I found the ideas for Interacting With Your Online Readings from slide 6 very useful, I already had a few of them in play. When I review, usually right before class so I’m not walking in blind, I like to notice how the teacher joined/followed the big ideas or main teachings. It makes it a little easier when during the test and blanking about a specific subject I can go, oh yeah she taught it after XYZ when she was discussing ABC. I like quizzing myself when I’m cramming (which doesn’t always have to be last minute), but not when I’m studying. I like my studying to be solely about understanding. I’m not a huge fan of mneumonic devices, I like creating stories more. So say you need to memorize a menu: I would go and give each food item a funnier more memorable image and think up a little screenshot of how the 3 interact. So if it’s sausages and cheerios as entrees (not a menu I’d want to peruse) I’d picture a dachshund in buns on fire, and a cheer squad doing the scorpion on plates as my 2 options. It seems stupid and time wasting but it’s really helped me especially in my anatomy classes, all the muscles can seem really arbitrary and sound ridiculous (ex. mylohyoid vs stylohyoid) but making them into a scene can help. And as for drawing symbols, that’s never really helped me but I like to draw out some of my funny scenarios.
I found the video from College Geek about 5 ways to build focus and concentrate particularly interesting. My boyfriend has always studied by having youtube videos in the background. He actually can’t study without it. But he takes significantly longer than I do. When I learned about the cognitive switching penalty it explained a lot. Of course having that background distracts you. Any time you pay even a little attention to it you will lose your progress or current state in your other task and have to refresh after the moment has passed.