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Review Strategies
Why review?
Information can be recalled effectively for up to 10 minutes. After 10
minutes, your ability to remember information decreases rapidly. By spending
a few minutes reviewing material soon after you learn it, you can significantly
reduce the time needed to relearn the knowledge when you need it. Timely
review of course material enables you to improve the quality of future
learning by building on a well-remembered foundation. This foundation
allows your mind to make connections and linkages that it would not otherwise
make.
Deciding what review strategies to use or what approach to take for an
assignment before you begin can save you time later. Many students jump
into an assignment or a study strategy and discover midway through the
process that a different approach would have produced better results and
saved time.
Some suggestions on how to approach an assignment or a study task:
- Decide what you need to accomplish.
- Determine how can you accomplish the task. What strategies can you
use?
- Decide what strategy is most appropriate for the material. You may
need different learning strategies depending on the task. Ask yourself
questions such as:
What kind of thinking and learning is required?
Do I need to learn facts and details or important ideas?
Am I expected to apply this to a new situation?
Am I expected to evaluate the material?
Some Review Strategies for Different Kinds of Learning Tasks:
Memorizing Facts
Identify what needs to be memorized. Create lists or study sheets of
terms, parts, rules, data, or any material that you need to be able to
recall exactly. Reviewing facts several times over a week is much more
effective than one long study session. Practise reciting that material
whenever you are waiting in line or while driving.
Memorizing is much easier if you also understand the process, concept,
or relationships behind the facts because you will have a framework to
use to organize the facts.
Understanding Concepts and Relationships Between Ideas
Look for connections between the new information and what you already
know. Draw a concept map with the idea you want to understand in the middle
of the page. Think of related ideas, processes, or examples and write
those in whatever way makes sense to you around the concept in the middle.
This strategy can also be used to gather ideas before writing a paper.
Ask yourself how this concept is related to concepts covered earlier in
the course.
Applying Ideas to Problems or Unfamiliar Situations
If you need to review course material as part of learning how to perform
a task, procedure, or process, think about how the information affects
the outcome of the procedure. Identify useful background information that
will help you do the process. If appropriate, practise or think through
the procedure or process, and identify key concepts or facts as you go
through it.
For example, to paint a room, you will have to know:
- what tools are needed to do the job
- how to work with the paint, such as whether it will cover the existing
paint or whether you will need a primer, what steps you need to know
if you want to achieve a special effect by using a glaze
- other variables that affect the painting process, such as the kind
of paint you should use, the surface you're painting on, the time of
year, and ventilation required.
In this example, your knowledge of paint, tools needed to paint and the
type of surface you're painting. will determine how successful you are
with the painting process and the quality of the final product.
Taking Notes and Synthesizing Information
Taking notes is a way to limit the amount of information you need to
learn. Note-taking is a process of making choices about what is important
in the text and synthesizing or transferring that information to your
notes. There are many note-taking systems; most students use some combination
of marking the text and taking notes. In an online course, you will not
have to take lecture notes, unless you also have in-class meetings or
have audio- or video-enhanced lecture classes. You will have to know how
to synthesize information from more than one source, particularly if your
instructor uses websites as course resources.
Note: in dealing with online course materials, whether they are course
content, or recommended websites, you will have to decide whether you
will print them out and how much you will print. Some ways to minimize
the amount of material you print out include:
- Copying and pasting material from multiple sites into a word processing
document. Make sure you also copy and paste the URL of the site from
which you found the information so you can go back to the site.
- Using the Compile feature of WebCT to pull together online course
content into a print-friendly format. (See the Course Tools section
of the Using WebCT module for instructions
on how to use the Compile tool).
While you're reading, decide why you need notes - to study for a test?
as supporting evidence for a paper? for future reference? You may need
to make detailed notes for a test but only a short summary of the important
ideas and the URL if you want the information for future reference.
Here are some suggestions on how to take notes that will help you learn
course material:
- Finish reading before you take notes or mark the text. You need to
understand the full context of a paragraph or section before you decide
what you need to record.
- Be selective. Mark or note only meaningful words, phrases, and sentences.
This step is difficult because to be selective you must read critically
and think about what you have read. When taking your own notes, try
to summarize ideas in one or two sentences.
- When taking notes, use your own words. Unless you need a specific
quotation of an author's ideas, writing down ideas using another person's
words is a waste of time. You need to understand what you're reading
well enough to write it using your own words.
- Work quickly. Read, go back for a mini-overview, make your notes
or markings, and move on.
- Write clearly. Your notes are no good to you if you can't understand
them later. Write in complete ideas, not disembodied words or phrases.
If you are writing by hand, write neatly.
- Cross-reference. If you find an idea that relates to a previous one,
include that connection in your notes. It will help you when you are
reviewing your notes.
- Use visual aids. Draw, copy, or include diagrams, charts, and other
graphics. With online materials, you can save images and insert them
directly into your notes or print them and include them in your course
binder.
(Adapted with permission from by Walter Pauk, How to Study in College
(6th ed., 1997).
Reviewing for Class Discussions
Often instructors will assign readings before an online class discussion.
You may wonder what you should be contributing to the discussion and find
it difficult to say something about what you've read.
Here are some suggestions on how to review readings to participate in
class discussions:
- Ask questions about what you don't understand. Note any words, concepts,
or arguments that you do not understand. Be specific; rather than saying
you didn't understand Chapter 3, tell your instructor exactly what concept
or section you need clarified.
- If you have a strong reaction to what you read, make a note of it.
Write why you agree or disagree with the author's point of view and
present your reaction (and reason for it) to the discussion. If your
perspective of a topic has changed since the beginning of the course,
discuss how it has changed and what course material has contributed
to that change.
- Use an example from your own experience that is directly related
to the concept in the text. Describe your own experience, how it is
related to the concept, and what you understand about the concept based
on your experience. Include a comparison of your own experience to the
author's position. Focus your discussion contribution on how your experience
enhances your understanding of the course concept rather than on a detailed
description of your experience.
- Comment on another student's contribution by bringing up supporting
or contradictory material from the reading.
- Connect ideas across different course materials and summarize what
you understand about a topic based on the different texts.
- Summarize a short passage into a single word and explain why you
chose that word to summarize the text. This approach will help you (and
your classmates) identify important ideas in the course readings.
- Write down one possible real-world application for the principle,
theory, or procedure you learned from a course text. Try to think of
an application that is different from examples that may have been included
in your text.
 
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