Tools of the Trade: the Habits of Successful Students

Studying can be compared to a building project. If you want to successfully complete a building project you must do the following:

Step 1: Decide what you want to do Step 2: Know how to use your tools Step 3: Develop a plan and a schedule for completion. Step 4: Evaluate along the way.

Step 1: Decide what you want to do

1. Think carefully about how this class fits into your college plans and what grade you think you’d like to earn in here. People who take the time to develop goals are much more likely to achieve them.
2. Make a weekly schedule. Determine when you will have time available for study each week. Just as you have a class, practice and work schedule, you must have a study schedule. Plan to allot two hours outside class for every hour in class. That means this class requires about 7 hours of studying outside class each week!

Step 2: Know how to use your tools.

Anyone who wants to build something must first know how to use the tools he or she needs to complete the project! In this class, your “tools” are: the book, lecture, study guide, TA sessions and on-line information.

1. Review lecture notes daily. Your brain is hooked up in such a way that you are likely to forget most of what you read, see or hear if you don’t make an effort to review it within 24 hours of first seeing it.
2. Take notes on the readings. If you stop after each paragraph or short section and write down what you just learned you are more likely to remember it later, and you are more likely to find out what you don’t know. Can’t find the correct words to describe a particular term? You might need to study it again.
3. Read the book before attending lecture. In our study we found that, without exception, all the successful students we interviewed read the book before class. In this class, the lectures are designed to enhance material you have already read.
4. Read a little each day. Your brain isn’t wired to learn 30 pages of material at once. The successful students in our study read for 45 minutes or an hour at a time.
5. Get independent of books and notes. Understanding vocabulary and concepts is vital in this class. Don’t simply memorize definitions and concepts. If you are unable to describe in your own words the main ideas and concepts you are learning, without the help of books and notes, it is likely you don’t know the material well enough to take the test.

Step 3: Develop a plan.

Contractors always have blueprints before they begin a building project. Coaches always plan to work on particular skills during practice. Band directors always have some idea what they want to work on with their musicians. Effective students also have plans for each study session.

1. Set goals for each study session. In our study, we found that most successful students had specific goals for each study session. They had decided ahead of time how many pages of the chapter they would read, how many new vocabulary words they would learn or how long they would spend reviewing notes. Most had decided how many days in advance they would begin to prepare for the exam.
2. Know when you need help. Take advantage of the TA’s, the professor or the tutoring available at the Academic Assistance Center.

Step 4: Evaluate.

Look at the big picture. Are you spending enough time of your studies? Did you get the grade you were expecting on the last exam? Do you understand what you read? Ask yourself lots of questions. If you don’t like the answers, change the way you study. For suggestions, see the TA’s, seek out a student who had the course in previous years, sign up for a tutor at the Academic Assistance Center or make an appointment with Dr. Ratliff-Crain.

We also learned about bad habits from our research. Just as it is important to know what to do, it is also important to know what NOT to do.

9 Bad Habits that Contribute to an Unsatisfactory Grade:

Bad Habit #1: Read the entire chapter two or three days before the exam, all in one sitting.

Some students read just before the exam because they think they will remember more on test day. The problem is they are asking their brain to do something it wasn’t wired to do—i.e. remember large quantities of information at once.

People have two different types of memory—short and long-term. Students who take tests well have committed information to their long-term memory, which requires short review sessions over a period of time. Students who do all their studying at one sitting have likely only gotten the information into short term memory, where it will be forgotten or mis-remembered on test day!

Bad Habit #2: Don’t plan study times.

Many students make no attempt to schedule study time into their week. They often don’t know what chapters they should be reading or when the tests are. These students fill up “free time” with social activities and don’t sit down to study until 10 or 11 pm. By then they are too tired to learn!

Bad Habit #3: Don’t plan goals for study sessions. Often, students waste time because they don’t know what or how to study. Have you noticed how much more smoothly work goes when your boss has a clear idea what you should do during your shift? You must become your own boss and develop plans. Acceptable goals include: learning how to use and apply 10 vocabulary words, reading and being able to explain without help from the book two sections of the chapter, or being able to answer the questions in the study guide or chapter summary without having to look them up.

Bad Habit #4: Study by memorizing key concepts and vocabulary words.

Relying purely on memorization often results in low test grades. Why? Imagine this scenario: someone teaches you a sentence in a foreign language. You learn to repeat it perfectly, but do not know if you are saying, “please pass the potatoes,” or “My, what an ugly pair of glasses you have.” Exams in this course require you to know how to use all the new vocabulary, not just repeat their definitions word for word.

Bad Habit #5: Don’t take notes on readings.

Many students think taking notes on the chapters is unnecessary work, because the information is already written down for them. Students who take notes prevent themselves from “dream reading,” which occurs when students “read” but their mind is busy thinking about something else entirely. A student who can write, in her own words, a summary of what she read absolutely must be paying attention to and understanding what she read.

Bad Habit #6: Choose to skip class, or not take notes during the lecture. Some students think that missing class and borrowing a buddy’s notes is an acceptable way to get information. It isn’t. Notes are the notetakers interpretation of the lecture, and your buddy’s will not be the same as yours. As a result, his or her notes may not be clear to you, and you may be missing some important stuff.

Bad Habit #7: Study in ineffective groups.

Our study revealed that students who were earning some of the lowest grades liked to study in groups. In general, these study sessions involved one student reading off vocabulary words and the others reciting definitions word for word, straight out of the book. Memorization will not prepare you for the test.

Instead, have your study partners

	think up scenarios that use the words
	come up with lists of questions you think will be on the exam see who can summarize a chapter section without looking at the book
	see if you can identify the main ideas of the chapter.

Bad Habit #8: Complain that it took a whole two hours to read the chapter.

Any student who can read a 30 page textbook chapter in anything less than 4 hours is likely not reading as thoroughly as he or she could be. When you read, stop frequently to see how well you understand the material, take careful notes and review what you read previously.

Bad Habit #9: Read the textbook like it is a novel.

Unsuccessful students tended to read, stick in a bookmark, return the next day, pick up where they left off and keep reading. Effective academic reading must involve review, and opportunities for the student to explain what he or she has learned. Academic reading involves a great deal of re-reading, and lots of page turning.

Think about your own studying.  Do you have some these "bad habits"?  Remember the four steps listed above and the tools involved: Where can you use these in your own studying?

The Three Deadly Studying Sins

The 9 habits we discussed above are bad, but we've saved the worst for last! Here are the three deadly sins of studying. If you have one or all of these habits, it may be an awfully long semester!

Deadly sin # 1: Memorization

We've talked about this one before, but here is again. Remember, memorization has its place in any classroom, but when you use it as a general approach to studying it can result in failure!

Many students confuse memorizing and knowing. Remember, you can memorize something and have absolutely no idea what it means. Someone who doesn’t know the first thing about football could memorize lists of plays, be able to repeat them flawlessly, but have no idea how those plays are run or what players are involved in executing them.

Think of this real life example: During the course of our research, we worked with a group of psychology students who were struggling with chapter 4 (when you have to learn all about the brain, its parts and what they do.) The students studied this way: one read off a term and the others recited the answer they had memorized from the book.

Eventually, Kathryn (your instructor’s research partner) asked the students to answer the following question, “Alice is rollerblading to campus one morning. She falls and hits her head. The next morning, she has hard time keeping her balance. What brain part was damaged?”

Even though the students had just finished defining “cerebellum” (which plays a major role in balance and coordination,) they were unable to answer the question. Why? Because they had not internalized the information. They had simply remembered the words in the definition without paying much attention to what they actually said. Many of the test questions will require you to apply the information you are learning to a scenario or example. If all you do is memorize, you will be unlikely to get the correct answers.

Deadly Sin #2: Recognition

Many students think multiple choice tests are easy because they think they will simply remember the correct answer when they see it on the tests. Think of the following scenario: you are working on your home computer and you have a problem.

You get on the phone and call the store from which you bought the computer and you speak to Bob, who gives you a set of direction to solve the problem. You hang up, do what Bob says to do and it still doesn’t work. You call back, and you want to speak to Bob again because you don’t have to re-explain everything to someone new. Sarah answers the phone. You explain that you want to speak with the guy that helped you before but you don’t remember his name.

Sarah begins to list the men who work in the store. “Was it Bill? Was it Mark? Was it Joe?” Eventually, she lists Bob and the light goes off in your head. You remember, once you got a little prompt, that Bob was the one with whom you spoke.

Many students decide to take tests this way, hoping that when they get there, they will simply recognize the right answer. While that may work on some tests, it will not work here. The questions are too long and require too much thought, interpretation and understanding for this to be a good strategy.

Deadly Sin # 3: Orphanizing

This is the hardest of the “bad” techniques to explain. Basically, it means that a students studies in such a way that he or she sees all new information as separate from the information he or she learned before. Your brain, in the “real world” naturally makes connection between things. Very few people, for example, store their stamps in the sock drawer and their envelopes out in the garage with the grilling equipment. In our minds, like goes with like—we put things that are parts of a whole or have similar functions in the same spot. Most likely your stamps and envelops would be stored in a drawer that also contains your mailing labels, address book and a few pens.

Somehow, this natural system of organization escapes many students when they study. Rather than looking at terms and thinking about how each term relates to the others (Which terms might go in the same “drawer”?) They tend to see each bit of information as needing its very own “drawer.” We use the term “orphanize” because, when students study this way, they keep information isolated from the things that relate to it. People often orphanize when they don’t know what to emphasize. To them, everything looks equally important (Ever seen someone with the entire book highlighted?) Because they have a hard time picking out the main ideas, they treat everything like a main idea. When they do that, they lose sight of the relationships between terms and concepts.

The result: A very stressed out student who has spent a great deal of time committing to memory a bunch of individual facts and terms but no time actually learning how those facts and terms work contribute to the main idea.

To avoid orphanization:

Before you even read the chapter, flip through it and read anything that catches your attention. (It isn’t a novel. You won’t spoil the plot.)

Pay attention to how the sections are organized. The authors put the sections in a particular order to make a particular point, and you are much farther ahead if you can figure out what that main point is before you actually begin to read.

Think of this in terms of travel: if you know where you are going, they you can much more easily decide what kind of clothes to bring, how much gas you’ll need, and the best route to take.

Your academic destination is what you are trying to get out of the reading, such as knowing how the parasympathetic nervous system and the sympathetic nervous system work. When you know your “destination,” it is a whole lot easier to decide what information is important, what is simply details and what you really need to know backwards, forwards and inside-out. When you know what to emphasize, you don’t orphanize because the relationships between terms and concepts become clearer.