Title: Accessing your inner "A"
Course: BIO-182 RTZ

Getting IN touch with your inner “A”

and/or How to Study Biology

The greatest predictor of success in adult learners is MOTIVATION.

No matter how intelligent, if a student is not motivated to work hard and study well, they will not succeed. A highly motivated person will always outperform an unmotivated person of the same ability.

Ask yourself:

1. Why am I taking this class?

2. What are my goals; long term and immediate goals?

3. What will happen if I can’t achieve those goals? Are they my first priority, or are there other goals that are more important to me?

4. How much work am I willing to do?

5. How many hours per week can I study outside of class? What days?

6. What factors will limit my ability to study, to master material?

7. Is there anything I could do to motivate myself to work harder?

Work WITH your brain, not AGAINST it!

There is a great deal of research on learning, memory, and education. It is important to use the study techniques and methods that are the most effective for learning. Specifically, it is important to use the methods that best fit your style of learning.  What follows is a summary of the fundamentals of studying, based on research in learning and memory.

Fundamentals of learning and memory

1. Some basic problems with memory:

  1. The information doesn’t stick (transient and absent mindedness)
  2. We can’t retrieve the information when we need it (blocking)

2. The solutions to these different problems are pretty similar. In order to remember something we have to get it from our short term memory to our long term memory. And in order to do that, we have to modify and strengthen the connections between different neurons in our brain. The more connections we lay down and the greater the diversity of connections, the better we remember and can retrieve the information.

3. How to do this?

- Chunk information: that is, group information into meaningful categories.
- Work with the information thoroughly and elaborately.
- Focus your attention – don’t divide or distract your attention

The research shows that multitasking doesn’t work. When we multitask, we are actually moving from one topic to another quickly and it leads to reduction in learning and memory.

CHUNK INFORMATION

There is only so much room in your brain, by storing information in categories you can remember more information and retrieve it more easily. Start with the big category and then figure out which pieces of information should get stored under that heading

Ex:  category: nutrients are cycled in ecosystems

        - Information to store in that category: carbon, nitrogen, and water are nutrients that are cycled
        - Information to store in that category: matter isn’t created or destroyed but reused. The same carbon is taken from CO_2 and used to make sugar through photosynthesis

How to/to do: Ask yourself the following questions:

i.      What is the main topic for this week’s lectures?

ii.      What are the most important ideas for that topic? (If I only remember one thing from today, what should it be?)

iii.      What are the details that support that idea?

EX: main topic: Carbon cycle

    - Most important idea from carbon cycle? One thing you should remember – Carbon is used to build organic molecules. These types of molecules are the building blocks of a cell and cells make up organisms.
    - Supporting details:
        - Photosynthesis takes CO2 and makes SUGAR. Sugar can be used to make carbohydrates. Sugar + nitrogen can be used to make amino acids. Amino acids can be used to make proteins. Sugar + nitrogen + phosphate can be used to make nucleotides, which can be used to make RNA & DNA. Sugar can be used to make fatty acids then lipids. Etcetera….

WORK WITH THE INFORMATION THOROUGHLY AND ELABORATELY.

1. The secret to understanding biology AND remembering it is to put your effort and work in the front end. The more actively and elaborately you work with the information as you are learning it for the first time, the less work you will have to do later on to remember it.  Remember you are trying to create neural connections in your brain, and that requires active work. This can all be summarized under two basic headings: active learning and looking for connections.

2. Active learning vs passive learning.Passive learning is what most students learn to do early in their education: sit back and receive information. This does not lay down the neural pathways required for learning or memory. Instead, a student has to WORK with the information: manipulate it, examine it, ask questions about it, and look for connections between the bits of information.  This is what builds the learning and memory changed to the brain.

How to/to do active learning:

    - Text book: Passive learning is reading the text quickly and with little attention. Active learning would be to read the text in a critical manner, taking notes, and asking questions such as “If I had to explain this to someone, how would I do that?” or “What if something went wrong with this process? What would happen?”
    - Class notes: Reading your notes is not enough; you are assuming that all you will be asked to do on an exam is to repeat what was said in lecture. Instead, on exams, you will be asked to integrate information from different topics and apply information to new situations.  To actively learn from your notes, think about ways in which the information can be reorganized and practice doing so. This could involve rewriting your notes with different organization or drawing a concept map in which you write out the different main concepts covered and explain or draw the connections between them.
    - Class attendance: Coming to class regularly and taking notes is not enough. In order to make this an active learning experience, you need to participate in the lecture. This involves thinking about and analyzing material during class. Ask questions such as “Why does that process work that way?” “How do we know this?” “How does this material relate to what we talked about yesterday, or a week ago?” In contrast, passive or low quality questions would be “Could I repeat that?” “Do I need to know this for the test?” It is not that these are not important questions, but that they are not what really guarantee success in class.
    - Test/Exams:  Before a performance, dancers and actors, practice what they will be doing on stage. Before an exam, a student should practice the type of skills they will be asked to demonstrate on the exam. Remember, I will never ask you to show how well you can read the book, or read your notes, or memorize a flash card. Instead, I will ask you to demonstrate your understanding of the topics and your ability to analyze, integrate and apply the material. This is what you should be doing when studying.

MAKE CONNECTIONS. One of the best ways to learn new information is to take advantage of the two methods you just learned: chunking information and active learning. By looking for the connections between topics within the class, you are engaged in a classic method of active learning and grouping topics together so you can fit more into your memory. Even better, because you have made connections between different topics, if you forget one on an exam, you can follow the neural connections from a different topic and get the answer anyway! It’s almost too good to be true, a method that will solve all your problems.

FOCUS YOUR ATTENTION – don’t divide or distract your attention

1. Learning Styles: Not every person learns information in the same way depending on how their brain processes information. This is called a learning style. There are different ways to think about or categorize learning styles.

2. How does a person organize information? Do youlike to learn the details firs and then the overall concept? Do you prefer to learn the big idea and then the supporting details? Whichever is your preference, force yourself to do the opposite. You are already good at your preferred style. Now it is time to strengthen the opposing learning method. Otherwise you will be a ‘lopsided’ learner and vulnerable to getting confused if the material is presented in a manner that doesn’t ‘suit’ your learning style.

3. What format of information works best? Some people can absorb information better when it is visual (pictures, diagrams, charts), auditory (musical, vocal, etc.), or kinesthetic (hands-on, touching, manipulating, building), depending on how our brains work, This is where you should work in the method best-suited to you. Don’t try to force yourself to do it in a different style.  If you are uncertain of your learning style, follow this link to figure it out and to find suggestions of how you should study as a result:

4. Metacognition:This is the process when a person assesses or analyzes their own thinking. Obviously, we are most interested in the part of our thinking related to learning. I’ll always use this term to mean your own assessment of your learning. Psychologists used to think this was a fixed trait and that people were either good at it or not. Now we realize that it is a skill that can be taught. One of the key differences between people who are good at learning a field and those who struggle is their ability to do metacognition. It’s important – don’t ignore this step!

There are four parts to metacognition:

  1. Setting specific goals:   Learn the carbon cycle
  2. Creating a plan to achieve that goal:

- Learn the parts of the carbon cycle (producers, consumers, decomposers)
- How do they relate to each other?.
- Assessing how well you met that goal

- Draw the carbon cycle
- Compare what you produced to the drawing in the book or from lecture notes
- See what you missed, did wrong, or did right.
- Reevaluating your goal and repeat

- If you could not explain photosynthesis in the context of the carbon cycle, your new goal would be to learn photosynthesis.

IV. MISCELLANEOUS SUGGESTIONS

1. The topics above are perhaps, the most important for studying: motivation, and use research on memory, learning styles, and metacognition to your advantage. Some other smaller strategic suggestions could also be helpful.  For example:
  1. Specific styles of studying:

- Rehearsal (highlighting, flash cards)
- Elaboration (making connections by comparison – two texts, diagrams, etc)
- Organization (making diagrams of related course concepts, charts, outlines)
- Monitoring comprehension (using internal questions or checking for attention, trying to answer study guide questions)
- Resource management (scheduling homework time, study time)

2. Notes on notetaking:

- Take complete notes, but don’t write out every word. In this day and age of text messaging, you all know how to write in short text. Go back later and clarify.
- Compare your lecture notes to your notes from the textbook.
- Review the lecture within 24 hours.
- Write an outline and a summary of each lecture. Can you do it in one sentence? In one paragraph?
- What were the most important concepts? How do they relate to each other?
- When reading or reviewing notes active learners ask themselves questions and try to answer those questions. They also try to predict what questions might be on the exam.
- Do not limit what you write to copying what the instructor presents in writing.
- When taking notes, write as much as you can but focus on ideas or concepts versus specific details or facts.
- Write your notes in an informal outline form. Leave space to fill in later, especially if you get behind.
- Use abbreviations and incomplete sentences.
- Underline key words or stressed points.

3. Instructors

  - Make regular appointments with the instructor
  - Students who keep in regular contact, either in office ours or through email, are able to keep on top of the material
  - Office hours are there for students to use.

- 4. Reading the textbook

  - Outline the assigned reading before coming to class.
  - After class, go back and read the chapter more carefully.
  - Can you write a 1-page summary of the material? From memory?
  - Check your summary against the textbook’s which is in the beginning and end of each chapter. When studying emphasize the topics that you missed.
  - Don’t highlight, take notes.
  - An outline or written summary of the chapter will be more useful than highlighting. You will have to read the whole chapter all over again if you highlight, but only read your summary if you did one. The process of writing a summary helps you learn material.
  - Pay attention to the figures and drawings in the text.
  - Can you explain them to another student?
  - Do you understand what is happening in each section of the figure? These are excellent ways to integrate different learning modalities (visual, auditory, etc)

5. Time Management

- Plan your time – prepare a schedule for the semester and each week.
- Your time is valuable, make sure that you are getting the most out of the time you spend studying.
- Study with others. It is important to double-check your understanding of the material. Working with other students, visiting office hours, etc are ways to compare your knowledge to others and see where there are gaps.

- 6. Miscellaneous
  - Focus on the concepts and then the details. Is it important to balance these approaches. You will need to understand the underlying concepts, but also have the details to back up your explanation.
  - Ask yourself, “Do I understand this topic?” “How well” “Could I explain it?” “Which part couldn’t I explain?” “How will I find that information?”
  - Ways to determine if I understand a topic?
  - Concept maps
  - Make a chart
  - Draw and label a picture
  - Write an essay
  - Explain to fellow student, tutor, and instructor.