How to Study????

1. Making Notes:

Understand your Learning Style:

Following the words of Tom Whitby, other experts widely support avoiding a ‘one size fits all’ formula. Understanding will stop you banging your head against the wall in frustration. Figuring out what works for you can switch that light bulb on over your head and make learning an easier and fun process.

Question Why You Are Taking Notes:

Questioning the purpose of taking notes will help you process information better. Understanding what you are documenting and why in each individual circumstance informs what you record and how, rather than falling into mindless ‘strategies’ and techniques.”

Don’t Record Every Single Comment:

The more you engage in the note-making process, the more you will understand the valuable nuggets of information you should record. There is no way that your wrist will be able to cope with every word your teacher or lecturer says, but there are note-taking techniques you can try.

Along with not writing every word, the key point is NOT to try to learn your notes verbatim also. You need to understand the material or you will simply trip yourself up when it comes to taking exams and tests.

Link your Notes to Your Syllabus:

If your course requires lots of assignments and projects, you will already know that you need to refer all original sources of information you use. Take this a step further by linking the topic you are studying to your core syllabus. This will help you understand where each topic fits in the overall picture.

You should also include sources when building your notes as this will help you find out more about that particular area.

Use Technology to Your Advantage:

Creating visual study aids using technology can easily be applied to your note making routine. Tools such as Exam Time Notes give you the freedom to express yourself and incorporate media such as graphics, videos and presentations to give you a richer learning experience.

Review Your Notes Regularly:

Come on, we don’t need to tell you that the process doesn’t end with building a set of beautiful study notes? Creating your notes is a great start but to learn the information, you’ll need to go back and review the material several more times. Schedule an alert to revisit your notes on a weekly or monthly basis to trigger new ideas and find inspiration.

Include Visuals such as Mind Maps:

Note-making is more than text. Using visuals such as graphs, diagrams, pictures and mind maps can help you comprehend information easier and recall pieces of the puzzle when you need to.

Get Insight from Your Classmates:

Many education programmes encourage collaborative work as it’s a way to learn from others.

Your notes are not set in stone, they can be revised at any time. One way to add depth to your knowledge is by speaking to your classmates and asking what they felt was important, it may be different from what you thought yourself. This should lead to a further discussion about the topic being studied and more learning taking place.

Don’t Write Notes Mindlessly:

This advice goes hand-in-hand with questioning; are you getting value from your note-making? Active learning means engaging with the study material as the true responsibility to learn is in your hands.

Instead of mindlessly writing down definitions, formulae and re-writing your teacher’s notes, reinforce your learning by developing mind maps, flashcards and quizzes to really think about what you are learning and engage in every stage of the learning process.

Try Not To Get Frustrated:

Our final piece of note-making expert advice is possibly the hardest. Hopefully the cause of your stress will be solved. Try to remember that your study notes should work for you so if you feel like that is not the case, have a think about ways to change your current technique.

2) Planning an Essay:

The original meaning of an essay is 'an attempt', or a try, at something. It is therefore appropriate to consider writing an essay as a learning exercise.

Essays, and other academic writing, focus the mind and encourage you to come to conclusions about what you are studying.

Writing is often the best possible way to assimilate and organise information. Writing helps to highlight any areas that you have not fully understood and enables you to make further clarifications. It develops your powers of criticism, analysis and expression, and gives you a chance to try out your and other writers' ideas on the subject.

3) Studying for Exams:

1. Find Out About the Exam

• How much is the exam worth to your overall mark in the subject?
• What type of exam is it? Is it a multiple choice, essay, open-book or take-home exam?
• Will there be a choice of questions or tasks?
• How much will each question or task be worth?

2. Ask for Help

Don’t feel bad if you need to ask for help. Talk to your teacher or lecturer and pick the brains of other students. If you’re feeling really stressed you might also find it helpful to speak to a counsellor.

3. Sort Out Your Subject Material

Check that you have all the relevant hand-outs and get all your notes together from the subject. Read through the course outline or subject guide (if there is one) and use it to organise the information you’ve collected.

It might help to write your own summaries of each textbook chapter or section of the subject guide. This will make it easier to find what you need while you’re studying.

4. Check Past Exam Papers

Get your hands on any old exam papers from the subject and familiarise yourself with the structure and format. Your teacher or lecturer should be able to let you know where you can get your hands on some. Your school or university library might have past exams on file, too.

Practise answering the questions within the specified time limits and check your answers against your notes to make sure you’ve got them right.

5. Know Where to Go

Check your exam timetable for details on when and where you’ll be sitting the exam. Make sure you have everything you’ll need to take with you (e.g. calculator, pencil, ruler, etc.)

Try to do some study at the times your exams will be on. If you have an early morning exam it’s a good idea to practise getting up and doing some study earlier in the day.

6. Don’t Cram

Stick to what you already know when studying the night before an exam. You’ll only make yourself nervous if you try to learn new information. Review your notes or test yourself on key points.

7. Keep Yourself Cool

Don’t talk to other students about the exam before the exam. It could confuse you or make you lose confidence in yourself.

The same goes for after the exam. Don’t hang around talking about what was on it or you’ll start to doubt yourself and stress out if you think you made a mistake.

8. Use Your Reading Time

The way you use your reading time could make or break you in the exam. Use it to plan your writing time and start thinking about some answers.

Read the instructions very carefully then scan the whole exam paper. Be sure to check how many pages there are and how much each question is worth.

Plan how much time to spend on each answer and the order in which you’ll answer them. Start with the questions you’re most confident with.

9. Break the Questions Down

A great tip for any exam is to break the questions down to make sure you really understand what you’re being asked. If you don’t answer the question properly you won’t get full marks for it.

Look for the key parts in the question and these will give you clues on how to answer it

10. Review Your Performance

While there’s no use stressing out over an exam you’ve already done, it does help to look at what you can improve on. If you didn’t do as well on an exam as you would’ve liked, ask your teacher if you can go through it with them and find out what you did wrong.

4) Problem Solving

Step 1: Identify and define the problem or situation.  Good solutions depend on accurate identification of the problem at hand. Questions that should be asked at the beginning include "What is really going on here?"  "What problems are we having?'  "What exactly do we need to solve or do?" and "is there another deeper problem here?"

Step 2: Generate alternatives.  Once the problem is clarified a number of possible solutions should be generated.  To help bring forth ideas, questions and statements such as the following are usually helpful: "What can we do differently?"  What rules or procedures do we need to follow?"  "Let's see how many ideas we can come up with." and "Are there still more solutions we can think of?"

Step 3: Evaluate the alternative suggestions. When alternatives have been specified, participants are asked to comment on them.  The goal is to choose a solution that is agreeable to all.   It is appropriate to ask for each proposal, "What do you think of this suggestion?"  "What are its advantages and disadvantages?"  "What problems does it leave unsolved?" and "if we try this idea, what do you think will happen?"

Step 4: Make the decision.  After examining the alternatives, the one that seems to suit most people best is selected for trial.

Step 5: Implement the solution or decision. The trial solution is put into place with the understanding that it may or may not work as anticipated and that it can be changed if necessary.

Step 6: Conduct a follow-up evaluation. The results of the trial solution or decision are analyzed and evaluated.  Helpful questions include "Was this a good decision?"  "Did it 
solve the problem?"  "Is everyone happy with the decision" and "How effective was our decision?" If the solution or decision is judged to be satisfactory, it is kept in place. If unsatisfactory, a modified or new solution is proposed and put to the test. 
  

5) Group Study

Group study can be a really fun way for students to share their knowledge. First you should make your thoughts on the topic, as this will focus your mind on your own ideas and opinions – not all the other students’!

Then when you join together, you can combine your ideas with your friends’, without losing your personal insights on the topic.