This guide belongs to 100 Ways To Be Being Remarkable Series, a special project that brings you business and self-development advice from The Success Manual.
TWELVE SMART LEARNING QUESTIONS
1. What’s my purpose for reading this?
- Be specific
- Not everything involved is equally important
2. What do I already know about this topic?
- Starts generating questions
- Finds holes in your knowledge
- Puts you on the lookout for new information
- Valuable for resourceful thinking
- Acts as a review
- Makes you an authority
3. What’s the big picture?'
a. Find
- Main ideas and themes
- Important terms and concepts
- Overall organization
4. What’s the author going to say next?
- Expect the author to answer your questions
- Helps you stay engaged
5. What are the “expert questions”?
- What is this made of?
- How can this be identified?
- What process causes this?
- Where is this usually found?
- What can I tell about the history of this?
- What’s the definition of this?
- What’s an example of this?
- What are the different types of this?
- What is this related to?
- What can this be compared with?
6. What questions does this information raise for me?
- Who? What? When? Where? Why? How?
- So what?
- Says who?
- What if. . . ?
- What does this remind me of?
- Don’t wait to read the answer – guess what it will be
7. What information is important here?
a. 80-20 rule
b. Clues
- In reading
- Beginning and end
- Anything emphasized graphically
- Gist of any chart or diagram
- Chapter summary
- In lecture
- beginning and end
- anything on the board
- anythign repeated, emphased, or stressed
- teacher’s use of language
- responses to questions/comments
- thoughts, reactions, and questions
- anything after long pauses, takes time to explain, or has difficulty expressing
- anything discussed, but not covered in textbook, especially disagreements with textbook
- details vs. big picture
- references to material covered previously
- raised, but unanswered questions
- handouts
c. continue updating and condensing notes
8. How can I paraphrase and summarize this information?
a Use your words
- Use few words
- Reading notes
- Don’t take notes sentence by sentence
- Take notes from memory
- Organize notes into a clear structure
- Translate graphics into words
- Develop a personal shorthand
- Print (rather than cursive)
- Use loose paper
- Write on one side only
- Don’t just recopy notes
- Don’t use a computer to type notes
b. Class notes
- Seek out buzz words and pet phrases
- Jot down questions to think about later
- Borrow notes if you miss a lecture
c. Marking textbooks
- Avoid highlighters, pens that smudge, & using rulers
- Read entire paragraph before underlining anything
- Underline as little as possible
- Record thoughts and questions in the margin
9. How can I organize this information?
- Reorganize the information as many ways as possible
- What items are similar? Different?
- What items depend/build on each other?
- How do different items compare in terms of expert and orientation questions?
10. How can I picture this information?
- Have scratch paper
- Try different techniques; emphasize relationships and relative importance
- Be creative
- Avoid outlines, they’re too linear
- Don’t rely on graphics from the teacher or textbook
- It may not be possible, but try making everything visual
11. What’s my hook for remembering this information?
a. Hooks
- Pictures
- Patterns
- Rhymes
- Stories
b. Keys
- Understand it
- you can reconstruct what you understand
- ask how you would reconstruct it
c Create a hook
- devise them yourself
-. use more than one
- any hook works, it doesn’t have to make sense
- Link it
- make it crazy
- Think small and thorough
- Get emotionally involved
- personalize the info
d. Engage multiple senses
- visual
- auditory
- kinsethetic
- Smell the roses
- take in the surroundings to help connect to the info later
e. Sleep on it
- review before going to sleep
f. Use it or lose it
g. Quiz yourself periodically
- don’t confuse recognition with recall
12. How does this information fit with what I already know?
- Pare down the notes you study from (but don’t discard old ones)
- Get down to one sheet
- Write small, if necessary
- Adapted from ‘What Smart Students Know’ by Adam Robinson
Read Part of this Two Part Guide titled Taking Exams Here.
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