study technique.
In fact, some of the most effective note-taking methods, such as the matrix or concept map,
are best used after class when you have time to think deeply about the content.
You may therefore use one note-taking method during class and then a different note-taking method after class.
This approach is very effective.
Linear notes.
The linear note-taking method consists of phrases, sentences, or perhaps paragraphs.
In many cases, linear notes look like a long narrative.
This method is not recommended because it's not very effective.
Unfortunately, this method is frequently used by students because it's very easy to use this method during class.
If this is a note-taking method that you've been using, try a different method and see if it helps you better achieve your goals.
If you want to rely on this method during class, be sure to take your notes and repackage them into a more effective format after class.
Traditional outline.
With the traditional outline format, the main headings appear toward the top left of the page and subheadings and information about the subheadings are indented and written below the main headings.
This traditional outline method allows one to easily see the structure of the lesson.
It can sometimes be difficult to determine the main headings.
If your professor shares PowerPoint slides ahead of time, this might help you identify the main points or ideas, making it easier for you to organize content during class.
Research has shown that the outline method of note-taking approach leads to good recall of the information, but is not as effective as the matrix approach.
The Cornell Method
The Cornell method is another effective note-taking method.
In this method, you draw a vertical line about one-third of the way across the paper and then only take notes on the right side.
The left side remains blank at first.
After class, use the left side, known as the cue area, to identify the headings and subheadings and provide organizational structure to your notes.
You can also indicate areas that are not clear to you so that you will remember to revisit these concepts as needed.
The bottom area of each page is then used for the purpose of summarizing the information.
The summary can simply be a paragraph or two, highlighting the important concepts of the chapter or lesson.
Like the Q section, the summary section can be completed after class.
Concept maps.
Another method is concept mapping.
This method emphasizes visual connections between concepts.
First you indicate the main idea and put a bubble or box around it.
Then concepts that are connected to the main idea are put in different, often smaller boxes, with lines connecting the boxes that are related to one another.
Most students find it difficult to accomplish this type of note taking during a lecture and instead use it after class as they reorganize their notes in a personally meaningful way.
Research has found that students who create concept maps have higher levels of academic achievement as compared to those who do not use this approach.
There are several different computer programs and applications for mobile devices available that can help you create visually effective concept maps.
Matrix notes.
According to research conducted by Kirbra, the matrix note-taking approach works the best.
For the matrix method, you create a table where the main topics are on the top and subtopic headings are listed on the left.
For example, if you were going to use this note-taking approach to summarize the different note-taking methods, you could list the methods
For example, outline, Cornell, concept map, and matrix down the first column on the left, and subtopics such as description, advantages, and disadvantages across the top.
You then take pertinent notes in each box.
Advantages of this approach include focusing on the connections between concepts and the easy-to-read visual format.
It is particularly useful for comparing concepts or theories.
It is often very difficult to use this approach during class because you may need more processing time to figure out the best organizational structure and to see how concepts are connected.
However, repackaging your notes after class in a table or matrix is a great idea.
It gets you thinking more deeply about the concepts and provides you with a fabulous tool for studying.
Active Reading Class time is limited and there are many important concepts and theories that you will need to learn.
Professors will therefore expect you to also learn from the textbook and other sources.
Reading and using your textbook as an information resource has been found to be positively connected to grades.
, you have probably discovered that college textbooks can sometimes be challenging to read.
A research study conducted by Williamson found that even students who were reading very well as graduating high school seniors experienced a big drop when it came to comprehending a college-level textbook.
This is because college textbooks contain complex content on material that is likely new to you.
Fortunately, there are strategies you can use to help you learn from reading high-level texts.
Researchers have found that one of the best predictors of how well you will be able to comprehend what you read is how much you know about the subject.
This was illustrated in a classic study conducted by Recht and Leslie.
In their study, students were assessed in terms of their reading skills and their knowledge of baseball.
Students were then asked to read a passage on baseball.
After reading the passage, students answered questions related to the story and recreated the story nonverbally.
As you would imagine, the students who were good readers and who knew a lot about baseball performed the best.
Similarly, the students who were poor readers and did not know much about baseball had the poorest performance on the task.
But here's the fascinating finding.
Students who were good readers but had low baseball knowledge performed almost as poorly as the poor readers with low baseball knowledge.
And the poor readers with high baseball knowledge performed almost as well as the good readers with high baseball knowledge.
The key finding of this study is that prior knowledge about baseball, not reading skill, was the best predictor of reading comprehension.
As a college student, you will not have extensive prior knowledge related to all your courses.
Although this will make it more challenging to comprehend the textbook content, there are several strategies you can use to help you get the most out of reading.
Building at least an introductory knowledge base before you begin reading will serve you well.
First, start by reviewing the table of contents, which provides you with an outline of the chapter content.
This can provide a helpful organizational context for the information you will be reading, and helps you see the relationships between concepts that will be discussed.
Next, read the end of the chapter summary.
The summaries can serve as previews for the chapter, much like a movie preview.
Familiarizing yourself with the key points from the summary will help you take in the more detailed information from the chapter.
With textbook content that is particularly challenging, you can also search for a video on the topic before you read the chapter.
You can also review websites such as Wikipedia to gain some basic background knowledge before you read the more detailed textbook.
Students reported that Wikipedia provided easy to understand information.
The SQ-R, SQ-R and SOAR reading methods.
One simple yet effective reading method is the three R method.
The three R method involves the following three steps.
Read the material, recite the material, close the book and say what you remember, or better yet, write it down, and then review or read the material again.
Add to your notes, filling in missing content, and write key concepts in the text, a process called annotating.
Active readers use the three R technique after reading small sections of a chapter.
Research illustrates that being actively involved with information as you go along rather than waiting until the end of a chapter works best.
It is therefore a good idea to identify a short section of the chapter to read using this method rather than trying to use this technique with an entire chapter at once.
After reading the identified section, close your book before you begin the second step, recite.
During the recite step of the process, you simply recall what you just read without looking at the text.
It is important that your book is closed during the recite part of the process so that you are truly retrieving the information from your memory.
Closing the book before you take notes forces you to put the information into your own words.
When you summarize information in your own words, you learn more.
During the third R, review, go back and review how well you summarized the content.
If you missed any content, this is the perfect opportunity to add your notes, filling in any information gaps.
Researchers have found that reading comprehension increases when students annotate, so you may want to consider engaging in annotation during this step of the process.
Annotating simply means you are summarizing key points.
Writing in the margin of the text or using an electronic tool allows the summary to be visually connected to the text.
Annotations typically include a brief summary of the concept, a note on how this concept relates to something you already know, and your thoughts or reaction to the content.
Another well-known reading strategy is the SQ-R method.
You will notice that there are two letters or steps added to the process.
This technique involves the following five steps.
survey, question, read, recite, and review.
For the first step, survey, preview the chapter.
Survey means you scan the chapter as a whole and take in the big picture.
Start by looking at the table of contents for the assigned chapter, headings, images throughout the chapter, and the chapter summary.
Doing this provides you with an overview of the chapter content.
, these actions set the stage for success by helping you understand the organization of the information that will be presented in the chapter.
The second step in SQ-R involves creating questions about the content.
You have probably already discovered that this textbook comes with chapter opener questions that appear on the first page of every chapter.
If your other texts do not have this feature, create your own questions based on the survey you did of the chapter.
What questions do you think will be addressed in the chapter?
What are you curious about after scanning the chapter?
Searching for answers to questions is an active reading strategy and will result in increased learning.
The final three steps involve the same, read, recite, review, steps of the three R method.
Research has shown that the SQ three R method has been connected to increased reading comprehension and improved exam performance.
Another reading strategy that has been shown to be even more effective than SQ-R is the SOAR method.
The SOAR method involves the following sections.
Select, Organize, Associate, and Regulate.
The first task is to select the key points or important information from the text.
During the second step of the process, organize the content using a matrix or other graphic organizing tool.
Associating the third step involves identifying how concepts relate to one another.
Rather than trying to learn each concept independently, looking for connections or associations between concepts can help you learn the content.
Connecting new content being learned to what you already know is recommended.
Regulate is the last step and refers to monitoring your learning progress.
Assessing how much you have learned via a practice test, for example, can help you determine if you need to spend more time and engage in different learning strategies to learn the content you just read.
Results from a research study that compared the SOAR and SQ-R methods found that the SOAR group learned about fourteen percent more facts, twenty percent more relationships, and thirteen percent more concepts than the SQ-R group.
Most college students highlight their texts as they read.
Researchers have found that students comprehend what they read at higher levels when important text is highlighted.
Unfortunately, most students are not engaging in effective highlighting practices.
Because students are novice learners and do not know a lot about the textbook content, it is extremely difficult for them to differentiate the important from the less important, and thus determine what to highlight.
As a result, students either highlight too much or too little.
This does not result in increased learning and has been found in some cases to even result in poor performance.
Thus, ineffective highlighting is worse than not highlighting at all.
Some researchers have found that teaching students to highlight or underline main ideas works.
For example, Hayati
I'm sure to far found that students who participated in a one hour training session on how to highlight effectively performed well on a reading comprehension test.
Students were taught to read the passage first without highlighting and then to go back and underline the main ideas.
As you can imagine, it would be next to impossible to truly figure out what is important on a first read of a passage or article.
If you want to highlight, wait to do so until the last R, reviewing of the three R or SQ three R methods.
This way you'll be deciding what is most important after you have already interacted with the text a couple of times.
If you are still unsure about what is important, rely on other strategies instead and avoid highlighting.
memory and study strategies.
In college, you are exposed to extraordinary amounts of new information.
Each course you take will be packed with new concepts and theories.
As a college student, you are expected to engage in many sophisticated cognitive tasks, such as critically evaluating information and applying recently learned material to new and varied situations.
Gaining content knowledge is a must.
Learning how memory works and what study strategies are most effective will help you meet the success.
Remembering takes work.
According to the classic information processing model, there are three main processes within the memory system.
Encoding, storage, and retrieval.
Research has shown that this process is multi-directional, meaning that all parts of the process can influence other parts.
Your prior memories, for example, play a role in how you encode and store new memories.
The more you know about how these processes work, the more efficient you will be.
Encoding refers to how you get memories into your memory system to purposefully encode material.
, start by paying attention to it.
You're constantly exposed to sensory information.
For example, today in class your professor was probably talking to you about a topic, memory perhaps, your classmates were taking notes, students were walking in the hallway or family members were moving about in your home if you were in a virtual classroom, and technology tools may have been making humming noises.
You must decide what information is worthy of your attention.
Your past experiences can influence this process.
If you've previously found information to be useful, then you will be more likely to attend to content that seems similar in nature.
Your focus also guides this process.
Actively attending to what your professor says during a lecture means it's much more likely for this content to get encoded and stored in your memory system.
Multisensory approaches to learning can assist you in encoding information more effectively.
For instance, if you encode information using both visual and auditory inputs, you have increased the likelihood that the information will get into your memory system.
This dual encoding process also makes it more likely that you will find the information in your memory system when you need it.
You have probably had the experience where you could not remember something for an exam, but then suddenly you were able to visualize where it was in your notebook.
which refers to how you hold onto and save your memories.
If you are like most others, you have probably had the terrible experience of typing a paper, the words got into the computer, they were encoded, and then turning the computer off without saving it.
Saving information in your memory system is similar.
Within your memory storage system, you have two main subsystems, working memory and long-term memory.
Willingham nicely visualizes this process by a simple model.
The great news about long-term memory is that it seems to last forever and you can store an endless amount of information.
Unlike your computer hard drive, which has limited capacity, your brain allows you to store more information than you will ever need during your lifetime.
Long-term memory is clearly the goal when it comes to knowledge, but it takes effort for content to get there.
To get information into long-term memory, working memory is needed.
Working memory refers to the workspace of your brain where new information is temporarily held.
Psychologists used to think that memory was like a one-way street.
First, you encoded a new piece of information and then you stored it temporarily until you housed it permanently in long-term memory.
However, research has shown that your memory system is much more interactive in nature.
What you already know plays a big role in how you learn new information.
You search your long-term memory for information that might help you encode or store the new information.
For example, if you're trying to learn the names of your classmates, you will likely think about others you know with names or features similar to your classmates.
This prior knowledge can help you bring the new knowledge into your memory system and keep it there.
Working memory is limited in terms of duration and capacity.
In other words, you can only hold onto information for a short period of time, often only seconds, and can only hold onto a few chunks of information at a time.
A famous psychologist, George Miller, demonstrated this limited capacity through a research experiment.
, he asked participants to remember a list of nonsense syllables so the words could not be simply linked to other memories and found that the average number of items participants could remember was seven plus or minus two.
In other words, you can only hold five to nine items in short-term memory at a time.
This is not good news since your professors will likely expect you to remember much more than that from each lecture.
Fortunately, you can expand your working memory capacity by chunking information.
When you organize or chunk information, you can accommodate more than five to nine pieces of information at a time.
An example would be a phone number.
Typically, you remember area codes as one chunk rather than three independent numbers.
Actively working with the new information and using memory strategies can help you hold on to important concepts you need to know.
Retrieval has traditionally been thought of as the last stage of the memory process.
To show what you know, you need to retrieve or find the memories you have previously stored.
You have probably had the experience when you knew you saved a document in your computer, but when you needed it later, you could not locate it.
This is called retrieval failure, meaning you were not able to find what you needed when you needed it.
This is obviously problematic when it happens during a test because it can negatively impact your grade.
Organizing your memories can help you efficiently find what you need when you need it.
When you save an online document in a folder with a clear title, it will be easier for you to find it later.
This can work with memories too.
Think of your brain as a mental file folder.
The more organized the content, the easier it will be to retrieve.
.
Research has shown it is also a powerful memory tool.
Numerous research studies have shown that the more you retrieve information, the stronger the memories will be.
Study strategies.
Research has shown that the amount of time you study matters.
When you spend more time learning, you will likely perform better.
However, utilizing strategies that have been shown to be highly effective will help you make the most of the time you invest in studying.
Some strategies work better than others.
Reviewing involves looking over your notes, text, and other resources.
Reviewing is the most used study technique by college students.
but it's not the most effective one.
Reviewing your notes and other study materials can help you hold onto new content, but only for a short period of time.
Research has shown that student learning is not high when the reviewing technique is used by itself.
Unfortunately, many students believe reviewing works well
Karpic and Blunt found that students overestimated the effectiveness of the reviewing or restudying strategy.
This is probably because as information is retrieved, it becomes more and more familiar.
Familiarity can be misinterpreted as learning.
This is problematic because it will likely lead you to stop studying too soon.
Reviewing can be effective when combined with other more powerful strategies, such as elaboration and testing yourself.
Students who learn about study strategies are more likely to use strategies that work well.
Brown Kramer found that students who read articles about effective strategies, such as practice testing, were more likely to use these strategies as compared to their peers who did not read these articles.
Perhaps more importantly, they found that students who read about and used these effective strategies earned grades that were a full letter grade higher than their peers who did not learn about and use effective study strategies.
Elaboration.
Elaboration happens when you attach meaning to new content being learned.
To elaborate, find connections between information you know and new information you're learning.
Learning is enhanced when new concepts are linked to previously learned content.
Seeing the relationships between new information and previously learned information enhances and strengthens learning.
Researchers have found that by engaging in elaboration, long-term memory improves.
Cole and Butler found that students who used elaborative study strategies, where examples of content were emphasized, had higher scores on a test as compared to students who were simply asked to memorize the information.
, in an interesting study conducted by Dickinson and O'Connell, they focused on mental processes whereby students put information into their own words, created links between concepts via a hierarchical structure, and created examples to help the concepts come alive.
When comparing high and low-performing students, Dickinson and O'Connell found that high-performing students spent approximately one hour or more per week studying.
They also found that high-scoring students spent an average of forty-three point thirteen minutes using these mental processes compared to only ten point twenty-eight average minutes per week by the low-scoring group.
Interestingly, high and low-performing students spent similar amounts of time reading and reviewing.
Thus, the difference lies in total study time and the use of elaboration, which the researchers called organizing, as an important study strategy.
Unfortunately, researchers have found that students are not frequently using these highly effective study strategies.
One of the most effective ways to learn is by testing your knowledge.
This is known as the testing effect.
Rodriguez found that self-testing was associated with higher academic performance as measured by final course grades.
Most individuals do not think of tests as learning opportunities, but rather as the final step in learning, showing what you know.
However, tests can be used for both purposes.
You can demonstrate knowledge when taking a test, but you will also learn from testing your knowledge.
The testing effect was illustrated by a classic study conducted by Karpick and Roediger.
In this study, students were randomly assigned to one of the following three groups.
Study, study, study, study, study.
Study, study, study, test.
And study, test, test, test.
In all groups, students were asked to learn content from a passage.
The first group of students was given four study sessions of five minutes each to learn the content.
Participants in the second group were given three five-minute study sessions and then were asked to write down what they could recall from the passage.
Students in the last group were allowed to study the passage content for five minutes and then had three opportunities to write down what they recalled.
On a delayed recall test, students in the study, test, test, test group performed the best, recalling sixty-one percent of the content.
The study, study, study, test group remembered fifty-six percent of the content, while the study, study, study, study group performed the worst, remembering only forty percent of the passage content.
You can test yourself by taking quizzes provided by textbook publishers, or you can create your own.
Working with a classmate or study group to test one another is another great way to put the testing effect into practice.
There are online platforms that allow you to share and co-create quizzes with your peers.
You can also use good old-fashioned flashcards.
While some students like to use index cards for this purpose, there are also many apps or online tools
that can also be used.
The advantage of using an app is that it is accessible on your phone, so you can study anywhere, anytime.
Many students who use flashcards make use of their study time by putting aside the concepts they believe they know well so that they can focus their studying on the more difficult concepts.
This sounds like a good strategy, but it may not lead to the best outcome.
Cornell and Bork conducted a series of experiments on flash card use and found that dropping cards from the study pile was not beneficial.
In fact, dropping cards resulted in poorer performance.
Retrieving the material several times makes it more likely for the content to stay on your long-term memory.
Although you may need more time on cards with content you do not yet know well, it is still important to quiz yourself on all the cards several times.
Another way you can put the testing effect into practice is by engaging in a dusting off the cobwebs exercise.
To engage in this exercise, recall everything you can remember from the prior class or reading for that week without looking at your notes, book, or other materials.
Once you remember as much as you can, pull out your notes and other resources to fill in any gaps.
This act of practicing retrieval strengthens memory and makes it more likely that the concepts find a home in your long-term memory.
Doing this exercise with a classmate enhances your learning even further because you can then discuss what you learned.
To maximize your learning, it is best to study a little each day.
Studying in small chunks over time is referred to as spaced practice.
Research shows that memories are more likely to stick when you study content numerous times versus studying in one longer session, which is often referred to as massed practice or cramming.
Hopkins found there were long-term memory benefits when students combined two of the most effective study approaches, the testing effect and spaced practice.
Specifically, when students engaged in practice retrieval via testing numerous times throughout the semester, they were more likely to retain what they learned.
Despite spaced practice being one of the most powerful study strategies, many students do not report engaging in spaced practice.
carving out even fifteen to thirty minutes per day to review and repackage your notes and quiz yourself on what you have learned will help you achieve at high levels.
Establishing daily habits that put evidence-based study strategies into practice will help you achieve your goals.
Although you have probably heard of learning styles such as auditory, visual and kinesthetic, there is not much research support for learning styles.
Rather, neuroscience research has shown that everyone is more similar than different in terms of how they learn best and that everyone typically learns best when they are using multiple senses.
In other words, you remember more if you see, hear, and do something with the information.
This is because you are engaging different neural pathways at the same time, which strengthens learning and memory.
Visual images appear to be particularly powerful in the learning process.
Based on numerous experimental studies, Mayer found that adding an image to text resulted in significantly better memory for the concept.
Other researchers have found that you are able to process pictures more quickly and efficiently than words, and your memory for pictures is better than it is for words.
This phenomenon is referred to as the picture superiority effect and is connected to the encoding and retrieval processes.
Paying extra attention to the graphs, charts, and images that connect to the content you are learning about and studying is therefore a good approach.
Your textbooks are filled with these powerful images, and you can also create visual matrices, charts, and other images to maximize your learning.
Fernandez found that drawing simple figures related to content only took a few seconds and improved memory.
Another extremely powerful way to learn is to teach the content to someone else.
Research has shown that students who taught their peers indicated that this activity helped them learn and increase their confidence with the content.
One effective way to use this study approach is to participate in a study group where different members take turns teaching content to one another.
For example, you could each choose a section of a chapter to teach to the other study group members.
This process would require you to prepare well so that you can clearly communicate your assigned part of the chapter to your peers.
Being cognitively and socially engaged increases learning.
According to research, students have identified the following benefits of study groups.
Increased motivation, increased support, and the opportunity to clear up confusing concepts.
Despite their benefits, students often report that group work can be challenging.
One of the biggest challenges associated with group work is finding time to meet.
Research conducted by Roy Choudhury found that students have been able to use technology to address the challenge of complex schedules.
Synchronous and asynchronous technology tools can be used to help students connect for studying purposes.
There are several strategies you can use to increase productivity and learning when using study groups.
First is group size.
The recommended group size of three to four members.
A small group size makes it more likely that your group will stay on task and be productive.
Identify others who share your commitment to learning and success.
Preparation
Doing independent work first helps everyone be ready to discuss topics more deeply, maximizing your study group time.
Ground rules and roles.
Establishing ground rules and roles helps keep everyone focused on the task at hand.
An example of a ground rule could be that the first ten minutes are purely social and then you will start focusing on the topic of study.
Another example could be that all members need to either come to the session prepared or post materials in an online space prior to the study session to stay in the group.
You might also want to assign different rules.
Rotate roles so that different members have different responsibilities each time.
An effective study plan consists of the following five approaches.
Use a multi sensory approach to learning.
Using a multi sensory approach will increase the likelihood that you have effectively
Encode and retrieve information.
Because memory for images is more powerful than it is for words, identifying and using relevant images will help you learn the content.
Organize.
Use organizing techniques to create an effective study guide.
Create written notes by putting key concepts into your own words, identifying examples, and finding connections between concepts you are learning.
Combine the notes you took during class and while reading the chapter into one comprehensive document that makes explicit connections between concepts being learned.
Use an effective format such as the matrix table and concept map or tools to bring attention to the most important points.
Review
Next, review your organized notes.
For optimal performance on the exam, review your notes multiple times over the course of several different study sessions.
Spaced practice, studying many times over a period of time works best.
Test.
Now quiz yourself over and over again.
Use publisher-provided assessments when available or create your own.
Track your progress and modify your studying habits as needed.
Teach.
Finally, teach the content you have learned to someone you know.
Teaching is an extremely powerful way to learn.