Any tips for running a great study group?

Morgan0429 · May 25, 2010

Everyone has different ways of learning. Study groups can get a little out of hand and quickly. It is easy to get off track and talk about everything else BUT the material. Flash cards are great for vocab...but you have to be able to apply the terms to what you are learning. There is NO more memorizing, regurgitating it and forgetting things after the test. Studying and testing is SO different in nursing school! You need to be able to REALLY understand HOW/WHY things happen..so in study groups it is good to say.."explain to me how ___blank___ occurs/works and what makes it happen?" For med calc, its all about practice! If you don't understand it...get help ASAP! Good luck to ya!

WanderingSagehen · May 25, 2010

I tried a couple of study groups and generally I found that half the people who want them actually study. If you can find students who are actually studying then you all will benefit. If the students expect to get everything from a study group then your time is wasted. I have been overall, disappointed with group study. I study alone and may not know everything but I find it is more valuable and productive than the time spent with other people. I love being with other people so this is quite a personal conflict for me. Good luck.

JROregon, ASN, BSN, RN · May 26, 2010

I'm the same way. I like to study alone and study in a way that is important to me. I would love to spend time with the people in my classes but I wouldn't expect to gain much from a group of people who are lost. If you are able to split up the work between the members of the group and each person is also responsible to giving a rationale to their answers, you might get somewhere.

DayDreamin ER CRNP · May 26, 2010

Every group dynamic is different but what works for MY group is that we all take a chapter or concept or whatever and we teach that to each other. We HAVE to study independently before we meet so we are better prepared to discuss the topics.

If you have specific meds or whatever I would start with grouping those and each person can teach a classification of drugs.

Do your teachers give a study guide? We split those up and then get together to teach each other the material. We all at least look at those topics but we really get into the finer details on our assigned topic.

If you are just learning the vocab, flash cards might work. We always did our flashcards using Excel and then would cut them and fold them in half for our front and back. Learning vocab is easy but you will need to know what it all means. It is great to know the definitions of "strabismus" or "edema" but it is a whole 'nother ball of wax to know the patho of each.

Math. Well, we practice math stuff. Our teachers were pretty good about giving us practice problems and the answers to go with them so we could work the problems and check our work. It is essential to know conversions so that might be a good place to start.

Once you get into a good groove you might want to do some practice questions. We got very good at taking the study guide book questions and changing the wording to how we thought our teacher might word something. That would also lead to discussions about the topic and that worked great for us.

Set some schedules and make sure to include a break! When we meet, we say, "OK, lets do chapters 7-9 from the study guide and then take a break." Getting distracted is going to happen. It is just part of working in a group but you have to make sure you don't get too off topic and return to studying quickly.

good luck!

meredith