It is now important to continue and build on habits and skills developed in Year 7 & 8.
So continue with the habit of revision and regular work practice each night. You may now find it useful to up your allocated time to an hour or two. It is also time to learn to manage your time more as this increased study time means it may begin to impact on your other scheduled, out of school, activities such as sports. Sporting activities are also very important so they must be integrated and considered along with your study. So now it is important to consider time management as well as energy management.
Study Preparation:
Ensure study area and tools. Because the study time has increased you may now find it useful to ensure you have something to drink and nibble in your study time. A time management schedule maybe useful for you.
Regular Study:
What to do each night.
1) Review the days content as for year 7 & 8, with the modification that you can start to investigate your questions yourself. See if you can find the answer to it, before asking your teacher. Then when you ask, say 'I could not find the answer to ...... I looked here, I did this, could you help me?' This way you let them know you are actively involved in your learning and they are helping you rather than doing it for you. This practice is preparing you for independent learning, a valuable life long skill.
2) Spend some time on any set home work, plus:
NEW
3) Preview. It is now time to start the habit of previewing what you will be covering in class. This practice means when you go into class you are already 'primed' for the learning. This means you will take in more (even when the reading didn't seem to make much sense). Also you will be able to ask more questions and thus strengthen your learning in class. The consequence of this is, when you review each night you will remember even more, have a greater understanding and thus it is possible you will have less questions for the next class. Or you may have questions to deepen your learning rather than clarifying your understanding. All this means you will learn more with greater understanding which in turn means you remember it easier.
4) Study break. Research shows us our brain functions best with breaks either every 25 minutes or 40-45 minutes. Work out which one suits you and use it. Take a short break at these regular intervals to enable you to maximise your learning. In your break time, stretch, move around, have a drink, perhaps change your task. Then get back to the study. 5-10 minute breaks. No More. If you go off to watch tv or check out the social chat room the risk if rather high you will not return. So be VERY selective of what you do in these brief break periods.
Skills.
Extend Energy management by including a conscious relaxation technique.
Develop time management.
Project Planning and Unit Planning- semester study plan.
Very important skill to develop is collaboration and effective team work.
Copyright Dr Janelle Sheen 2014