Exam Review

Exams aren't easy, and that is by design.  That little bit of extra stress is neurologically valuable to writing long term memory.  Everyone who has ever crammed for a test (so, you know, everyone) knows that you do not hang on to memories that are learned quickly or only visited once.  Exams are meant for students to revisit, integrate, and deepen the learning that happened over the semester.

What is the best way to review for exams?  Here are a few helpful hints.
1.  Think like your teacher.
     If you are taking an exam in middle or high school, you have known your teacher for several
     months.  If you have have been doing your job as a student, this means you know what they care
     about.  You know how they give hints.  You know their test writing style.  You know if they tend
     to pull questions from the book or not.  You know if there some concept they find incredibly
     important.  My students, for example, should know that I care very much about the First Law of
     Thermodynamics and that the short answer questions will be based on things that are simply too
     complex to be asked about as a multiple choice question.  They know that if I have repeated
     something several times, written it in capital or bold letters, or have said, "This would make an
     excellent test question" that it is something I find important.

2.  Use your old tests as a guide.
     A good teacher is NOT copying and pasting their exam questions from your old tests, but they are
     still your most valuable source of study, especially if your teacher does not provide a study guide.
     For one thing, the teacher thought something was important during the chapter, they will still find
     it important now.  More importantly, if they didn't think it was important enough to ask about it  
     on a test, it is unlikely they will suddenly find it so important that it must be on the exam.  Also, it
     gives you some idea of how the teacher might ask about an objective.  It may not be the exact
     same question, but it will likely be somewhat similar.  If you do have a study guide, take each
     objective on it and look for questions on your old tests that align with that objective.  Then, see if
     you can write a similar question.

3.  ASK QUESTIONS!
     Over the past ten years or so, many students have stopped asking questions.  The number one
     piece of advice I give in parent-teacher conferences is that the student needs to ask questions
     when they are confused by something.  The parent usually tells me that the child is embarrassed
     to ask questions in class.  I tell my classes that kids their age used to go off to war, so they should
     get over being afraid to ask questions in front of their friends.  It boils down to the choice
     between being embarrassed to ask questions and being embarrassed by your grade.  Even if a
     student comes to help class or e-mails the question to me later, nothing replaces the value of
     asking the question AT THE TIME they learning the material for the first time.

4.  Practice healthy habits.
     I hate to make anyone's parents right about something, but there that your parents insist on your
     bedtime.  There is a reason that your grandma used to say that breakfast was the most important
     meal of the day.  There is a reason not to eat a doughnut for lunch.  There is a reason why
     cramming for a test doesn't work.  These reasons are neurological, so they aren't personal to you.
     Eating breakfast provides energy to everyone's brain and gets their metabolism started for the day.      Getting a good night's sleep restores chemical balance to your brain.  There's a lot of waste
     neurotransmitters left in your brain when you go to bed at night after a day of constant stimulation.      Sleep allows those to be disposed of and dealt with without creating more.  This allows your brain      to process more quickly and more accurately.  That's why an all nighter really isn't going to help
     you the way you think it is going to.  Your brain cannot retain what is crammed into it all at once
     because it isn't a trash bag to be filled.  It is an organic machine with needs and processing speed.
     Giving your brain what it needs is the way to ensure that it gives you what you need.  You ask a
     lot of your brain, so you need to take care of it.

5.  Prioritize.
     It may be more fun to study for your favorite class, but let's face it.  The one you need to study for
     is probably your least favorite class.  Even within a course, you can't treat all information equally.      Figure out what topics are likely to be focused on and focus your study there.  Recognize that
     there are classes in which your grade can take a small hit so that you can really try to do well on
     the exam of the class for which you have a lower grade right now.  Scheduling time will help you
     to set those priorities rather than trying to cram.  Have I mentioned yet how bad an idea cramming
     is?

There are other pieces of advice that I could give you, but you need to go study.

Make a Memory

School, like a lot of long-term experiences, can become a monotonous series of similar days.  To some extent, that is good and necessary.  Routines are important to safety, security, and proper function.  If, when you went to work each day, you had zero idea of what to expect, your job would be difficult to master.  It might seem fun for a few days; but after a while, it would result in a lack of security.  Get ready for a big however.

HOWEVER, the days you remember from school are probably not the everyday ins and outs of grammar and math and foreign language.  They are the days where something different happened.  My most memorable experience of elementary school is the day we read the story of the Gingerbread man.  We went as a class to the school kitchen and made a giant Gingerbread man.  When we returned at the end of the baking time, he was gone.  We went from room to room, seeking out our gingerbread man.  We learned directions.  We learned to talk to older kids and their teachers.  We learned the joy of finding something lost (which was the point, if I remember correctly).  Each year after that, I would enjoy reliving the experience as small people came into my classroom in search of their lost gingerbread man.

My most memorable experience from high school came at the end of our reading of The Great Gatsby.  It was school tradition that when all of the English classes had finished Fitzgerald's masterpiece, there would be a party worthy of the time.  As students, we were assigned to committees (decorating our English classroom or the hallway, food, music, etc.), and our work on that committee comprised half of our grade.  We were required to dress in period costume (the other half of the grade) and were given extra credit for dressing as a character from the novel.  We could attend this party during our English period and our lunch time, but since party crashing is a frequent occurrence in the novel, we felt obliged to try it and didn't get into too much trouble if we did.  The school has stopped this tradition for a variety of reasons, and it makes me sad.  The memory of that day is still connected to my enjoyment of the novel.

It is important to help our students create memories of their school experiences.  At my school, the elementary campus really excels at this.  When the kindergarten learns about Antarctica, they come dressed as different types of penguins for a day.  They march around the building, squawking and having a great time.  If they remain at the school, they will experience it again each year, much as I did with the gingerbread man.  When fourth grade learns about planets, they come dressed on different days with some item that is meaningful about that planet.  One day, they wear sunglasses and surgical masks to represent Mercury and Venus.  When they learn about the civil war, they set up tents on the school lawn and come dressed as either union or confederate soldiers.  They spend the day eating as soldiers, learning to darn socks, and hearing from experts on the war.  Years later, I still hear them reference this experience, especially if it was particularly cold or raining their fourth-grade year.

By necessity, this looks a little different in middle and high school.  Because they travel from class to class, it would be logistically rather difficult to have an all day experience (although that can and does happen from time to time).  Rather, we tend to work our memorable experiences into projects.  The two physics teachers do climb to the top of the school building every year to throw egg drop projects down to the parking lot, and I like to think they will look back fondly on that experience.  Our math teachers give students all kinds of mathematical memories, like flying kites they make themselves.  Our foreign language departments take advantage of holidays specific to French and Spanish speaking countries.  The Latin club even marked Saturnalia just before Christmas break.  This week, my physics students are presenting projects that I call Free Choice Projects (I think I'll do a post on that project at some point because it is a great project).  They decide what the memorable experience will be.  I've had years in which students analyzed blood spatter by smashing balloons of colored corn syrup.  I had a student build a hovercraft, which we all enjoyed riding.  One of my groups this week is presenting the physics of swimming.  They asked if they could do a live demonstration rather than a video, so we will be heading to the area aquatic center for one class period.  As students gather around the pool, I believe they will create a better connection of memory to Newton's laws than they would if they were watching a video, not to mention they will think of more interesting questions, which the experts can address on the spot.

It isn't always possible to break from the day to day experience of class time.  When it is possible, make every effort to do it.  After all, we want them to learn the curriculum; but what we really want is for them to love learning.  It is that love that will make them want to learn as much as possible for the rest of their lives.

Do you have a favorite memory of school?  Feel free to comment.

Introvert and Extroverts

I am an extrovert.  Anyone who has ever met me would agree.  I'm loud, and I talk all the time.  While neither of those is the definition of extrovert, they are certainly signs.  I don't like small talk and schmoozing at our annual meet and greet, so I must be on the mild end of extroversion; but if I spend more than one day at home alone, I get a little stir crazy.  Last year, we had 3 snow days following a four-day weekend, and I was about to lose my mind before we got back to school.

As a teacher, I have a blend of personality types in my classes - extroverts and introverts, verbal processors and artistic processors, kids with autism and kids who are social butterflies.  Those that are not like me are harder for me to understand, but I must still give them what they need.  It is not loving to care well only for those who are like yourself, so I must learn to care for my introverts.  Some of my favorite students have been introverts, once I figured out a way to get to know them without talking.

If you are like me and are looking for a resource to help you understand your introverts, I recommend the book Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can't Stop Talking by Susan Cain.  If that's too much reading for you, let me recommend her TED Talk.  A self-professed introvert, she will give you a glimpse contributions that introverts have made in our world and let you see that they are busy mentally while the extroverts are busy verbally.

As I listened to her talk the first time, it occurred to me that this is one of my pendulum swings in education.  Education is always trying to address the needs of some group that has been marginalized when the pendulum was swinging the other way.  For decades, we treated school as a quiet place where students only listened and rarely spoke.  If a teacher assigned a group project, that teacher was considered extreme.  This left the extroverts feeling anxious.  As the educational system started analyzing who they weren't serving well, they made radical changes.  Now, it is odd for students to have a solo assignment.  Collaboration is the default position.  Desks are in pods to facilitate collaboration, and students are expected to communicate for much of their day.  While this is great for the extroverts, it has left the introverts feeling anxious.  

Neither of these models is the right way.  Neither of them is really wrong, either, except that they both address the needs of only one type of student.  We know that we have many types of students in our classrooms, and while we cannot give them perfectly what they each need every minute of every day, we can address each of their needs within the week or day or class period, depending on how our schools are structured.  

I recently heard a speech by Cynthia Tobias, and she gave some great practical advice.  Each day, she said, give your students 

- an opportunity to talk.

- an opportunity to visualize something.

- an opportunity to move.

On behalf of my sweet introverts, I would add one thing to that list.  Give them an opportunity to spend a few moments in quiet thought.  You can actually incorporate all of these into one activity.  You can give them a question that requires visualization and say, "We will spend 1 minute thinking about this.  Paint the picture in your own mind without talking.  Then, get up and walk to your partner (who would, in this situation, not be the person next to them) and spend one minute telling them what you were thinking.  They will spend one minute sharing with you.  Then come back to your seat." This gives the introverts, the extroverts, and the movers what they need in three minutes.  You might not be able to do that every day, but you could probably find a way to work it in once a week.

Using technology will also involve introverts in a way a class discussion might not.  My school as a learning management system that gives us the option to have discussion boards.  I have found these to be a powerful tool for my introverts.  If we have an in-class debate, there are a handful of students that will lead that discussion.  I have always required that everyone must contribute at least one substantive comment, but I had to drag it out of some students.  After we adopted the learning management system, I added something to our debates.  I created a discussion board.  I didn't have the introverts in mind when I did this; it was really just to keep the discussion going.  What I found, however, was that those who had said nothing out loud in class contributed very strong opinions on the discussion board.  They were more articulate and contributed far more than what I tried to pull from them while they were uncomfortable.

I found this infographic online, and I have found it helpful to keep in mind while teaching.  I can't do every one of these for them every day.  For example, it simply isn't possible for me to teach them new skills privately.  However, we will understand them better if we keep these things in mind.  I can give them fair warning before the end of an activity.  I can give them time to think before answering a question (although it will mean holding down an extrovert).  I can respect their introversion and not try to change them.  After all, God didn't create them wrong.  He created us all for a purpose, and we will fulfill that purpose better together if we take the time to understand each other.

Study is a Verb - Do Something

My kids are taking chapter tests today, so I thought I would take this opportunity to share some study habits that I have gleaned from 17 years of being a pretty good student and 17 years of teaching all kinds of students.  I just read that sentence and realized that I have been teaching for the same number of years I was a students.  That makes me feel really old.  Yikes.

1.  Study is a verb - I have watched students "study" and wondered what benefit they could possibly be getting from it.  Here's how it works.  They take out their notes.  They stare at the page.  Their eyes get blurry, and they can't see any more.  This changes nothing.  To study effectively means you have to DO something.  Highlighting, flashcards, asking yourself questions - These are ways of interacting with the material.  Staring at it is not.  All my other advice comes from this.

2.  Organize Your Time and Space - Some people are natural organizers.  They love folders and tabs and calendars.  Office Depot is their happy place and color coded is their favorite phrase in the English language.  Others are a hot mess when it comes to organization.  They have to turn their backpack upside down and shake it to find a pencil.  Then, there are the ADHD kids, who tell me that  they shouldn't have to be organized.  "Oh, no," I tell them.  "It's far more important that you be organized than anyone else."  The natural organizers are already there in their minds.  If your mind isn't naturally organized, you really need to organize your environment to compensate for that.  If your homework is always in the same spot, you won't have to remember where you put it.

It is also important to organize your time.  This is harder for students than organizing their space.  You can see the space, and it is always in the same place.  Time is so fluid and so easily filled with whatever comes along that organizing it can be difficult.  I suggest having an ideal plan at the beginning of each week but to leave in a little flex time.  Things are going to come up that mess with the ideal.  This is only a problem if there is nowhere to put the new activity.  It may also require reorganizing as time goes on.

3.  Study in Blocks - Remember when your teachers told you not to wait to study until the night before the test.  You ignored them; everyone does.  It turns out that they knew what they were talking about.  Research shows that you remember best the things you study at the beginning and the end of a study session.  Studying in one long block means there is only one beginning and end.  Breaking that up over several nights makes multiple beginnings and endings.  If it is too late for that and you only have one night.  Take a 2 minute break every 30 minutes.  It is enough time for your brain to think you have begun a new session.  The strange result of one study showed that studying in different places might help as well (although no one is sure why), so studying one night in the kitchen and another in the living room may actually help.

4.  Take a Moment to Acknowledge Anxiety - Being nervous about tests is normal, but does it affect your performance on the test.  It does if you just try to pretend it isn't there.  An experiment was done in which two similar classes took tests.  In one classroom, students were given three minutes before the test started to write about how they felt going into the tests.  The other just began taking it as normal.  The group that was given a chance to share their frustrations and fears scored an average of 5% higher on the test than the others did.  The thinking is that putting it on paper frees your mind from focusing on it during the test, allowing you to shut off the internal dialogue.

5.  Allow Minimal Distraction - The world is filled with distractions.  We cannot eliminate them entirely - and we shouldn't.  The mind actually needs some stimulation, or it will create its own.  However, distractions that interfere with your ability to focus should be reduced as much as possible. That might mean muting the computer, so it doesn't beep every time a message is sent.  My students believe it is rude not to respond immediately to a chat message.  I tell them to make their google chat status "I'm studying for the next hour."  Then, it is rude for someone to chat them but not rude for them to wait to reply.  The phone can be put in another room.

A note about music.  Some people do benefit from playing music while they are studying.  It helps block out the little sounds, like buzzing lights and ticking clocks.  Before you says, "See, mom!  I told you music helps," be aware that not all types of music helps.  It is unlikely that your favorite song is helping you focus.  Be aware of when it is helping and when it is hurting.  If you are singing along, you are not studying.  If you are dancing around, you are probably not studying (Some people do need to move in order to think, so you will be aware if that is you).  I keep a TV on with the volume low, but I make sure it is a rerun of something I've seen before.  That keeps my brain from attending to it.

6.  Teach to Learn - If you are explaining something to someone else, you will know whether or not you understand it.  If you are an auditory learner, hearing yourself say it out loud will be like sitting in class again.  If you are verbal processor, saying it out loud will make it more real to you.  You can teach another person, but if one is not available, you can teach a stuffed animal, a doll, or a chair.  The key is to do it out loud.  It forces focus in a way silent studying doesn't.

7.  MAKE Flashcards - We are a one to one school.  We do a lot of things with technology, and I know there are online flashcard sites.  Those are great and should be used, but I want to make a plea for the good old fashioned flashcard.  Your senses are the pathways by which information enters your brain.  Using an online card site uses only one - sight.  When you hand make a flash card and then use it properly, you use sight (to get the information), muscle memory (from writing), sight again (from look at the card), speech (by saying it out loud), and hearing (by saying it out loud).  You also get a little bit of tactile because holding the card is different from not holding one.  I've got my doubts that scented markers would help, but they certainly could not hurt.  The more pathways the information has to get into your brain, the better you will remember it.

8.  Pray - I asked my students a few weeks ago if they prayed before a test.  Many of them said yes (or at least that they prayed during the test if it was getting hard).  When I asked if they prayed before they studied, no one said yes.  God cares about your learning and talks much of wisdom and knowledge in scripture.  He even says in James, "If anyone lacks wisdom, he should ask."  Why wouldn't we ask for help in making our study time efficient and effective?