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Effective learning at University series

After a class

 

Particularly in lectures there is a large amount of information being provided in a short space of time, and there is little chance that it will be properly understood during the lecture. You may feel you have followed the ideas, but unless you are able to explain them back to someone you have not understood.

To maximise the learning from lectures it is very useful to have:

Immediate review. As soon as possible after your session, sit down with a small group for ten minutes and tell each other what you remember from the lecture (referring to your notes). Relate the “big ideas’’ of the session to course description/objectives, and explain them in your own words - giving examples.

Immediate review:

• Provides a richer range of knowledge elements, as you will all remember different things, and no one remembers them all.
• Promotes linking with course description
• Encourages construction of understanding rather than simple recall. By having to explain to your friends you have to make many more important connections.

Later, when you have time to stop and think about what you have learned that day you can also:

Draw a Concept map. A “making sense of” concept map relates key terms (or Big Ideas) in a pictorial way. Write a list of the most important ideas covered in the session, and then try to arrange the term on a sheet of paper so that related ideas are close to each other, and a line drawn between them. Write the nature of the relationship on the line. Keeping the terms to around 10-15 keeps the map manageable.

• Helps identify “Big Ideas” - they are the ones with the most links!
• Promotes linking of ideas.
• The image of the concept map is another memory prompt when revising
• Maintains direction and control of your learning.

Reflection. Think about content in quiet times. Explore variations in the ideas put forward and their implications. Contemplate examples and "real world" situations that may be relevant.

• Promotes linking to personal experience and hence greater understanding.

Monitor displacement activities. Displacement activities are those little jobs we feel we have to do when something difficult is upon us. Getting a cup of coffee, suddenly needing to clear the cobwebs on the roof above, or developing an intricate catalogue system of your notes when you are supposed to be writing an essay, are all examples.

Keep a record of your favourite ones, and become sensitive to your use of them. Link them to a positive strategy. When you feel one coming on ask why? If you are having trouble getting started on the work you are supposed to be doing, try making a list of Bite Sized Bits (tasks of manageable size) so that you are clear about what needs to be done. Large tasks can be hard to start unless you have made some analysis of the task.

 

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