From my many years’ experience of working at second level, September always brings about anxiety around study skills from parents, teachers and students themselves. Some students have this mindset, “I’m no good at maths, I’m no good at languages,” etc, they then begin to dread those classes in school. It has everything to do with how we talk to ourselves, changing our mindset, realising that everything can be achieved with effort will help you to achieve your goals and increase motivation.
So how do we grow our brain to take in all the information that teachers are giving us on a daily basis? It is very important to rewrite your notes from the notes given to you by your teachers, in this way you are very actively growing your brain in order to retain the information. You are actively learning as opposed to passively learning. You break your notes down, use a colour coordination theme and try to get all of the information on one page by condensing it. Select the core information, you don’t need to write it word for word.
At the beginning of September, look at what needs to be covered over the year in each subject. It can be very overwhelming but if you break the topic down, look at what you will need to cover by writing it down, it will then all seem a lot more manageable. Make sure to date everything, have the date and time of each class, this is so important when you need to go back to revise for in house exams. Being organised takes so much of the stress out of study.
Hermann Ebbinshaus, a German psychologist, said that when we first learn something we remember 75 per cent of it. He studied how the brain remembers things. The brain remembers events and actions, that is why we need to create an event by putting a plan together and set goals. If we don’t, within a week we will have forgotten 90 per cent of what we learned. You can learn anything as long as you put the time in to create a structure. We only enjoy doing things that we are good at. Why are we good at them? We are good at them because we practise. One of the reasons we procrastinate is because we do not have a structure or know where to start. Once you have structure you can track your progress.
Have SMART goals
Goal setting is really important in helping you create a structure. You may have heard about setting SMART goals. When setting study skills goals you need to be SPECIFIC, what exactly do I need to learn and why, the goal needs to be MEASURABLE, how will you know if you know it and reached the goal, is the goal ACHIEVEABLE. Is there anything or anyone who is going to block you from reaching it? It may be yourself, is it the structure at home, maybe younger siblings who are creating a lot of noise? You may need to consider studying at your school if they offer study after school. Is it a REALISTIC goal, remember what I wrote earlier, we can learn anything if we put a realistic structure together. One of the most important aspects of goal setting is that it must have a TIMELINE. By what date do I need to have achieved this particular goal?
You need to set goals for all of your subjects in order to see your progress. It will motivate you enormously and give you a real purpose. By doing this you are approaching your studies and the year ahead in bite size pieces. You can set goals now for your Christmas tests, then for the mocks and depending on whether you are in fifth year or Leaving Cert, you can set your final goals for either your summer exams or Leaving cert.
