What are your studying habits?

Saysfaa · Mar 14, 2010

I agree. It is how you study rather than how much you study that is more important. The problem is that everyone is different. If you are a sequential learner, then you need to place each piece in order to build up to the big picture. If you are a global learner, then you need to start with the big picture and fill it in with the details.

I am very strongly global, so I start with the broadest overviews I can find (usually internet searches and the back of the textbook or the summaries of the chapters or textbooks for classes beyond mine). Then I track down what I need to more fully understand that big picture. By the time I'm done, I've got the big picture and the details.

I know which part of the day I absorb information. I will more done on an assignment in 15 min in the morning than I will get done in 8 hours if I work through the night. Caffeine will keep my eyes open, but will not keep brain cells to connect. If you don't know when you learn, try doing freecell or suduko or cross words at various times of day (time your self), it will soon be obvious.

There are three main paths for gathering information: auditory, visual, and kinetic. It is best to do most (I forget the exact %, somewhere between 50 and 80) of your learning through your strongest path and reinforce with the others. Auditory learners do things like tape lectures, make songs, chant the lists they are learning. Visual learners use things like demonstrations online, flashcards, charts and graphics. They might organize things by color or indicate importance by where on their notes they put information. Kinetic learners might rewrite things even if they never look at them again - the act of rewriting helps things stick for them. They might tap their wrist while they learn on catagory of things and tap their elbow for a different. They might trace words with their finger on velvet or sandpaper. Anything that involves movement or tactility (lol, if that is a word) while they are studying.

Everyone benefits from getting enough sleep and exercise and eating a good diet. Most people do better with more shorter study sessions than fewer marathon sessions.

It is better to study something until you kinda know it, then study something else or go do something else. Then go back to the first thing. Then repeat several times. You can do this with flashcards or other methods. Tape an index card to the refrigerator maybe, or if you almost know it, to the outside of the shower door.

If I thorough understand the vocabulary, I will have 80 or more of that topic. Memorizing vocabulary lists, though, doesn't get the terms thoroughly understood.... I need to do a lot of compare and contrast work and a lot of looking up how other sources define it and/or use it. Paying attention to the root words, suffixes, and prefixes is very helpful.

Teaching someone else is one of the better ways to learn something. My kids are tolerant. The people in my study group take turns teaching the rest of us. Sometimes I make up an audience.... make the lesson plans or a speech even if it is just for the sake of doing it.

Sometimes I redo what the teacher did, only in a form that I understand better. Like he has powerpoints with charts that are too busy, I might take two pages to have the info in a simpler format. Or I might drop some of the information if I already really know it.

I don't do everything for every lesson.

rescue14 · Mar 14, 2010

Once you take a test or two, you kind of realize the stuff people are asking. If you have CDs that come w/ books, I find those help. Flash cards are useful for me as well. I get my wife to quiz me sometimes and we put aside anything I missed, so I know that I have to focus on that.

Many schools have peer tutoring and some people in my class have got together a study group (although I'm not sure how much studying gets done).

Ask your teacher if you're unsure. I'm a bit older, and I feel at a disadvantage sometimes, because when I was younger, I'd remember everything whether I wanted to or not.

NSALVADORE · Mar 14, 2010

Great tips :) Just wanted to add...

I like to read the chapters prior to lecture so it's not "foreign" when the teacher is lecturing. Then I'll go through my slides/notes from class and my book and arrange my own Outline with notes. That is pretty much what I study from best because it cuts out all the "pretty" stuff on slides and all the stuff that I know already. I also write out note cards and keep them in my bad, I go through them at the gym or on my lunch breaks. It's helpful to get little bits here and there as well as the longer times spent.. Then the questions, the book questions, nclex book questions, case studies that my teachers might have. Whatever I can get my hands on to practice :)