-
Welcome to part three of organizing and
prioritizing your studies. This third and
-
final section will basically be
answering the question 'how to study' or
-
'how to study most effectively'. When do
you think is the best time to study?
-
Most people would suggest that you study early, sometime in the morning and
-
afternoon, perhaps between classes, when you have time. The reason is you would not
-
want to be studying late at night when you are more likely to be tired and less
-
likely to learn the material. Then the
next question would be where should you
-
study? Well, that could vary, but one thing
you definitely want to consider is
-
studying in isolation. You don't have to study in isolation all the times because
-
sometimes there could be study groups
that could be very beneficial and other
-
group study activities, but a lot of
times, at least most the time, you're
-
probably going to want to study in isolation. That way you're not distracted by other
-
people and you can focus on learning the
course material. Now how long do you
-
think you should study for at any given
time? The best answer is no more than 50
-
minutes stretch of studying. Now why is
that? We're gonna click on this link and
-
I'm going to show you this nice chart.
This is a great open-access textbook and
-
here we have this nice chart that talks
about the effects of massed versus
-
distributed practice on learning.
Massed means this big session here,
-
whereas these are more distributed.
You'll notice here we have three
-
different students. We have Leslie who
studies for a half hour, LeAnn who studies
-
for one hour, and Nora who studies for
four hours. We also have their grades
-
here.Who has the highest grade? Leslie
and that's because she's breaking up the
-
tasks of studying into smaller tasks. Now a B is still a pretty good grade, so
-
that's why we say no more than fifteen
minutes on our slide.
-
You may want to consider studying for
smaller amounts of time and then taking
-
a break. Some of that may be, as I
have heard, that we tend to remember the
-
first and the last thing, so Leslie has
more first and last to remember than
-
Leanne and Norah does; therefore, she
learns more of the material and is able
-
to get a higher grade. Once you
study for 50 minutes then you should
-
take a break. How long should your
breaks be?
-
Usually 5 or 10 minutes is
-
good. Of course if you have other things
that are scheduled on your calendar and
-
task list you may end up doing it or having
a longer break sometimes. What should
-
you do when you study? Well, the big thing is is you should pre-plan what you will
-
do during study time. Usually when
we're talking about study time we're
-
including reading, course assignments,
completing assignments, as well as doing
-
review for quizzes and exams and
practicing recalling and retrieving
-
information from your own memory.
We're gonna look at another chart to
-
help understand why the studying and
review is important. Let me find the
-
right one. For some reason it's not
showing up, so we won't be able to use
-
this one. Let me bring another one up. Let
me just go to Google and bring up
-
another - I didn't want the calendar -
-
Here's another one that
illustrates the same purposes I want to
-
show you. Once you learn something
you almost immediately
-
start to forget what you learned.
If you're learning/reading chapter
-
one and four weeks later you have to take
an exam you're not going to
-
remember much of it, but if you review,
then you're going to remember more of it
-
and forget less of it. Each one of
these different colors is a review
-
session, so you see, if you
-
review then you have forgotten less. You
review again, you've forgotten even less
-
and you review more now you're going to
retain more of the information. That's
-
why review is important because you need to battle this forgetting curve that
-
just naturally occurs in humans. You
do that by studying and reviewing the
-
course material, so you're forgetting
less of it and you'll have more learned,
-
so you're ready to do that on the quiz
or exam. Some more study tips. These come
-
from "How to Win at College: Surprising
Secrets for Success from the Country's
-
Top Students" by Cal Newport which is
available in the library with another
-
book of his as well. What Cal Newport
did, is he went to Harvard, and he
-
interviewed lots of students - good
students - who were getting good grades,
-
who were successful to figure out what
were they doing so he could then do it
-
himself and be a successful student.
He had found that students have a plan,
-
which is what we just talked about on
the last slide as well, but those
-
students plan out what, how, and how long, you know those chunks of time that
-
they're going to study before they take
a break. He also finds that successful
-
students would schedule free time and
friend time, but they would not do it in
-
between classes and that's because they
didn't want to get distracted. They would
-
use that time in between classes to
review work from class because, you can
-
see, if you review something after
class you're going to remember more of
-
it than if you waited to review. So
they're starting that review process
-
early. They start studying in
weeks in advance. They don't wait until
-
the night before an exam
to then study all the course material.
-
They they do it in chunks throughout the
semester. Another thing students do is
-
they find a productive study spaces.
Study spaces where they could study
-
and learn and get assignments done.
They would usually study alone. Many
-
of them would have secret study spaces,
because they didn't want friends to find
-
them,
because they know it's easy for a friend
-
to come along and say 'hey let's go grab
a coffee' and usually that sounds like
-
more fun than studying in some cases.
They didn't want to be enticed, so they
-
had secret spaces that they wouldn't
even tell their best friend about just
-
so they can get their studying done.
Another thing that successful students
-
did is they did coursework every day of
the week. Remember earlier when we looked
-
at that block schedule and we had
nothing blocked out for study time on
-
Friday, Saturday, or Sunday? A
successful student going to Harvard that
-
Cal Newport may have interviewed
said that they do coursework every day.
-
They never take a day off. They do
something, maybe they don't do a lot, but
-
they do something. Those students
there would also start big projects the
-
day that they are assigned. You get an
essay that you have to write, you start
-
something that night. You don't have to
have a full draft. Maybe they just
-
brainstorm an outline or if you have a
big research project they might use
-
one of those assignment calculators and
break those chunks down. They, at
-
least, take the first step as soon as
they get started so they're not
-
surprised when time gets away from them.
-
They take those big assignments and they break it down into
-
smaller tasks. If you had to write a
short paper, instead of doing it all in
-
one day, they would do it in three. They might brainstorm an outline,
-
then they would draft, and then they
would spend the next night revising it,
-
and then they would be able to turn in a
good quality project. They had also set
-
arbitrary deadlines. These aren't
deadlines that your teacher sets. These
-
are deadlines that they give themselves.
Possibly to break up these big projects
-
into smaller tasks or take three days
to write a short paper and they would
-
make sure those deadlines they probably
write them in a calendar most likely to
-
make sure that they're getting all of
those done. So that right there are a
-
bunch of great study tips that will
hopefully help you. This is a list
-
of our sources, so you would want to
click on just the Google slides to
-
review and then you can click on these
and go to them as well as any other ones
-
that you saw throughout the presentation.
I hope at this point, as a result of
-
watching all three parts of Organizing
and Prioritizing Your Studies, that
-
you hopefully are becoming more aware
of how you manage your time. That you're
-
able to list some options for managing
time and study tasks. If you don't
-
remember what those are, check out part 2 and to list the best amount of time to
-
study before taking a break. That was in
part 3. If you're not sure what that is,
-
you may want to review that now. If you
have any questions, please post to the
-
discussion post in the Academic Success
canvas course. Find the module Organizing
-
and Prioritizing Your Studies and you
can ask questions there as well as share
-
what works well for you. When we do
this workshop in person students love
-
hearing what other students do well and
it gives them ideas and allows them to
-
talk and share. You don't have to
take the survey since you're online, but
-
you may want to take the quiz to, again,
test your knowledge about what you've
-
learned as a result of watching these
videos. Have a great day.