Study Skills Top Tips
Make ‘active’ personal notes as you study ‘Active learning’ is what helps you retain what you have studied or revised. As you write notes after our lessons, you ‘engage’ your brain which helps translate information into meaning. Your own notes will have far more meaning to you than extensive passages in text books or someone else’s notes. But don’t just write notes, consider using colour, mind maps and testing yourself after each study session, to ensure it sinks in. For more information on active learning and how to aid recall, read Stella Cottrell’s excellent book the Study Skills Handbook, published by Palgrave Study Guides. Make notes of your notes In the last few weeks before your exams, make notes of your notes. This may even become a series of single words or bullet points which act as ‘triggers’ to your brain to spark thoughts and help you recall what you have learnt. Our brains work through association of ideas. In an exam situation, all we need is to be able to recall the key concepts and significant elements of an answer. Once we’ve downloaded this framework from our brains we can then set about answering the question and expanding on each point. A few key words can act as a ‘kick start’ to help the recall process begin. Many students like to use post-it notes or small cards to make notes of your notes. Create Mind Maps A mind map is a diagram which links together all the key concepts and ideas you have learnt in a visual way. Mind maps have been promoted by Tony Buzan as one of the most effective ways of learning currently know, as they allow you to make links between areas of knowledge during your study and act as a superb revision guide prior to exams. (For further reading, see Tony and Barry Buzan’s ‘The Mind Map Book’ published by BBC books, cost £7.99 Mind maps work particularly well for essay based subject areas such as Economics, Sociology, English and Philosophy and RE, where there are many concepts which can be linked together. Highlight your maps with colour, diagrams and pictures. The key according to the experts, is to make them rich with colour and meaning, interesting to look at and multi-sensory. In other words, design them so you want to use them. Spend longer on the loo But only if you’ve cleverly plastered the back of the toilet door with your mind maps! The key point here is that closer to exams, you should look for opportunities to study which don’t cost you any extra time (make use of otherwise dead time such as travelling on the bus or train) and to keep your notes where they are visible. Cover the walls with post its You may want to think about putting your mind maps or condensed notes onto the wall of a room you frequently visit (not your bedroom as this is for rest), such as your study or on the fridge door. Read around the subject To make your essays more interesting for both you and the marker, you should start reading two broadsheet newspapers every week and taking out clippings (or printing from online) that relate to your subject e.g. the Times have Law reports every Tuesday. If you want to get top marks and make your personal statement on your UCAS form impressive, you should also
read around the subject and be able to cite authors in your essays who are off the A level syllabus you are following. This will add to your interest and be far more interesting to read. It will also help get you in the habit of independent research, so key for University. Get yourself into a ‘right state’ The key to good study technique is to get yourself into the right environment for study. This means learning at the right time of day for you. Some people work best before lessons in the morning, others prefer to work after lessons finish in the evening, but choose the best time for you. Make sure you’re comfortable and that you’re in a upright position, and ensure the room is light with lighting preferably coming from over your shoulder a drink of water to hand and classical music in the background if that works for you. If it isn’t going in, stop, rest and do something else and try again later when it’s likely to be more effective. Use music Many (but not all) people find that music enhances their learning experience. There is a strong field of research that suggests that the playing of classical music, particularly Baroque (Vivaldi, Bach and Mozart and early Beethoven), in the background whilst studying enhance recall and helps you engage. If this sounds silly, remember that many traditions use music to pass on learning, meaning, cultural values etc from African cultures to Aboriginal culture, from church groups and armed forces to the slaves on plantations in the eighteenth century to East Germans tearing down the Berlin Wall chanting as they did so. Music can remind us of historical events, inspire solidarity and define group norms. Music can help children learn the alphabet or numbers. Think of Sesame Street or nursery rhymes. Millblower believes that if children learn by singing, students should too. If you do this, be sure not to play music with vocals as the lyrics will interfere with the information you are endeavouring to learn, especially if it’s something like 50 Cent etc. Get your study breaks for free It’s not advisable to sit down with your notes and plough through them for hours on end. Structure your time to allow for frequent breaks. A short change of scene every 20 minutes, wit a longer break every couple of hours is the rule. After twenty minutes your recall begins to decline. Research shows that we retain more information at both the start and end of a learning session, so taking frequent breaks means more starts and ends. When you come back to your desk, try and quickly recap what you learnt from the previous session, either by testing yourself or condensing your notes into bullet points. You effectively get your breaks for free because you’re being more effective in the time that you are studying than if you simply ploughed through a half day session. Go for a walk and exercise If you feel like you’re stagnating and it’s not going in, do something else. Exercise helps, so perhaps go for a walk, swim or run. Whilst you’re exercising you can think about how different parts of the information fit together, Create a study plan for the year It is definitely a must to plan your schedule for Year 12 and 13 in advance. It makes it so much easier later on. Map out your study for the next few months (or even the whole year) on a wall planner, or use a tool like Google desktop to help you keep a plan of what you will do. Have target dates in mind by which point you will have covered key parts of your course. Also think about including time for extra reading off the A level syllabus and for looking through clippings from newspapers you have been collecting relevant to your course. Tick off the reading you have done as you go through and this will help keep the motivation levels high.