doing something wrong?

[2bsunshinenurse3]

I'm not so sure about my study skills. I am in my first med surg class and I'm trying to do everything the right way to stay on top of things for this class.

I read before class, and take notes. What I do is take a piece of paper, fold it in half and on the left side make my notes from reading. So when I get into class I will take notes from lecture on the right side. It seems to help, it makes me focus on what is said in class that sticks out from the book. Then after class I read over notes, make some notecards for some things. When I make notecards I put them in question form, usually trying to do situational-type questions like what would be on the test. I take my notecards everywhere and review them as much as I can.

Well, I've been doing all this and when I go to work on the study guide that comes from the book I can't answer any questions. Or if someone asks me a random question about the information I'm not sure about the answer. Am I doing something wrong? Maybe I'm not absorbing the info as much as I think I am?

Any input/study tips would be great!!

[Sssupernurse]

hmm... seems like you're on the right track. something else i like to do is spend time with some nursing friends and discuss the material. we ask each other questions, and if we are not too sure... then we talk about it... explain it to each other. that has helped me alot.

keep experimenting... if you get powerpoints in class focus on those... or just try and study the big key points. asking yourself questions when reading is a really good way of studying.

[Panthyr]

Another good way of studying is to, after each class, sit down and re-write those notes, organizing them into bullets. Say, you read information on in the book prior to class, and this is what the teacher said about . Then, the next set of information from the book, , and this is the stuff the teacher said about it. Etc.

Copy it all out neatly and reorganize it so that instead of this side of the page vs that side of the page, everything you need to know about this one little part of the overall subject is in this one section of your notes.

The reorganizing part is important, for this strategy to work, because while you're thinking about whether this part of the subject belongs to this section or that section, your brain is playing with all of the information like a puzzle, and cognitively rearranging it and learning how it all fits together into an overall subject. It keeps your brain from going on autopilot and thinking about whether you really want to recarpet the dining room in purple, or have green eggs and ham for dinner. You can't really think about those things when you're concentrating on the subject in such a way - and it makes your brain become familiar with the subject material. Eventually, when a question is asked, you should be able to go "Oh, I remember this, because I put it under *this* category..." and you'll remember what else is in that category, and it will help you answer the question.

Hope that helps!

[locolorenzo22, BSN, RN]

See, I always tried to understand the concept behind the notes...I.e. diabetes is dx'd by, treated by, and if untreated can cause.....I believe that figuring out how it's dx'd, how it is treated, and what you should look for goes a long way towards actually figuring out how to think critically....