High School Study Skills


Motivation
Get Motivated
Stay Motivated

Monitoring Input

Listening
Note Taking
Reading
Class Participation
Managing Process
Self Management
Time Management
Concentration
Managing Your Learning
Managing Your Memory
Class Participation
Test Preparation
Mastering Output
Test Taking

Dealing with Test Anxiety
Learning from Tests
Preparing Written Reports
Preparing Oral Reports
Class Participation

 

Managing Your Learning

To improve the effectiveness of your learning and memory, you should develop structures for your knowledge and engage in daily review.

Developing Structures

You learn automatically, associating new ideas, concepts, and definitions with the ideas you already know.  These associations are tied together into structures, bodies of information composed of ideas that fit together.  You can support this function by prestructuring related information during class, in your mind and in your notes.  Developing structures helps you to recall ideas, as well as the details associated with them, whenever the knowledge is needed.

Daily Review

Daily review of material is the best recall method for structured information.  You recall what you hear or see often over time.  Several types of daily review are described below.

a.  Notes

  • review your notes from lectures and reading every day for 5 days

  • review all notes at least once a week

b.  Study cards

  • review 5-10 at a time, 5-6 times per day

  • leave an hour between each review

  • place the cards you know in a separate stack

  • once a week, review all your cards

c.  audio study cards

  • make a list of the details you wish to learn

  • press Record and state the item to be learned, silently read the definition or identification, then repeat the item and its identification out loud

  • to study, listen to each item, and during the pause that follows, recite the definition or identification

d.  recording of complicated ideas

  • organize the information you wish to learn and record it

  • listen to the tape when you have no time to review your notes

  • use this method for concepts and relationships too complex to summarize on note cards

e.  relaxed review

  • organize the information you wish to learn and record it

  • listen to the tape while in a reclined position, thinking relaxing thoughts, and playing additional background music if you wish

f.  computer generated flash cards

  • use power point to make a set of electronic flash cards

  • make one slide a vocabulary word or term

  • make the next slide its corresponding definition

  • time the transitions to give yourself enough time to orally state the definition before it flashes on your screen