Approaching the End of the Semester

At my institution we only have three weeks of classes and one week of finals left in the semester.  Here are some ideas to succeed in this busy time:

• Map out the final weeks day by day.  Include what assignments are due, regular exam and final exam dates.
• Plan ahead when you will start to work on projects and papers.
• Plan when you will start to study for each exam.
• Check to be sure you have all material – class notes if you have been absent – and handouts.  Rewrite the missing class notes in your style and include in your notebook.
• Realistically look at your grades so far and set a goal for each class.  Set your goal a little high but make it something you can achieve.  Post your goal grades where you can see them each day.
• If you are close to a higher grade in a class, put in extra effort to achieve the higher grade.
• Plan some time to relax.
• Take care of your health – eat well, exercise, sleep!
• Plan a pleasant treat for yourself after the semester ends.
• Imagine how sweet it will be to check you grades for the semester and see your hard work pay off.

The next blog will discuss how to keep your learning fresh over Thanksgiving Break.
*****
First Semester Success: Learning Strategies and Motivation for Your First Semester (or Any Semester) of College, by Dr. Arden B. Hamer, is available at amazon.com, wordassociation.com and barnesandnoble.com.  Click on the upper right link.

 

Imply and Infer

One reading skill we work on in my class is making inferences.  This reading and thinking skill is heavily stressed on the Praxis and PAPA exams freshman students take to enter the College of Education curriculum.  When you make an inference you take the available information combined with what you already know to understand what is being implied but not directly stated.
Remember:

• The writer and speaker imply.
• The reader and listener infer.

You make inferences all the time.   For example, when you meet someone for the first time, you take what you see (their appearance, facial expression, demeanor) and what they say and form an impression of their personality.


Read the following three pairs of sentences and pay attention to your thought process as you read the second sentence in each pair.  You will be using context clues to make an inference about what the first sentence means.


Mary had a little lamb,
Its fleece was white as snow.


Mary had a little lamb.
She liked it served medium with mint jelly.


Mary had a little lamb.
The vet arrived just in time to help with the birth.


Usually textbooks directly state what they mean.  In persuasive essays, conversations and fiction writing implications are very common.  Be sure you are looking for any subtle meaning as well as what is directly stated.
*****
First Semester Success: Learning Strategies and Motivation for Your First Semester (or Any Semester) of College, by Dr. Arden B. Hamer, is available at amazon.com, wordassociation.com and barnesandnoble.com.  Click on the upper right link.

EBook Reading Strategies

EBooks are probably the future of many textbooks, and, depending on who you talk to, that will be   fantastic or terrible!  A lot may depend on how the publishers adapt the material to the EBook format. 

Our grandson in 10^th grade has all of his textbooks as EBooks – there is only one paper copy in the classroom.   In his case it appears the AP History book was just copied as is, no adaptation for the different format.  His quiz scores were terrible until he started to print out the pages and read it on paper and mark up the pages.   Suddenly his quiz scores jumped to 90% - 100%! 

On the other hand I viewed a video about a McGraw Hill SmartBook.  They have added multiple strategies to help the reader including showing on overview of all the pages before the text starts and adding self-testing after reading with different colored highlighted text to indicate mastery or not.  The reader is then directed back to the pages where they need to review.

Here are some strategies you can adapt to an EBook (especially an unfriendly one that has just been copied online with no additional help) that will improve comprehension and retention:

*** Get an overview before starting to read.  You can look at the learning objectives, examine the individual pages as in the SmartBook above, or scroll through the entire text reading headings, bold print, or just sampling text here and there throughout.  I think this is an extremely important step that is much harder with an unfriendly EBook but it is necessary to see “The Big Picture” before starting to read the details!

*** Purposefully stop periodically and think about “The Big Picture” and how the information you are reading fits in.

*** After reading a section test yourself using recitation.  Stop and see if you can restate what you read in your own words.   If you can, move forward.  If you cannot, go back and reread until you can.

*** Take separate notes.

The future may be that we will be reading in many different formats.  I think this will place more demands on the reader to be effective and to have an arsenal of strategies that can be adapted to suit different needs and formats.

*****

First Semester Success: Learning Strategies and Motivation for Your First Semester (or Any Semester) of College, by Dr. Arden B. Hamer, is available at amazon.com, wordassociation.com and barnesandnoble.com.  Click on the upper right link.

Signal words - whar are they and why are they important?

I suspect that my students get tired of hearing about signal words, but they are an important part of the collaboration between the writer and the reader.  The writer uses them to let the reader know where they are going in their writing and the reader's job is to be looking for them.  Here are some ways writers use signal words and some samples:
To signal the reader there is a list -

• There may be a number word telling the reader how many points, items, etc. to watch for.
• Examples: first, second, third, next, finally, including, examples, etc.

You can tell if the chronological order is important in several ways -

• By the context. For example, if it is something that has to be completed in a particular order such as changing a tire.
• Examples - in order, steps, following, beginning, previously, while
• You may also see dates when chronological order is important.

To signal compare and/or contrast -

• Examples for compare: similarly, likewise, also, too, alike
• Examples of contrast: but, on the other hand, however, whereas

To signal cause and effect -

• Examples: as a result, leads to, therefore, because, if...then

In my class this week students were evaluating two articles and discussing which one did the better job of getting the point across.  It was unanimous that the one with the signal words was easier to follow and understand and therefore was the one favored!


This information is also helpful when the tables are turned - when you are the writer and someone else is the reader.
*****
First Semester Success: Learning Strategies and Motivation for Your First Semester (or Any Semester) of College, by Dr. Arden B. Hamer, is available at amazon.com, wordassociation.com and barnesandnoble.com.  Click on the upper right link.

Learning as a Process - Part 7 of 7

We  have made it to the end of this series!  To recap, let's look at the overall picture of learning for students:
Stage 1 - Comprehension
Before you even start to learn, you have to comprehend what you are reading, hearing, writing down, etc.  At this stage you should be able to restate what you are learning in about the same words used by the lecturer or textbook.
Stage 2 - Understanding
This is a higher level than simply comprehending.  At this stage you should be able to:

• Explain or restate in your own words.
• Work with the information in a variety of ways - take notes, convert into study guides, etc.
• See how various pieces of information fit together.
• Apply the information to a new situation.

Stage 3 - Storage
Now you have to get the information firmly implanted in your long-term memory.  This is what takes multiple exposures with a variety of strategies spaced out over time.  In many cases, stages 2 and 3 happen simultaneously and over time.
Stage 4 - Retrieval
At this final stage you should be able to remember the information with very little prompting.  It is important to practice retrieval through self-testing.  The more often you retrieve the information the easier you will be able to do so on the exam.

Learning is not simple, it takes time and effort.  But by understanding how it happens, you can make sure you are using your time and effort wisely to gain the best results.

Future blogs will include:

• Reading and learning using eBooks
• Signal words
• Book review of How we Learn, by Benedict Carey

*****
First Semester Success: Learning Strategies and Motivation for Your First Semester (or Any Semester) of College, by Dr. Arden B. Hamer, is available at amazon.com, wordassociation.com and barnesandnoble.com.  Click on the upper right link.

Learning as a Process - Part 6 of 7

The end goal of your learning process is a good grade on an exam.  (Not to mention learning what you need to know to be a success in your career!)  Up to this point we have discussed how you are learning the information and getting it into your long-term memory.  Once you are in the testing situation, here are some tips to get the information successfully on to the paper.  (Just keep in mind that there are no "magic" test-taking tips - the only "magic" comes from hard work before the exam.)

• Spashdown - if there is a specific piece of information you are worried about remembering, jot it down somewhere on the exam paper as soon as you get it. That way you can quit thinking about that information and focus on the exam.
• If you are taking an essay exam, stop and think about your answer and jot down a brief outline before starting to write.  This will focus your ideas and help you clearly answer all of the question and not go off on a tangent.
• Look at the entire test before starting.  In many cases different questions have different point values and you want to focus your time and effort on the highest valued items.
• Start with the ones you know.  Don't panic if you don't know the first question.  As you access that information in your memory you will start to remember more.
• Use questions and answers later in the test to jog your memory for answers you did not know earlier in the test.
• Manage your time.  Don't spend so much time on one part that you cannot do a good job on another part of the test.
• Monitor your self-talk.  Don't be telling yourself negative things.  Just do your best.

Again - your exam success is directly related to your preparation.  So, study!


The final blog in this series will recap and look at the learning process in an overview.
*****
First Semester Success: Learning Strategies and Motivation for Your First Semester (of Any Semester) of College, by Dr. Arden B. Hamer, is available at amazon.com, wordassociation.com and barnesandnoble.com.  Click on the upper right link.

Learning as a Process - Part 5 of 7

The goal of the learning process is to get information from your short-term, working memory to your long-term memory.


Short-term/working memory - this is what you are using when you are studying (reading, taking notes, learning your notes, making study guides, etc.)


Long-term memory - This is where you store all that you know and where you get the information when taking an exam.


So the question is ...How does the information go from the short-term to the long-term memory?


And the answer is ...It gets there by using a variety of strategies including self-testing combined with repetition and spacing these strategies out over time.

• Variety means doing different things with the information - reading, taking notes, recitation (restating in your own words from memory), study guides, study cards, practice tests, the list is endless!
• Repetition - You have to revisit the information you want to learn multiple times before it becomes firmly fixed in your long-term memory.
• Spaced out over time - it does not work to go over and over the information in one study period, it needs to be spaced over time.   Sixty minutes of study is very effective in 20 minute increments spread over three days, while 60 minutes the night before the exam is not effective.

So as you can see, getting the knowledge firmly into your long-term memory is a process that takes time and effort!


In the next blog we will look at the end result of this process - successfully taking exams.


*****
First Semester Success: Learning Strategies and Motivation for Your First Semester (or Any Semester) of College, by Dr. Arden B. Hamer, is available at amazon.com, wordassociation.com and barnesandnoble.com.  Click on the upper right link.