Learning & Studying Tips

Exams are around the corner.  This article ("The Lessons You Never Got Taught In School") offers students some suggestions on how to take control of their studying success.

Best Tip: Students preparing for exams should use the "Elaborative Interrogation" method

From the article:

Elaborative Interrogation

A method involving creating explanations for why stated facts are true. The method involves concentrating on why questions rather than what questions and creating questions for yourself as you are working through a task. To do this yourself, after reading a few paragraphs of text ask yourself to explain “why does x = y?” and use your answers to form your notes. This is a good method because it is simple, so anyone can apply it easily. It does however require enough prior knowledge to enable you to generate good questions for yourself, so this method may be best for learners with experience in a subject. The technique is particularly efficient with regard to time, one study found that elaborative learning took 32 mins as opposed to 28 mins simply reading.

An example of elaborative interrogation for the above paragraph could be:

Elaborative learning is useful for proficient learners because it allows them to apply their prior knowledge effectively to process new information. It is rated as effective because it is time efficient and relatively easy to perform.

Book Clubs with Purpose

Literature Circles with defined roles can be a useful structure to support students' understanding of the sorts of thinking that effective readers do while reading... but they can also become very formulaic and at their worst devolve into a "taking up of homework" experience as students sequentially share their work with little investment or discussion.

A Book Club approach with an open challenge to  students to demonstrate their understanding  of their text and analysis skills removes the rigid structure of the roles from the Literature Circle and can lead to more adult and interesting discussions by students, but without some focus the Book Club may stall as students may require prompting to move the discussion forward. I like this format and enjoy sitting in with students taking part in Book Clubs (or Novel Seminars) and providing the occasional nudge. I find these are rich assessment opportunities, and that the students enjoy the freedom and take up the challenge.

Lately, I've found I can give the discussions a boost -- particularly with students who are already familiar with the format, by adding a pre-meeting task to the process. By giving the group a short article or image to consider immediately prior to the Book Club / Novel Seminar meeting I can spark additional analysis and challenge the group to extend their understanding of their text further. I find this is particularly useful when a group is meeting for the second or third time as they work through their text.

This article by Hannah Gersen from The Millions website ("Thinking By A Novelist About Writing")is an example of the sort of text I like to use prime the discussion pump in an effort to deepen the Book Club discussion. I've added a few prompts at the end to frame the conversation...but I would expect the group to engage in a conversation not read prepared answers at one another.

Other articles with Book Club discussion prompts:  Novel Discussion Group Articles

Inference - Using Prior Knowldge

Coming up on exam time... students often have to tackle a sight passage. Learning to infer and use their prior knowledge effectively while reading is critical to success with an unfamiliar text. This Google Ad is a fun inference puzzle to give those inference muscles a bit of a workout.

Challenge students to build a list of everything they know or think they know about the couple in the video and the clues in the video that they used to better understand the story being told. Students could work in pairs to complete a table like this:

Next, I'd want them to Identify specific moments in the video that required them to have some prior knowledge in order to better understand the story being told through the searches. I'd ask them to explain how their prior knowledge helped them.

Here's a student worksheet that also includes connections to the classic short story "A Conversation" by Ned Guymon: Inference Worksheet.