Studying Techniques - Your input please

Bagel

Hi,

I'm currently studying with NUI Maynooth and am doing some work looking at the support given to students with regards to study skills.

I'm hoping you can give me some feedback on your experiences. In particular I'd be interested to hear -

1. Did you get any help within school hours with organisational skills, motivation, memory techniques, note taking techniques, exam preperation etc?

2. If you did get help , what type of help was it ? Was it a one of course with trainers from outside the school/course run by the school/adhoc help by individual teachers or a combination ? How useful did you find the help you got?

3. What support would you have liked to have got?

4. Have you heard of the technique of mind mapping? Have you used this technique? How useful have you found it with your studies?

I'm in the process of designing a questionnaire to capture replies but would appreciate any feedback you can give me on this thread or via pm. If you had time to answer any or all of the above questions I'd much appreciate it!

Thanks so much in advance for your help.

EL_Loco

1: Yes

2: Most of the teachers would use previous exam papers as a basis, would give us the points break down, and a rough time guide on how much time to spend on each. The " 4 questions moderately well answered is better than 3 answered to 100%" type stuff.

We did have an outside person come in and show us a technique, not sure if it's the mind mapping one, but you'd write down all you knew about a subject before you studied it, study for 25 minutes, taking notes, page numbers in text books where needed, keywords etc. After 25 minutes you'd write down all you knew about the subject then, keyword stuff, for 60 seconds. Then take a 5 minutes break. Do 3 of these sessions before a longer break then.

We had one teacher who was very good at chatting to us about doing smaller parts, not going for marathon 3-4 hours at a time stuff. Found it helpful.

3: Got a fair amount of support I suppose, most teachers were decent about it, not too many scaremongers. Most pushed the exam technique stuff quite well. Bar sitting the exam for you I feel my school did as much as could be expected from their side.

4: unless the process described above is mind mapping then no I haven't heard of it.

partyatmygaff

1: Yes

2: A few study skills classes throughout third, fifth and sixth year as well as some adhoc advice from class teachers. I found it to be very repetitive to be honest. It all centered around "Make a study timetable and list objectives and stick to it".

3: No more than what I received. My school did the best they could do for us with regard to study skills. After a certain point, being advised on study skills becomes repetitive to the point of being a huge waste of time.

4: I have. I find it to be completely useless as a study aid. More a waste of time than anything. I find the technique to be better suited to creative tasks such as writing short stories or music where a quick mind map helps you to generate and organise ideas.

AdamD

Bagel wrote: »

Hi,

I'm currently studying with NUI Maynooth and am doing some work looking at the support given to students with regards to study skills.

I'm hoping you can give me some feedback on your experiences. In particular I'd be interested to hear -

1. Did you get any help within school hours with organisational skills, motivation, memory techniques, note taking techniques, exam preperation etc?

2. If you did get help , what type of help was it ? Was it a one of course with trainers from outside the school/course run by the school/adhoc help by individual teachers or a combination ? How useful did you find the help you got?

3. What support would you have liked to have got?

4. Have you heard of the technique of mind mapping? Have you used this technique? How useful have you found it with your studies?

I'm in the process of designing a questionnaire to capture replies but would appreciate any feedback you can give me on this thread or via pm. If you had time to answer any or all of the above questions I'd much appreciate it!

Thanks so much in advance for your help.

1: Yes got help with all of this

2: People from outside school came in a few times in 3rd/5th/6th year and got 'how to study notes' in our classes.

3: None

4: Yes but didn't do it

Bagel

Thanks for all the replies so far.

spurious

<Thread given the go-ahead.>

As a teacher, I find mind-mapping works quite well with some weaker students whose thought processes are perhaps not as organised as others and who lack concentration skills.

not_so_civil

1. yes
2. all the teachers went over exam papers, layouts, timings and taht sort of stuff. as well as breaking down the notes easier for us and giving us sheets with subject summaries on it.
3.Personally i think they school did everything they could have done to help
4. Yea I've heard of it, a few of the teachers told us about it when they were telling us bout study techniques. I didn't find it helpful at all, but I was never a big fan of spreading out all my info, i prefer to keep it in paragraphs to learn, just works better for me

lainey108

i find im able to study by taking notes..but is there a quicker method?

jumpguy

Bagel wrote: »

1. Did you get any help within school hours with organisational skills, motivation, memory techniques, note taking techniques, exam preperation etc?

Nothing really overly formal, just teachers telling us to work hard, pay attention, take good notes, etc. For exam preparation, we were made to do plenty of exam paper questions and things like that. But we never had a formal period of time completely dedicated to those skills.

2. If you did get help , what type of help was it ? Was it a one of course with trainers from outside the school/course run by the school/adhoc help by individual teachers or a combination ? How useful did you find the help you got?

Mostly answered in Q1. I found the preparation for exams quite helpful, it's quite handy knowing what you're expected to do on the day, and within what time constraints! I found most motivational speeches by teachers (in class) were a bit of a waste of breath - it never motivated anyone who wasn't working, and those that were working were motivated already. Note-taking techniques were self-developed really, not too complicated, depends on the amount of motivation and interest you have.

3. What support would you have liked to have got?

None - it's all a load of crap as far as I'm concerned, and a giant waste of money. Studying is a personalised task - you figure out your own optimum way to do it. It takes motivation to do the hard work, which only comes from oneself. I've found most "study tips" to be purely common sense, or just overly formulaic (making a study timetable never worked for me, for example, I just studied what I needed to get done and did my homework - I could never adhere to it).

4. Have you heard of the technique of mind mapping? Have you used this technique? How useful have you found it with your studies?

Writing out ideas and arranging them is, once again, common sense imo. I find it most useful when preparing English essays and compositions to write. That'd be the only time I'd ever use it consciously as part of my strategy, sometimes I'd do it just without even thinking "oh, I'm mind mapping," for example, when preparing to answer a long question in physics or chemistry, so I won't forget a point.

Hope that helps!

Bagel

lainey108 wrote: »

i find im able to study by taking notes..but is there a quicker method?

Hi Lainey108,

I went through school and university studying by using a highlighter pen, taking notes and then maybe putting key points onto card. Often I found if it was a subject I was struggling with or not that interested in (which to be honest was most of them!!!) even though I was taking notes my brain had kind of switched off so I wasn't really learning or taking in what I was reading.

A few years ago I heard Tony Buzan talking about Mind mapping and I immediately felt that I wished I'd been introduced to the technique when I was in school. It was very easy to do and once I'd practiced a few times (by literally forcing my self to mind map anything I would normally put pen to paper) I am convinced that it could be a great study tool for most students.

If you aren't familiar with mind mapping here is a link to a video which goes through the rules to follow .

http://www.youtube.com/user/ukbraintrainer#p/a/u/1/v8_H42Z9wxA

The principle of mindmapping is that it taps into the right side of your brain (big picture thinking, colour, imagination etc) . It is the actual act of making the mind map that helps your memory - unlike study notes it is unlikely that if you borrowed someone elses mind map it would mean much to you! I think from the answers on this thread that people feel it is more useful for creative /essay planning type study activities but I really feel it is very versatile.

Using the example of studying a chapter in a book. I would begin by looking at the introduction , conclusion and the chapter headings draw a quick mind map - just with the key heading details. I would then close my books and then try and fill in as much info as I can based on what is in my head! This will quickly highlight what you know /don't know . It also give your brain a framework so that when you are going through the chapter it is making sense of how everything fits into the big picture.

Once I've done that - I 'd then re draw the mind map and then fill in the detail by going through the chapter . The more colour and pictures you can use the better.

Once you are finished , take a break and over a cup of tea try drawing the mind map from memory . You can then compare it and see what bits are still a bit fuzzy.

If you then ever have a spare 5 minutes (waiting for a bus, bored in class!) you can pull out a blank sheet of paper and try and re draw your map - again the blank areas are the ones you can focus your next study session on.

So a long answer to your short question - I don't think there is a quicker way then taking notes but there might be a more fun way/more effective way to spend your time. Hope this helps and I would be very interested in what other students think of this technique.

DM360

1. Did you get any help within school hours with organisational skills, motivation, memory techniques, note taking techniques, exam preperation etc?

Yes, very much so.



2. If you did get help , what type of help was it ? Was it a one of course with trainers from outside the school/course run by the school/adhoc help by individual teachers or a combination ? How useful did you find the help you got?

In 5th Year we had to come in over a weekend where a teacher, who was presumably "trained" in study skills, ad pay to learn about study skills and methods.

Then in 6th Year we were given a big lecture and some handouts on pretty much the same thing. Both were planned and executed by the school and individual teachers.

To be honest no, it didn't really do anything for me.

3. What support would you have liked to have got?

I would have preferred to be told about different methods. Also, there is often too much waffle. Too many times I was told about "a clear, tidy study place with natural light and a source of ventilation", "using highlighters, using exam past papers, underlining vocab you don't understand, using reference books, writing spider-diagrams (which I DETEST), etc." and of course "remember studying for more than x amount of hours is bad and you should take a 5 minute break every hour".

Some of these are just absolutely obvious, i.e: exam papers, but for a lot of the 'techniques' recommended, I haven't met anyone who studies in this manner. I would consider myself decent at studying, but I know some guys who are incredible at it and they also don't follow these "important steps".

Students should be told that different people are suited to different methods. I myself found bullet-points and mnemonics to be very helpful in studying. I preferred to write things down in large chunks of writing, providing large annotated diagrams when required.

4. Have you heard of the technique of mind mapping? Have you used this technique? How useful have you found it with your studies?

Yes, many of my teachers recommend it. I've heard of it called spider-diagrams/spidergrams before. I was forced to use it early on, when studying for the JC, but I don't find it helpful.

I find it gets cluttered easily and becomes overcomplicated. Also, in an exam one never really jots down single words, I found it more helpful taking down key sentences in bullet points, I'd use these in exams and then expand.

Bagel

Thanks guys - really appreciate the feedback on the thread and on surveymonkey. Have 10 replies via survey monkey and keeping it open until the end of July so good opportunity to win a 25e voucher!

lainey108

Bagel wrote: »

Hi Lainey108,

I went through school and university studying by using a highlighter pen, taking notes and then maybe putting key points onto card. Often I found if it was a subject I was struggling with or not that interested in (which to be honest was most of them!!!) even though I was taking notes my brain had kind of switched off so I wasn't really learning or taking in what I was reading.

A few years ago I heard Tony Buzan talking about Mind mapping and I immediately felt that I wished I'd been introduced to the technique when I was in school. It was very easy to do and once I'd practiced a few times (by literally forcing my self to mind map anything I would normally put pen to paper) I am convinced that it could be a great study tool for most students.

If you aren't familiar with mind mapping here is a link to a video which goes through the rules to follow .

http://www.youtube.com/user/ukbraintrainer#p/a/u/1/v8_H42Z9wxA

The principle of mindmapping is that it taps into the right side of your brain (big picture thinking, colour, imagination etc) . It is the actual act of making the mind map that helps your memory - unlike study notes it is unlikely that if you borrowed someone elses mind map it would mean much to you! I think from the answers on this thread that people feel it is more useful for creative /essay planning type study activities but I really feel it is very versatile.

Using the example of studying a chapter in a book. I would begin by looking at the introduction , conclusion and the chapter headings draw a quick mind map - just with the key heading details. I would then close my books and then try and fill in as much info as I can based on what is in my head! This will quickly highlight what you know /don't know . It also give your brain a framework so that when you are going through the chapter it is making sense of how everything fits into the big picture.

Once I've done that - I 'd then re draw the mind map and then fill in the detail by going through the chapter . The more colour and pictures you can use the better.

Once you are finished , take a break and over a cup of tea try drawing the mind map from memory . You can then compare it and see what bits are still a bit fuzzy.

If you then ever have a spare 5 minutes (waiting for a bus, bored in class!) you can pull out a blank sheet of paper and try and re draw your map - again the blank areas are the ones you can focus your next study session on.

So a long answer to your short question - I don't think there is a quicker way then taking notes but there might be a more fun way/more effective way to spend your time. Hope this helps and I would be very interested in what other students think of this technique.

thank you so much for that advice, im going to try it out.
il let you knw how it goes