Studying
The cognitive domain is what is typically considered when discussing studying. See tips for helping students study cognitively below. Following that, see a roughly made video discussing studying in terms of psychomotor skills and the affective dimension.
4 dimensions of studying. (Notice that this is an advance organizer.)
I.Reading and Remembering
II.Study Habits
III.Study Strategies
IV.Test Taking Strategies
Many ideas have been taken from Gunning, T. (2003). Building literacy in the content areas. Boston: Allyn & Bacon.
Notes as exit slip
I. Reading and Remembering
- Mistake: Reading informational text as if it were narrative text!
- Must learn to “learn through reading”.
- 2/3 of students can read adequately, but lack study skills.
- Reading more slowly, rereading, underlining important ideas…“not particularly effective”!
Teachers, check your students' notebooks periodically so you can offer compliments or suggestions to improve their note taking.
Consciously Deciding How Fast to Read
Scanning means that you are looking for a particular word or phrase. Can be done very rapidly. Think telephone book. About 550 wpm.
Skimming means you are rapidly reading for the overall meaning of the passage. About 400 wpm.
Close Reading: Reading every word, thinking deeply.
Chunking
- In cognitive psychology and mnemonics, chunking refers to a strategy for making more efficient use of short-term memory by recoding information.
- Chunking means to organize items into familiar manageable units.
- 419-332-7063
- ROYGBIV
Memory Strengthening
Organization: Organized information is retained twice as much as isolated information. (Bower, Clark, Lesgold, & Winzenz, 1969) --- this is why graphic organizers work! … outlines, webs.
Rehearsal: “Repetition is the mother of learning.” (Shinichi Suzuki). In and out of the cabinet.
Meaningfulness. Top drawer.
Imagery: Encoded twice – as words and as pictures, so twice as easy to retrieve!
Associations
Mnemonics: what mnemonics does your discipline use?
–Acronyms and initialisms are abbreviations that are formed using the initial components in a phrase or name. (Wikipedia def.)
–An acrostic (from the late Greek akróstichis, from ákros, "top", and stíchos, "verse") is a poem or other form of writing in an alphabetic script, in which the first letter, syllable or word of each line, paragraph or other recurring feature in the text spells out a word or a message.
Overlearning
Repeated ad nauseam: 1+1 = 2
Massed practice means that you do all of your practicing at once.
Distributed practice means that you space out your studying.
Distributed vs Massed Practice: Generally speaking, “short, spaced study sessions are more effective than long ones….”
(Gunning, 2003)
In other words, cramming doesn’t work as well as regular studying.
While the students read, I will help them remember important information by having them ...
1.Take notes
2. Use sticky notes to mark important ideas
3. Code the text
4. Mark ideas on prepared bookmark
5. Double-entry journal
6. Sketch ideas from the text
7. Fill out graphic organizer
When the students finish reading, I will reinforce their learning by asking them to...
1.Retell what they have read
2.Answer questions from KWL
3.Write about what they have read
4.Share ideas from notes
5.It Says/I Say
6.Say Something
7.Exit Slips
8.Do project based on information from text.
II. Study Habits/Routines
What habits would you encourage your students to develop in terms of…
•Time management? Breaks?
•Place to study?
•Organization of materials?
•Discipline?
•Alone or with others?
III. Studying Strategies
•Note-taking
•Cornell Note-taking System
•Organizing Information
•Outlining
•Webbing
•Provide your students with an incomplete outline or web to fill in as your class and homework progress. (Study Guide)
•Selectivity
•Organization
•Consolidation
•Fluency
This site has specific information on study skills for MANY disciplines: http://www.howtostudy.org/
Reciprocal Teaching (aka Fab Four)
Each student in the small group takes on part of the role of the teacher.
1.Summarizer
2.Questioner
3.Clarifier
4.Predictor
Can be done small section by section, reading aloud or silently.
Here's a video about it:
Word Above the Head
We have to try this in class. Divide the class into 2 teams. Two students, one from each team, stand at the chalkboard. The mystery word is written above their heads where they can’t see it. The teams take turns giving clues to the students trying to guess the vocabulary from the unit. Let's play with this and see if we can refine the rules!
Sink or Save
Divide the class into 2 teams. Everyone begins by standing. Do paper, rock, scissors to determine which team goes first. Ask the winner the first question. If the question is answered correctly, the contestant can sink someone from the other team. Once you are sunk, you are out of the game. You can be brought back into the game if you are "saved". If a question is answered correctly, the contestant has a choice of sinking an opponent or saving someone on the contestant's team. Answering incorrectly sinks the contestant. It seems the class has more fun when playing aggressively - sinking much more than saving. The team that has the most surviving members wins.
IV. Test Taking Strategy
How much should the students know ahead of time about the test?
PORPE
–PREDICT what will be on the test.
–ORGANIZE answers for predicted questions.
–REHEARSE over time…distributed practice.
–PRACTICE by writing answers down.
–EVALUATE with a checklist or rubric you compose.
Reading/Study Guides
Selective Reading Guides
Be sure to model the use of any reading guide that your students have not used before. By repeatedly using a reading guide, students should begin to learn how to think through a text, find the important ideas, and respond to them thoughtfully.
Don't choose this type of guide if you want your students to read the whole passage carefully. Selective reading means your students will be led to read selected portions. You could have them skip or skim other portions. Go to this link to see a good example of a selective reading guide:
http://apps.medialab.uwindsor.ca/ctl/downloads/Selective-reading-guide.pdf
Incomplete Outline or Web
Create an outline of the passage or a web and then remove much of the material, leaving blanks. Keep enough words in the outline or web for the students to understand the structure and gist of what they are looking for.
Three Level Reading Guide
Use this type of guide if you need to develop deeper levels of thought. This guide consists of questions about the passage that ask three levels of questions.
- Recall questions have answers that are found right in the printed passage.
- Inferential questions ask for the student to use their background knowledge and reasoning ability to interpret the text.
- Applied questions ask the reader to go beyond the text to see how the ideas raised can be used.
For more information, see this site:
See an example of a 3 level reading guide at this site:
http://www.myread.org/guide_three.htm
Graphic Organizers
Graphic Organizers can serve as excellent reading guides. Be sure to select ones that fit the text structure of the passage. You can find graphic organizers in the Visualizing section of this website.
Study Guides
If you are teaching from a powerpoint, you can print off the slides to have the students take notes as you lecture. Most forms of reading guides could be adapted for students to fill in as they participate in class. Be careful not to have students mindlessly fill in missing words. Challenge them. Make them think. Use higher level questions often.
PSYCHOMOTOR STUDYING
Studying Motor Skills