Students often ask me how to prepare for upcoming exams and how to get the most out of their courses. indeed, the learning strategies that students might want to use can vary from course to course. The strategies they found to be useful in their high school courses may need to adapt and modified as they transition to college.
In this post I wanted to share a few ideas of how I help students develop their study strategies in undergraduate level math courses.
While I think there is general advice that I think instructors can and do offer to students taking their course, the strategies that works best for each individual will be unique to them.
Moreover, the process of identifying areas where their learning strategies can be refined is also a skill that will serve them in the classes that I teach, and in more advanced courses.
I often incorporate a survey in canvas that has three goals.
- Further their ability to reflect on their own learning strategies.
- Improve their learning strategies.
- Help students become more successful in my courses.
The surveys ask students to do the following.
- State their own learning goals.
- Explain why their learning goals are important to them.
- Ask students to describe how they are going to reach the learning goals they have.
Each time the survey is run there are themes that emerge from the responses. I share some of the ideas that students wrote to help students get ideas for how they can make the most of their experiences in this class.
Below are a few examples of what students wrote and grouped into themes that typically emerge from the data.
- Solve Many Problems
- Practice, Practice, Practice, Practice … I think that’s it. I never really realized, but it’s literally practice that’s got most of us where we are: whether we practised simple addition of 2 digit numbers in the 2nd Grade, or practised History past papers in the 8th Grade.
- I will complete all the extra problems in the book and practice as much as possible to better my critical thinking skills.
- Schedule Your Time
- I have a planner with when due dates are, which allows me to turn in items earlier, and not being forced to turn in right before due dates. This way I have more freedom of when I work on things and turn them in.
- I started creating a to-do list every morning before I start the day so that I know all the tasks that I want/need to complete that day
- Pace Yourself
- I will make sure to set aside 1-2 hours a day to review and practice material for the class.
- I studied multiple days in advance
- Be Open to Changing Your Study Strategies as Needed
- I plan to look up the most effective note-taking strategies, as well as abbreviate more in my notes, which allows for more space.
- I also am working on getting better with organizing, both when it comes to my notes, and using an agenda to document everything that needs to be done. This will help me keep up with the course.
- This Course Can Seem Difficult at Times: Keep Pushing Forward and Use Your Mistakes as a Guide.
- I am going to reassess my situation every week and try and identify weak points that I can work on at help sessions. After this module test, I feel I can reevaluate how much content I truly understand.
- I’m sure that I will take higher level math courses in college, so the learning/study habits that I develop in this course will carry on into the future. and it’s important to learn from all the mistakes that I make.
- To maintain a growth mindset, I will not get upset about the questions I miss but rather work to understand why I missed them and how I can improve in the future.
- Develop Community: Ask Questions, Answer Questions
- Use what I learn from the class as well as actively seek discussion from my peers to better understand the subject.
- I would utilize Piazza no matter how stupid the question sounds to me, and I would attend office hours to ask the TAs questions I have.
- Take Care of Yourself
- The first thing that I want to do (and am currently working on now), is developing a better study schedule so that I can actually sleep. I have noticed how severely my mental and physical health have declined within the last two years because of how often I end up overworking myself due to not having an efficient schedule.
- I like getting work done at a pace a little faster than the regular pace so I can leave room for myself to breathe.
- I will not miss opportunities to spend time with my friends/go to games (if we can because of Covid) due to school work because I will not need to do things at the last minute. This will allow for more schedule flexibility and spontaneous activities.
When I run this survey and post responses I often find that there are many other wonderful themes and ideas! They are too many to post here, but a longer version of what I post is on a public website devoted to the teaching of MATH 1554 at Georgia Tech, here: https://gatech.instructure.com/courses/114544/pages/recommended-study-strategies