#9 A modified approach to an existing studying method - remember content easier and quicker

A few days ago, that is, the day before I had a quiz, I knew I needed to study. It was one of those days that I started to over think my grades and what it would mean for all my units.  I was spending my time on Facebook and talking to one of my friends that I met two weeks ago. What a "productive" way that was to spend my time (NOT!), which I could have used to review more content. In the end she motivated me to study, which got me thinking once I finished studying… What is the quickest yet most effective way to study? 

In every lecture I go to, I see students who open the PowerPoint related for that lecture and beside that a Word document and end up summarising what they think (or know) is important. This has one problem: having to read a whole load of content, filling up your brain so quickly and then decide which Words and sentences to keep for later. During my time at high school, I used a similar method. But instead I was summarising the important things in each of my textbooks. I had to read every line of the book to see what the most important points were to keep for the topic we were studying. However, for uni, if your unit essentially just requires you to use the lecture material (a PowerPoint) as your study notes - I realised this the night before I had a quiz (for some reason I find this awesome way to study after already doing three quarters of a unit/subject, which doesn't really help but what can you do).  

It goes like this:

1) Delete the slides that contain no useful content to write in a test (e.g. website links, videos etc.)

2) On the PowerPoint you have open, remove all non-essential images that are there just to fill up space (e.g. clipart and other types of media), along with sentences that are also not useful to you. No graphics or the like should be present unless you are a visual learner and it’s there to be used as a reminder.

3) You should now just have the essentials left over. From the left over "essential" text, you can than copy that information over to the Word document. 

For eample, the following is an unedited PowerPoint presentation about the Oxygen Cycle:

(Source:
http://www.powershow.com/view0/69644f-NzVlN/oxygen_cycle_powerpoint_ppt_presentation)
 

And the edited version for use as your study notes:

From all this happening, you are still reading the presentation content as usual, however there are times when you repeat the process again to see if you missed anything - constantly re-reading what is included on the slides (helps with memorisation). Removing the graphics within a presentation will stop you from thinking that there is heaps of content to remember when there really isn't.

On a final note, focus on the PowerPoint itself instead of multitasking between a PowerPoint and a Word document at the same time. Try it for yourself and you will be 120% glad you did!

- Aaron S