Academic success doesn't just happen; it takes effort, dedication, and consistency. The good news is that students can learn and improve the skills needed to support their success. Each student must identify learning strategies that complement their natural learning behaviors and talents. Some skills will be easy to pick up and apply, while others will be harder to master and require a commitment on your part to be consistent and improve. Once you have developed a set of learning strategies that work for you and make a habit of applying them, you'll find that the time and effort you invested results in more effective and efficient study time. Below you will find strategies that have worked for other LSC-Montgomery students, as well as resources from learning experts.
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Top 10 tips for Success in Any Class
Manage time wisely. Schedule enough time in your personal calendar to study materials and complete assignments. If you are in an online class, treat these blocks of time as seriously as in a face-to-face class. Add assignment due dates to your personal calendar and keep a close eye on them. Set goals for what you will accomplish daily.
Establish a regular place to study. Find a place where you feel comfortable concentrating on something for an extended period of time. Make sure your study space is equipped with all of the resources you will need when you are working on coursework, including a good internet connection, access to power, paper and pen/highlighters, water, snacks, and freedom from distraction.
Stay organized. Organize all your work in a way that makes sense to you. It is wise to keep a copy of anything you submit in the event a technology problem requires you to resubmit it. Take good notes while doing your readings or watching online lectures.
Make a study plan. Set out a clear and achievable study plan and stick to it at least 95% of the time, allowing room for the unexpected. Write out a weekly schedule with dates and times and set a certain amount of hours per day or week into your schedule for studying. Schedule in healthy habits. Healthy eating, exercise, and social time are important for your overall health.
Use LSC's support resources. Make sure you use all available student resources. Take time to click on each tab on your school's website and D2L to see how to navigate them and what they have to offer. Also, check out your library, writing center, and tutoring online resources.
Take notes. Write down or highlight important points and then put them in outline form when finished reading. While handwriting notes helps with information recall, keeping notes in a digital document allows you to use “Ctrl” & “F” to quickly find needed information when taking online quizzes and exams. There are apps that can convert hand-written notes to digital text.
Make studying enjoyable. Use whatever incentives make your learning environment enjoyable for you, i.e. happy or mellow music, coffee, etc. Take frequent, short breaks to rejuvenate your brain. Decide on a task, set a timer for however long you need (ex. 25 min.), and work! Take a break when the timer goes off. Reward yourself when you do well (get an A on a paper or complete a challenging project). It’s easier to stay motivated when something you enjoy is waiting for you at the end.
Connect with others. Make it a point to meet other students in your class. Create a study team of friends and have regular discussions, help each other with proofreading, tips, and exchange of resources. Meet up periodically to see how each is doing and discuss challenges. Even in an online class, online portals, discussion boards, and Facebook can help find students in the same course.
Eliminate distractions. Consider turning off your cell phone to avoid losing focus every time a text or notification pops up. If necessary, try downloading a website blocker to eliminate distractions that compete for your attention while studying.
Develop and use effective communication skills. Use the tools provided by your school to communicate with your professors, such as email, discussion groups, in-person and online office hours, cell phones, and texting. In an online class, may never meet professors face-to-face, but they will be your primary resource and first points of contact in a course. Introduce yourself to them and ask questions when you are unsure about anything.
Adapted from: 7 Tips for Success When Taking Online Courses; 21 Tips for Online Class Success; Online Student’s Manual for Success
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The Pomodoro Method uses intervals to help structure your study time and ensure you are able to maximize your study time. There are three basic steps to the method:
Tip: Your cell phone's native timer app can be used as a Pomodoro timer. You'll also find a wealth of Pomodoro timer apps and websites (like this one). However, if you find using your cell phone or a web browser distracting, visit the STAR Center Service Desk to borrow a Pomodoro timer while you study.
A focused study session plan allows you to structure your study session around a specific goal. There are five steps in the plan:
Adapted from the LSU Center for Academic Success, Focused Study Session
While some pride themselves on being able to multitask, there is a lot of scientific evidence that the human brain isn't very good at it. When we multitask we are attention switching, moving our attention from one task to another, which is proven to increase the cognitive load on our brains. This increased cognitive load increases errors and reaction time when completing a task. Trying to do two things at the same time can also negatively impact our ability to recall information because the information we want to remember from our study session (like the information we're being tested on) gets mixed up with irrelevant information we were using to complete the other task. Media multitasking, like texting or using social media, can be particularly detrimental. Studies have found that students who text or browse social media while studying perform worse on tests and have lower GPAs. The challenge is that our brains really enjoy the distraction of multitasking, so we keep trying to multitask even when we recognize that it negatively impacts our performance. The good news is that the more we practice focusing on one task, the better our brains get at it. Here are some strategies for minimizing multitasking habits while studying.
Strategies
Work Referenced
Brown, A. M., & Kaminske, A. N. (2018). Five teaching and learning myths—Debunked: A guide for teachers. Routledge.
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Learning starts before you enter the classroom. Just like a farmer will have better results if she tills the ground before planting, you will learn more during class time if you prepare your mind for what is coming. Here are some simple strategies you can use to make sure you're ready to get the most out of your courses:
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Taking lecture notes is an effective strategy for maintaining focus during class and your notes act as a study guide for assignments and tests. There are various methods and strategies for note-taking. The STAR Center offers live academic skills workshops that provide an introduction to note-taking, including several of the most common methods. You can also access a recorded version of this workshop through the STAR Center's Academic Skills Video Series. Here are some basic strategies used by an LSC-M student that you can start applying now:
Tip: Printing out the presentation slides and adding additional notes during class time is an efficient way to ensure you don't miss anything.
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You can combine several learning strategies to level-up your study skills. If you've consistently taken effective reading and lecture notes, your notes should provide an overview of the key course concepts, with key information you can expect to find on the test. Your notes then become your study guide. Using the Pomodoro method, you can break up your study sessions into manageable chunks leading up to your test date.
You can also check out the Test Taking Strategies workshops or video series offer by the STAR Center.
You are NOT alone! Test anxiety is a very real thing that can impact you in many different ways. Thankfully, there are proven techniques that help reduce these effects and allow you to achieve the best scores possible on your exams. Here are just a few to consider trying on your next test:
Want to learn even more strategies for handling test anxiety? Come see an Academic Coach today (LSC-M, Room F-112: “HUB 2”) to best prepare yourself for all your upcoming exams. You can also check out the Test Taking Strategies workshops or video series offer by the STAR Center.
Using science-backed learning strategies can help you maximize your study time. This section provides an overview of 6 proven strategies that will help you learn and retain information to recall it when needed. Watch the video below for an overview of all the strategies or click on the tabs above to learn more about a specific strategy.
Overview of All 6 Learning Strategies
The information in this section has been modified from: Six Strategies for Effective Learning by Yana Weinstein, Megan Smith, & Oliver Caviglioli. Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at learningscientists.org.
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Spaced Practice | Space out your study time• Start planning early for exams, and set aside a little bit of time every day. Five hours spread out over two weeks is better than the same five hours all at once. • Review information from each class, but not immediately after class. • After you review information from the most recent class, make sure to go back and study important older information to keep it fresh. TRY IT: Think of a topic you read about a few chapters back. What were the main ideas? |
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Interleaving | Switch Between Ideas while You Study
• Switch between ideas during a study session. Don’t study one idea for too long. • Go back over the ideas again in different orders to strengthen your understanding. • Make links between different ideas as you switch between them. TRY IT: OK, you've read enough about this topic. Why don't you try to answer some questions about a different topic for a bit? |
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Elaboration | Explain and Describe Ideas with Details
• Ask yourself questions while you are studying about how things work and why, and then find the answers in your class materials and discuss them with your classmates. • As you elaborate, make connections between different ideas to explain how they work together. Take two ideas and think of ways they are similar and different. • Describe how the ideas you are studying apply to your own experiences or memories. As you go through your day, make connections to the ideas you are learning in class. TRY IT: Close the book and think about how what you just read connects to something you already know. |
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Concrete Examples | Use Specific Examples to Understand Abstract Ideas
• Collect examples your teacher has used, and look in your class materials for as many examples as you can find. • Make the link between the idea you are studying and each example, so that you understand how the example applies to the idea. • Share examples with friends, and explain them to each other for added benefits. TRY IT: Look around you: Can you find an example related to the idea you were just reading about? |
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Dual Coding | Combine Words & Visuals
• Look at your class materials and find visuals. Look over the visuals and compare to the words. • Look at visuals, and explain in your own words what they mean. • Take information that you are trying to learn, and draw visuals to go along with it. TRY IT: Now that you have read a bit, close the book and draw a visual that incorporates the main ideas. |
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Retrieval Practice | Practice Bringing Information to Mind
• Put away your class materials, and write or sketch everything you know. Be as thorough as possible. Then, check your class materials for accuracy and important points you missed. • Take as many practice tests as you can get your hands on. If you don’t have ready-made tests, try making your own and trading with a friend who has done the same. • You can also make flashcards. Just make sure you practice recalling the information on them and go beyond definitions by thinking of links between ideas. TRY IT: Close your book, and write down as much as you can from memory. |
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Adapted from:
Ways to Engage in Self-Care; 8 Quick Self-Care Strategies for College Students; Self Care Tips for College Students; Self-Care 101
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Mental bandwidth refers to the amount of attention we have available to allocate to various tasks or information. Since humans have a limited amount of attention, our performance on one task may be negatively impacted as we allocate attention resources to other tasks (Bharagava, 2020). Too many tasks or stressors at one time can lead to cognitive overload and inhibit your academic performance. Here are some strategies for managing your mental bandwidth:
Bhargava, Tina. (2020). Overview: The science of mental bandwidth. Everyday Bandwidth. everydaybandwidth.com/uploads/4/5/7/0/45707533/overview_science_of_mental_bandwidth_bhargava2020.pdf
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