Study Skills Lecture (PDF)

Lecture (6) LS120 — Fall 2023 Dr. Halima Daw Buni Assistance Professor in Community Medicine Learning objectives  By the end of this skills-based lecture, students will be able to:  Acquire the skills to study effectively, particularly the personal management strategies, including: 1. Motivation 2...

Lecture (6) LS120 — Fall 2023 Dr. Halima Daw Buni Assistance Professor in Community Medicine Learning objectives  By the end of this skills-based lecture, students will be able to:  Acquire the skills to study effectively, particularly the personal management strategies, including: 1. Motivation 2. Concentration 3. Procrastination 4. Memory enhancement Study skills Study skills are techniques that can be learned to aid you with your study Personal management strategies Motivation ----------------------------------------- Stay motivated Concentration -------------------------------- Stay focused Procrastination ------------------------------- Avoid procrastinating Memory enhancement -------------------- Memorize effectively 1. Motivation (‫)تحفيز‬ Motivation is one of the most frequent problems expressed by students. Motivating yourself is fully your responsibility (not the job for your teaching staff, your parents or friends). If you make a success of today, then you will be successful tomorrow. The principle is to keep trying. The following suggestions may help: Strategies to stay motivated 1. Use a work diary and make a daily list of your study tasks. Tick the study tasks as you accomplish them. Looking over the pages of ticked items will give you a positive feeling of achievement. 2. Rewarding positive action is a good motivator. Select rewards which will be personally appealing, such as watching movie when a major project has been finished. 3. Invite classmates from your most difficult subject to join a lunchtime study group and meet weekly to discuss the topics of the last lectures. Choose people who are serious about their study. Strategies to stay motivated: cont’d… 4. If self-control is not your strongest characteristic, then consider giving a list of the goals you plan to accomplish each week to a family member or close friend. Arrange a regular weekly meeting with this person to report on your progress. 5. Clarify your vocational goals. If you know where you are headed, then you are more likely to get there even if the route takes you over some rough ground. Strategies to stay motivated: cont’d… 6. If you are quite convinced that you want to work as a medical specialist, then make a large business card for yourself and post it where you will see it frequently. The card will remind you of your goal. 7. If you feel like you are burning out from too much stress and pressure, then be certain to take more frequent study breaks. Also, schedule the occasional weekend away and completely free yourself from worries about studying. 2. Concentration (‫)تركيز‬ In addition to increased motivation, every student would like the formula to produce more concentration. Try the following concentration 15 × 4 technique. This technique is really a method of studying in short periods of 15 minutes each. With short study periods and frequent short breaks, your mind can maintain high concentration. Here's how to apply the technique: Strategies to stay focused: 1. Buy yourself an exercise book for recording your study tasks. 2. At each study session, start by writing specifically what you intend to accomplish in the first 15 minutes. Be realistic and success-oriented, so underestimate your goal rather than plan to accomplish too much. 3. Accomplish the goal. Keep your head down and your mind attached to the task. 4. At the end of your first 15-minute goal, tick the task and note the small, but pleasant feeling of accomplishment which that action produces. Strategies to stay focused: cont’d… 5. Take a one-minute break. That's just 60 seconds, so there's no time to ring the best friend to discuss the day's events! move away from your desk, do some mild stretching exercises and then sit down for the next bout. 6. Repeat the above cycle 4 times, being certain to specify sufficiently short goals to maximize the opportunities for success, tick each task as it is accomplished and take just a 60-seconds break. Strategies to stay focused: cont’d… 7. Such intense work will create fatigue, following each cycle of 4 fifteen-minute work periods, take a slightly longer break, say 5 to 10 minutes. The breaks are very important as hard work requires adequate rest. When you apply this 15 × 4 technique, you will quickly discover that it's quite intense — no time for daydreaming! The work you get through may be surprising, but pleasing. 3. Procrastination (‫)تسويف‬ Seems to be a very common among university students. `Tomorrow' is the rescue for procrastinating students, as it means they can ease off, avoid or delay the preparation today. However, the todays will roll by and the threatening events, essays and exams, will come ever closer. Your anxiety progressively builds with all of the delayed preparation, thus encouraging you to procrastinate yet again. Procrastination (‫)تسويف‬ For many students, the tension peaks the night before the crucial event and then it's panic stations! You will probably know the scenario from that point onwards. Is this the recipe for punctual, high performance work? Definitely, no, but the pattern is surprisingly common. Here are some practical pointers for procrastinating people. Strategies to avoid Procrastination 1. Try to determine why you have been procrastinating: fear of failure? fear of criticism? self-demands for perfect work? 2. Plan each day and write down your tasks to be accomplished in a diary. Tick the tasks as you accomplish them. 3. For an additional prompt, give a list of your goals to a close friend and meet several times a week to discuss the progress you are making. Strategies to avoid Procrastination: cont’d… 4. If perfectionism is a problem, try to adopt the `acceptable level of approximation'. You prepare your work to a level acceptable to you, but short of the perfect point, and then hand it in. Waiting until perfection is reached can be a very long wait. 5. Break large tasks down into small achievable bits and work persistently at these bits. Tick the small jobs as you go to provide the reinforcement and assurance that progress is being made. 6. Make a wall chart of study tasks accomplished. Seeing visual evidence each day of positive progress will help to keep you motivated. Strategies to avoid Procrastination: cont’d… 7. Ask yourself frequently each day what is the most important markearning job which you should be doing right now. That question will induce you to consider essay preparation tasks and exam revision. 8. Make a list of other jobs to do. Look for an opportunity when they can be done, preferably at a time which will not detract from your academic work. Strategies to avoid Procrastination: cont’d… 9. Try to make daily studying a productive habit. Get to your study place at the same time each day and get straight to work. Start with an easy task. 10. Prior to taking study breaks, which are important to keep your mind fresh and alert, write down the time of your return to study and note the task to be done. Planning ahead, even in this short span, will help you to keep focused and to keep going. 4. Memory enhancement (‫)تعزيز الذاكرة‬ There are 3 situations in which students will complain of faulty and/or insufficient memory: when reading texts, while listening in teaching sessions, and when revising for exams. Let's look at each in turn: Memory enhancement: Remembering what you read How often have you finished reading a section of a text and realized that you have little if any recall of the subject? More often than you would like to admit Remembering what you read, especially if the material is difficult, is a hard work. Your mind will have to be thinking, questioning, associating and generally processing the information as you proceed. Memory enhancement: Remembering what you read While remembering what you read should not necessarily be exhausting, you should, however, be prepared to work. The SQ3R technique is the most effective reading skill to be learnt: survey, question, read, recite, recall. The surveying and questioning are done as a warm-up before you actually start reading the material. As you progress, pause and recite the major points from each section. This reading technique will enhance your memory for what is being read Memory enhancement: Remembering what is said in class The same principles which operate in recalling what you read are applicable to recalling what is said during lectures and other sessions. Remembering is a higher mental function and best achieved when the mind is warmed up to the task. Regarding listening and effective note-taking, be certain to warm up for classes by browsing through the relevant chapter or references. The warm-up takes about 5 minutes. Memory enhancement: Remembering what is said in class While browsing, look for section headings and major topics in bold print. Read captions of graphs and charts. When mentally noting these topics, ask yourself what does that mean. How does it relate to the overall concept being presented? These questions will grab your interest when the topics are mentioned later in class and will enhance your memory for the topic. The essence of this technique is warming up before class. Preparation is powerful Memory enhancement: Remembering what you revise Most students hate revision. It's hard work and the whole process is connected to the anxiety-producing experience of exams. For that reason, revision is generally shelved until the very last minute. Folders of notes are opened the night or two before exams, leaving only a small amount of time to cover a very substantial amount of work. You might have already guessed the message — you need considerable time and lots of effort to prepare thoroughly for your exams. Memory enhancement: Remembering what you revise Two nights of revision, even if they are all-nighters, will not be sufficient for most students. The best approach is to start your revision in the first weekend of the semester and learn your class notes from the first week. Use these learned concepts over the following week and then repeat the process the next weekend. This will increase your memory and facilitate understanding. Remember, information revised and used is information retained. Let us Sum Up The effective study skills include: Rewarding positive action Clarify your vocational goals Effective Time and stress management Take regular breaks Adhere to your To do list Listening skills in lectures Effective Note-taking Speed reading more efficiently Revision of the study materials frequently Bibliography: 1. Accelerated learning skills for students, Joe Mccullough. 2. Study Skills for Successful Students. Fred Orr.1992. Available at: https://www.ruseducation.in/books/Study-Skills.pdf 3. Make it stick, Peter C. Brown, Henry L. Roediger III, Mark A. McDaniel. 4. How we learn, Benedict Carey. 5. Problem based learning in medicine, Tim David, Leena Patel, Leith Burdett, Patangi Rangachari. 1st edition. 6. ‫ سالم علي الغرابية‬,‫مهارات التفكير وأساليب التعلم‬ 7. ‫ هشام سعيد الحالق‬,‫ مهارات تستحق التعلم‬,‫التفكير اإلبداعي‬ 8. ‫ محمد أحمد غزالة‬,‫ أحمد حسن القواسمة‬,‫تنمية مهارات التعلم والتفكير والبحث العلمي‬ Dr. Halima Buni Compensatory quiz (10 minutes) Q1: Mention 2 learning strategies used by kinaesthetic learners? (1 mark) Q2: What is the definition of formal education? (1 mark)