Learning from Textbooks
You should learn
You can think of an area of knowledge as being analogous to an area of the earth such as the Rocky Mountain area. An introductory text is like a relief map of the whole area. Its objective is to give you a comprehensive idea about the prominent features, the interesting views, and the challenging things to explore further. Your teacher will be your guide, but your textbook will be your principal source of information. You must get to know your textbook very well.
The analogy between a text and a map is a good one for several
reasons. Most importantly, just as a map gives a picture of what
is known about an area, a text describes the knowledge available at the
time it was written. If the field is a relatively new one, the text
will be like those old maps drawn by early explorers. They are much
better than no map at all, but they may not match the real world very well.
Texts are more accurate in well-explored areas, but research is
constantly changing our knowledge about them. Hence, bear
in mind that a text is a fallible map of an area of knowledge.
One thing this means is that a textbook is not archival; texts become obsolete quickly. Whereas you should treat reference works and literature books with care, texts are intended for heavy but temporary use. Buying a book that someone else has already marked up and keeping your book clean so that you can sell it are ill-advised ways to economize. If at all possible, start with a clean book and mark it up liberally.
Before describing some useful tactics in learning from texts, let me describe the goal. Imagine this: In about an hour shortly before the final exam in the course, you should be able to turn though the pages of the text, notice at a glance what the important points are, and very quickly assure yourself that you understand those points. If you're not sure you understand, other marks on the page should amplify the ideas.
You will spend many hours marking up the book while you
are learning the material, but you should be able to review the whole course
in less than one hour.
During a survey you read the headings and sub-headings, take notice of any italicized or bold-faced words, look at the figures or tables, and then read the summary if there is one. Ideally, a survey tells you what you need to learn. Insofar as possible, try to think up questions that you hope to answer from studying. Having specific objectives in mind guides study just as it guides an expedition.
Survey Read Class Study Survey Read Class Study Survey Read Class Study . . .
1 1 1 1 2 2 2 2 3 3 3 3
Survey Read Study Class Survey Read Study Class Survey Read Study Class . . .
1 1 1 1 2 2 2 2 3 3 3 3
Class Class Class Survey Read Study Survey Read Study Survey Read Study . . .
1 2 3 1 1 1 2 2 2 3 3
Table showing several possible sequences of studying
the textbook in relation to attending class. Note
that all sequences have the same number of steps but
some sequences may take less actual time.
The second sequence shown in the above Table is preferable when you find the text relatively easy and the professor more difficult to understand. I have included the third sequence because it is a common one with students who have not yet learned how to learn efficiently. If you wait to study the text until just before the exam, you will learn less because you have missed out on the facilitating effect that the class and the text have on each other.
College learning requires a lot of reading. In preparing assignments, professors tend to be guided by the two-for-one rule (twice as many study hours as class hours for an average grade). In doing so, of course, they have to make some estimate of how fast you can read. If you read more slowly than they expect, their assignments will seem very long to you. Reading skill is therefore very important in college.
There are exercises in Appendix G that should help you evaluate your overall reading skill. Because reading skill is heavily dependent on vocabulary, Appendix H deals with the critical process of learning new words. I urge you to study these two appendices and follow through with whatever additional practice you may find that you need. Improving your reading skills now will be rewarded many times over.
Marking up your textbook helps insure that you are processing the information and your markings also personalize the text for your future use. Recall that your goal is to be able to scan through the book, recall to mind all of the major ideas, and refresh your mind about any ideas that have become fuzzy. So you should mark up the book with that goal in mind.
The best way for you to mark up a textbook is one that you devise for yourself. To the best of my knowledge, there are only two important guidelines: Don't over-mark. To underline everything is the same as underlining nothing. îUse several marking levels. Be able to distinguish key words, main ideas, useful points, and your own thoughts.
I can illustrate these points with my own system, but because I developed this system before highlight pens were invented, you can do much better today. I use multiple, heavy underlines for key words. This makes them conspicuous from everything else on the page. I use they are if I don't remember them when I read the key words. I use single black underlines for useful points, if they are short; for longer sections of useful points, I put brackets in the margin along the lines. Finally, I try to write something in the margin of every page. It may be a question, it may be an insight, but it is usually a succinct summary of what I learned from the text. The only thing about this illustration that I think you should emulate is that it makes me actively interact with the text. I have to decide which are the key words, what are the main ideas, which points will be useful, and what I was thinking while I was processing all that information.
There are several other advantages to this study sheet tactic
of earning from textbooks.
If you have never tried this alternative study sheet tactic,
it will take a bit of practice to learn to use it to best advantage.
But I strongly urge that you try it because it is the best method in some
situations, and it is the only proper method in the case of studying library
books.
Increases with the number of times of relearning. Suppose the increase is equal to the square of the number of relearning trials. Then, if you review (and relearn) the text material for a second time, the half-life is now 4 days. After reviewing it a third time, the half-life is up to 9 days. This is why relearning the same basic ideas gets easier and easier. As you remember more, there is less to relearn. Note that you simply can NOT learn it well enough the first time to remember it all. You have to keep relearning it through periodic reviews if you want to be sure to remember it some time later.
I cannot overemphasize the importance of including several review steps in the sequence given on the preceding page. An ideal time to review old materials is right before studying new material. If you take just a few minutes to page through the previous assignment, using your markings to help refresh your memory, you will find that your memory of the material is increased very substantially.
Where to Study
In general, college learning requires giving verbal answers to
verbal questions. For example, if you were asked to paraphrase
the Principle of Contiguity, you might say (correctly) that, "things that
happen at about the same time become associated with each other."
If I further asked you what you meant by "things," you would hopefully
be able to explain that they could be stimuli that you see, hear, or feel,
or they could be responses that you do, think, or feel. Great!
That very principle implies that the likelihood that you will
be able to remember those answers depends on where you learned the principle
in relation to where you are asked the question. You will do best
if you are tested in the same place that you learned.
The context---the room, the people and objects around, your own
physical and mental state, even the time of day---is contiguous with the
verbal material being studied. The context becomes a part of what
is learned. How big a part depends on how well you can keep your
selective attention focused on the verbal material, which in turn depends
on how distracting the contextual environment is. This rule applies
to BOTH the learning and the testing environments. That is to say,
your score will be lower if the learning context is distracting while the
testing context is not distracting, or vice versa.
Furthermore, if both are distracting, your score will be lower
if the type of distraction is different. Specifically, if you study
with background music playing, and if you are tested in a cold room, learning
while being distracted by sounds will not help your score when tested while
being distracted by cold.
Accordingly, you should set up în one study contextïîï
that is as comparable to the test context as feasible. Classroom chairs
are not very comfortable, so use a hard chair in your study context.
As a rule, there will be some moderate noises in the test environment so
you don't need absolute quiet while studying. You wear street clothes
when taking an exam, so don't wear pajamas when studying. Also, consider
all peripheral sources of distraction such as center_fold pictures on
the walls when designing a study environment.
Then, don't do anything but study in your study context.
Recall that your mental state can become associated with a context.
If you don't develop competing habits, sitting down in your regular study
environment will lead to attentive study behavior. So never permit yourself
to day-dream, write personal letters, or doze off while you are at your
desk. If
you feel such mental activities coming on, get up and take a
break until you can return intent upon studying. Soon, study habits
will become strongly associated with your regular study context.
There is a diametrically opposite recommendation: Don't
study only in your regular study context. In some---hopefully
many---cases, the goal is more than just remembering the material
when taking a course exam. The information might be
useful in various later contexts and studying just to do well
on the exam is usually poor strategy. To insure that verbal
knowledge is context_free, so that you can remember it in any
context, study in a variety of contexts. If you learn something in
various contexts, you will know it in various contexts.
Imagine a page in a new textbook. The first time through,
you made a cursory glance at the page doing your survey. The
second time through, you read the material rapidly in order
to get a general idea of what it's about. The third time through,
you studied the page and distinctively marked a few key words, one or two
phrases that summarize the main idea, and one or two sentences that explain
and/or illustrate the main idea. Then, during review, you first look
at the marked word(s), then the marked phrase(s), and then the sentence(s).
With practice, a glance at the word will instantly refresh your memory
of the page.
I have never found a freshman who hit upon this study tactic independently, and I have never found a student who really tried it and didn't like it. Periodically, at least once a week, start at the first page of the textbook and page through it up to the new section you are studying. The number of pages you must review gets larger as the term passes, but the time required for each page gets shorter the more times you've done it. Near the end of the term, you should be able to go through the early pages as fast as your fingers can turn the pages.
There is a subsidiary advantage to this textbook study tactic. Although authors try to arrange the material in a coherent order, so that each idea builds up to subsequent ideas, later ideas often help improve your understanding of the earlier ones. Hence during regular review, you are integrating the ideas into a more comprehensive view of the whole subject.
Most students get a chuckle out of one of my true-or-false exam items: "One should not be naked while studying." It could be a false statement IF one were willing to be naked when taking the exam! This item makes the important point that you remember what you learn best the more similar the learning context is to the testing context. At the same time, if you study in a variety of contexts, you are better able to remember in various contexts. Also realize that the context includes your internal state such as hunger and test anxiety, as well as time-of-day and the seat you sit in during lecture.
One final note about your textbook. Sometimes what it says
is different from what your professor said in lecture. Which
should you believe? Recall that even the most current
textbook was written over a year earlier and new discoveries may have occurred
in that time. Your professor should have up-to-date knowledge, and
therefore her or his statements are likely to be more correct. However,
if the professor doesn't point out the discrepancy in class, he or she
will be happy to answer your question about it. Even so, you should be
ready to answer exam items that begin, "According to the text..."
Even more than the body is what you eat, îthe mind is what you learnï. A classic view is that a mind begins life as a tabula rasa (a clean slate). A more contemporary view is that the mind begins with a number of pre-dispositions to develop in one way or another but even according to this view, the mind is primarily a result of the experiences the person has.
In contrast to the hard mental effort required to learn the kind of verbal material covered in college courses, other forms of learning are remarkably rapid and durable. Acquiring an emotional reaction of liking or disliking something can happen from a single experience. In such cases, learning results from mere exposure to the situation. Which is more, the experience does not have to be real. Beginning very early in life, we humans acquire most of our attitudes, beliefs, values, styles, and dispositions vicariously, from observation of others. Some psychologists think imitation is an innate human tendency; others contend that it is learned. Both agree, however, that a large part of socialization is derived from observational learning (imitation).
This means that your mind is whatever is has been "fed" in the past, and it will become whatever you feed it in the future. You feed your mind by the kind of books you read, as well as the kind of music you listen to and TV you watch. There is simply no doubt that exposure to sex/drugs/violence begets sex/drugs/violence. It equally follows that exposure to love/health/benevolence begets those qualities. Some people conclude from this fact that socially undesirable activities should be banned from the public media. My own belief is that attempts to proscribe behavior will not work in modern society, and that knowledge is a much more powerful weapon than rules and regulations.
Accordingly, it is your choice whether or not to consume junk foods and obscene publications. It is not so much an occasional bite as your regular diet that determines who and what you are.
This chapter concerned some
S T E P S to
S U C C E S S in
C O L L E G E
Periodic
Study/Review
vs
:
4. . .Processing :
Verbal Fluency :
vs :
: :
3. . . Selective : Occasional
Attention : "catching up"
vs :
: Verbatim shadowing/memorizing
2. . . Personal : Limited vocabulary/grammar
Pragmatism :
vs Wandering mind,
1. . . : competing mental habits
Right Attitude: :
Commitment + Pre-occupation with personal problems,
Optimism + ignorance, and impulsive action
Professionalism
vs P I T F A L L S
:
Doing aimless/hopeless time