Miscellaneous Information
Mr. F's email to a former ECE Biology student who was struggling in their first month of college. This should be motivation to learn how and when you study best and that preparing for college can never begin too early!!
Original Message:
On Sun, Sep 10, 2017 at 3:06 PM, ~~~~~STUDENT~~~~ wrote:
Hi Mr. F!!!
I hope everything is going well at Fairchild. I miss everyone there so much! Coming to RPI is a big change from back home, emotionally, socially and like academically. I was wondering if you could send me that "Mr. F's tips to study" thing that you gave us a print out of last year and in ece bio 1. I think i definitely need to change some habits of mine and I can't remember all of the tips that you had suggested. I hope you're going hard with all the kids for all the bio classes, they need it AS hard as we had it
Thank you so much,
~~~~STUDENT~~~~
Okay.... Pep talk/study skills enlightening commencing in 3....2....1....
Learning everything all at once will indubitably result in something, or some things, falling through the cracks. This is bad, but it's good that you're identifying that all the balls you have in the air are starting to become harder to catch and throw back up. Textbook use is best thought of as the study partner that goes home with you every night. We aren't all capable of reading during any waking hour so you need to identify when your mind most effectively reads. This will always make your mission smoother. Additionally, long blocks of reading without reflection or association is not as effective as digestible morsels at the time(s) you are most receptive. You know when the reading fights back your eyes, don't charge through it, that's unproductive. Smaller, more frequent readings will prove more beneficial than long sessions. Think of it as 5-7 "coffee time" readings, each comprised of 20-40 minutes depending on the study wave you're riding. If the wave is strong, then hang ten!
On the side of remembering what you've read, I have my note taking to combat the curve of forgetting handout attached that can help to some degree. Keep flash cards (if they work for you) on hand and write down terms in your readings that help your recall and the information you're trying to process. If you just read and move on, you'll surely run into some obstacles. These cards can take the place of "coffee time" readings when you have enough and it's time to move the information from short term to long term. If note cards are not your thing, then use lists on lined paper and cover with your hand or another piece of paper when you need to review. Both this and the note above will help the challenges with textbook saturation.
This short to long term approach will be a fluffy pillow for your cell bio class bc as you know, biology builds on itself. What is basic now will likely be scaffolded into something to come so the more you commit to long term memory now, the better. Also, remember that chemistry is an abstract science, so you need to see as many examples and practice problems as you can; expand what you expose yourself to and you'll be hard-pressed to find something that catches you off-guard. And, this is huge, use the labs as an application to the point of making the mental association in and around the material taught in lecture, as rote as it is, your mind will map information more effectively if you couple it to a benchtop application you have an intimate memory and tactile experience with. See how beneficial this could be, especially when compounded by a textbook reading. The triumvirate of text, lecture, and lab gives you a great opportunity to seat that info firmly between the ears.
I also know your affinity to taking notes with your laptop, I added the article attached specifically for that reason. Active note taking is for those who truly want both a "hard fought" and deep relationship with all the material you have to wade through. Laptops take the "active" out of this and will make you a stenographer, not a sponge. Active note taking has very little substitute!
Other than that, when I told you all that 3-4 hours of outside of class time for every hour of lecture, I was getting at the notion that you will have lecture notes, text to read, and some ancillary work (labs, papers, etc) to do; you're getting a taste of what I was trying to groom you all for. Try scripting out our week around a full 7-8 hours of sleep. A mushy brain will only fight the work you need to do. Then script out when your best reading hours are. Once these heavy hitters are done, then you can tinker with what's left.
I hope this helps. You're going to kill it up there!!
Cheers,
F
Original Message:
On Sun, Sep 10, 2017 at 3:06 PM, ~~~~~STUDENT~~~~ wrote:
Hi Mr. F!!!
I hope everything is going well at Fairchild. I miss everyone there so much! Coming to RPI is a big change from back home, emotionally, socially and like academically. I was wondering if you could send me that "Mr. F's tips to study" thing that you gave us a print out of last year and in ece bio 1. I think i definitely need to change some habits of mine and I can't remember all of the tips that you had suggested. I hope you're going hard with all the kids for all the bio classes, they need it AS hard as we had it
Thank you so much,
~~~~STUDENT~~~~
Okay.... Pep talk/study skills enlightening commencing in 3....2....1....
Learning everything all at once will indubitably result in something, or some things, falling through the cracks. This is bad, but it's good that you're identifying that all the balls you have in the air are starting to become harder to catch and throw back up. Textbook use is best thought of as the study partner that goes home with you every night. We aren't all capable of reading during any waking hour so you need to identify when your mind most effectively reads. This will always make your mission smoother. Additionally, long blocks of reading without reflection or association is not as effective as digestible morsels at the time(s) you are most receptive. You know when the reading fights back your eyes, don't charge through it, that's unproductive. Smaller, more frequent readings will prove more beneficial than long sessions. Think of it as 5-7 "coffee time" readings, each comprised of 20-40 minutes depending on the study wave you're riding. If the wave is strong, then hang ten!
On the side of remembering what you've read, I have my note taking to combat the curve of forgetting handout attached that can help to some degree. Keep flash cards (if they work for you) on hand and write down terms in your readings that help your recall and the information you're trying to process. If you just read and move on, you'll surely run into some obstacles. These cards can take the place of "coffee time" readings when you have enough and it's time to move the information from short term to long term. If note cards are not your thing, then use lists on lined paper and cover with your hand or another piece of paper when you need to review. Both this and the note above will help the challenges with textbook saturation.
This short to long term approach will be a fluffy pillow for your cell bio class bc as you know, biology builds on itself. What is basic now will likely be scaffolded into something to come so the more you commit to long term memory now, the better. Also, remember that chemistry is an abstract science, so you need to see as many examples and practice problems as you can; expand what you expose yourself to and you'll be hard-pressed to find something that catches you off-guard. And, this is huge, use the labs as an application to the point of making the mental association in and around the material taught in lecture, as rote as it is, your mind will map information more effectively if you couple it to a benchtop application you have an intimate memory and tactile experience with. See how beneficial this could be, especially when compounded by a textbook reading. The triumvirate of text, lecture, and lab gives you a great opportunity to seat that info firmly between the ears.
I also know your affinity to taking notes with your laptop, I added the article attached specifically for that reason. Active note taking is for those who truly want both a "hard fought" and deep relationship with all the material you have to wade through. Laptops take the "active" out of this and will make you a stenographer, not a sponge. Active note taking has very little substitute!
Other than that, when I told you all that 3-4 hours of outside of class time for every hour of lecture, I was getting at the notion that you will have lecture notes, text to read, and some ancillary work (labs, papers, etc) to do; you're getting a taste of what I was trying to groom you all for. Try scripting out our week around a full 7-8 hours of sleep. A mushy brain will only fight the work you need to do. Then script out when your best reading hours are. Once these heavy hitters are done, then you can tinker with what's left.
I hope this helps. You're going to kill it up there!!
Cheers,
F