"Study skills" often have a bad reputation as "Boring" or "Unnecessary because I know it all already". However, Sixth Form study often stretches students' previous skills and they find they need new ones. For example:
Do you find that you don't remember as much of your lesson content as your friends do?
Do you find that your notes are not as clear or as organised as those of your friends?
Do you find that you panic when exams are approaching?
These are common problems for Sixth Formers. Teachers may well expect that you are much more organised than you were in Year 11. They will almost certainly expect that you do more work. So how should you respond?
Hopefully this page will direct you towards some sites that will help you; they will also give you some useful advice that will help you to become a more organised, confident and effective learner.
Skills 4 Study
For advice on areas like 'Learning Strategies', 'Personal Effectiveness', 'Essay Writing', 'Note Making', 'Exam Techniques' including free audio downloads, click here.
Be4 University
This is a website designed for students aged beween 16-19. it has pages on 'General Revision Skills', 'Starting to revise', 'Active Revision', 'Effective Learning', 'Learning Styles', 'Making time to learn', and 'Essay Writing'. It has been designed in consultation with teachers and students in Northamptonshire.
Newcastle University have offered advice to its own students about writing better essays (and other assighnments). Following the link below, will take you through to it. Why not read through the points on this and the linked pages (in the left-hand margin)? Examine your own practice and see if, by following the advice here, you could improve it. Click here. Discuss your own ideas with your teachers. Do they agree? Remember that your teachers will be more than pleased to mark extra essays that you do to develop your skills.
Positively Mad You will, by now, have spent many years in education; it would be sensible to assume that you know how to study. But in the Sixth Form you will be expected to study independently; this may be a different approach to this encountered in Year 7 to 11. The following link provides lots of information, down the left hand side, about how to be a more effective learner and how to use your brain more efficiently (and how to look after it). Why not click here to find out more about learning independently?
Positively Mad Suggestions for Active Learning
The aim of this session was to get you to develop your learning skills to ensure you are well prepared for your exams and that you maximise your potential in the summer. Clearly this session will have been most effective if you revisit this learning and apply it in your daily learning. I have outlined the key elements covered so that you can think about it and apply the principles covered in your lessons and study time.
1. Mind Maps: How much can you remember about Marco Polo and Mohammed Ali? Often students remember a lot. Why?
Key Principles of the Mind Map were:
Central Picture: The image (e.g. of Marco Polo) as a focus
Bloom: Expanding the key focus into a series of sub-points (the main branches of the Mind Map)
Flow Association: Moving ideas on, "flowing" the detail (i.e. the sub-branches of the map)
Emphasis was on:
Use of imagination to develop the structure of the map (and the picture and word associations)
Activity to help develop interest and attention
Use of colour for different branches to help re-call
The aim was to reduce a page of text by a minimum of 90% so you learn only the essential details. You then use your imagination to fill in the gaps.
2. Learning will not happen if you are not interested in what you are learning. You were reminded that you will not find all elements of your subjects interesting so it was up to you to make these interesting by employing learning activities that would create interest and learning.
3. You were shown that recall improves if you take into account the following:
'Firsts' so regular breaks would ensure more 'firsts' and 'lasts'.
'Lasts'
'Outstandings': things that stand out and don't necessarily fit in with the rest. If using mnemonics (like "Naughty Elephants Squirt Water") this idea works particularly well
'Repetitions': As we are all aware the more times something is repeated, the more it is likely to be remembered
'Interesting': Make things personally interesting to you (perhaps by use of pictures, tangents, plays on words)
'Associations': i.e. linking ideas together
Effective Mind-mapping will take these factors into account, but other learning approaches could also do this.
4. The Power of Breaks:
An approaching break leads to an increase in attention ('LASTS'). A break can refresh the mind.
Then a new session begins with heightened attention ('FIRSTS').
You were reminded to 'spilt' or 'chunk' learning sessions; a maximum of 15-20 minute segments was advised before a break.
The break would not be half an hour in front of a play station or TV or MSN, but a small Brain Gym activity. These would test the brain in a different way and help ensure that left and right sides of the brain were activated going through the next revision session.
You may have experienced some examples such as:
Right index finger on the nose.:Left hand through the 'hole' made by the right arm and to touch the right ear. The swap, then swap …… faster and faster
Rubbing the tummy with one hand and patting the head with the other. Then swap, then swap etc.
Two clenched fists, but one with the thumb facing skywards. Then swap. Thumb now tucked in. Thumb on the other hand facing skywards, then swap.
Standing - left arm makes a chopping action. The right makes a sawing action. Then swap, then swap.
You should aim to use such activities to refresh yourself mid-way through a study session.
5. Recall after learning will be improved if you give it 10 minutes to sink in, but then go over it again. 80% will be forgotten in 24 hours unless you review it again …. Just a 10 second review would be enough. You should complete another review a week later, a month later, six months later.
Conclusion
Mind-maps were seen as effective if they employed the above principles, but they are not the only way of learning. Students can draw their own or use free-downloadable soft-ware called "Inspiration".
Other 'Positively Mad' ideas can be found in M. Tipper's book "The Positively MAD Guide to the Secrets of Successful Students" (307 Tip) which is in Broadway Library.
