One
of my former students sent me an email and asked what techniques I used to get
such AWESOME grades. Here are the suggestions I shared with him.
Attitude:
·
Getting good grades should be an extremely high priority. The
best jobs, those that come with a great deal of personal freedom and that pay
the best, are only accessible to people with Masters degrees (or higher).
People get these jobs by being in the network, the network accessible only to
the elite. To get into this network you need to attend a great grad school, but
you can’t get in without great grades. That means making sacrifices today.
Choosing classes:
·
Not all instructors and classes are equal. Three credits in
one course may take twice as much work as three credits in another course.
·
Decide what you want from the class. Some classes are
probably largely irrelevant to you, like Art History. Others are very important
to you. Look for harder courses in your important areas, easier courses in the
others.
Choosing professors:
·
Look up the professor on www.ratemyprofessors.com.
·
Look up the syllabus on the professor’s website. If the
professor doesn’t have a syllabus online, maybe you don’t want to take their
class. Are they lazy? Are they computer illiterate? Are they too busy with
other projects to give attention to teaching? Do they really care about you,
their customer?
·
Go to the first day of class. If you don’t like the
professor, drop the class. You need to be able to interact comfortably with
your professor to get the most out of any class.
·
Don’t be shy about going to the professor if you need help.
Class Participation:
·
Go to every class. Pay attention. Nod and smile at the
professor.
·
Asking good questions shows you are motivated and paying
attention. The professors will remember you better, which can pay off in the
long run.
·
Asking bad questions (long and unfocused, overly detailed,
or relating to your personal experiences) will make everybody in the room dislike
you, so keep questions short and focused.
·
Don’t volunteer to answer every question the professor asks
- the other students hate that - but try to answer a few in each class.
Homework:
·
Just do it. Turn in every assignment; you’d be surprised how
many students don’t.
·
Carefully read and follow the instructions. Check off the
steps as you finish them.
·
Don’t do assignments in a creative manner. Follow the format
the instructor asks for and you can’t go too far wrong.
Memory Aids:
·
I often used flash cards to learn formulas and
terminology.
·
I underlined key passages and re-read them just
before exams.
·
If I was working with a list, I would try to make a
word using the first letter of each item in the list, or make a phrase that
would start with those same letters. For example, Office 2007 uses a
hierarchical system for arranging icons – Tabs, Groups, Categories, and Icons. I
remember the sequence as The Great Computer Interface. This
technique was very useful in studying for essay exams.
Note-taking in Class:
·
I rarely took notes in class. I found that I got too
distracted writing things down and often missed what the professor was saying
next.
·
I always read the textbook chapter BEFORE class so I could better
follow the professor’s lecture and ask intelligent questions to clarify gaps in
my understanding.
Presentations:
·
See my advice online at www.cob.sjsu.edu/splane_m/PresentationTips.htm
·
NEVER give a presentation without practicing – you’ll speak too
long, you’ll forget key facts, and you’ll cover too many details.
Seating:
·
The professors notice the faces of the people who sit in the
front rows and in the center of the room. This creates a subconscious bias in
your favor that may make the difference between a B+ and an A-.
·
I always tried to sit in the second row near the middle of
the room. You can hear and see better from this location.
·
Another thing to consider, teammates and study partners are usually
selected from people sitting next to you.
Studying Textbooks:
Reading
the textbook puts you way ahead of most of the other students.
·
Textbooks are written in outline form. If you try to read a
chapter straight through, it is very confusing. Don’t do this. Read the
headings, the first sentence of each paragraph, and examine the charts and
sidebars. When you know what the chapter is all about, then you can read it
straight through, to pick up the detail.
·
I tried to read every chapter twice - once for concepts,
once for details.
·
Try the sample questions and quizzes that are included
within the chapter. If you can’t answer those questions, you don’t know the
material.
·
Almost every textbook has a glossary and an index. Use them!
If you don’t understand a technical term, write it on a flashcard. Look up the
definition in the glossary and write it on the back of the card.
·
If I knew I was going to have to reread a chapter at a later
date for an exam, I would use a yellow highlighter pen to underline key
sentences and phrases. Then it was easy to scan through to quickly recall the
main ideas.
·
If you have trouble staying awake, stand up and try reading
that way.
·
If you have trouble staying focused, use a kitchen timer to
control the length of each study session. Gradually increase the time over
several weeks. Your ability will improve.
Teams:
A good
team can make or break your grade so learning how to manage teams is vital.
·
Step One - have great teammates.
o
This is simple really. Try and take classes with people you
have worked with before that you know you work well with. I started this
process early, and recruited my teammates ahead of time. In my senior year I
had a half dozen people taking classes with me that I knew I could rely on.
o
Whenever you have a problem, talk to the instructor for
guidance.
·
Step Two – resolve the leadership
issues quickly.
o
The first week you should get the email address of every
team member. The first person who sends out an email outlining what they think
the group should do becomes the de facto leader.
o
Be a good teammate. Don’t argue over minor details; your
role is to encourage and support others. Stay positive at all times.
·
Step Three – create a project
plan.
o
Break down the project into smaller subject areas. This
should be part of your initial email the first week of the project. Include
specific timelines.
o
Ask people if your outline makes sense.
o
Ask them to each volunteer for a specific subject. It
creates buy-in from the other students; they chose the role they want. Slackers
become more motivated and the group will unite behind you if you have a
problem.
o
Volunteer to take on the piece(s) that nobody else wants.
You often wind up with the most interesting and educational piece and everybody
is grateful to you for doing the dirty work.
o
Don’t try to do all of the work yourself. Have somebody in
charge of writing the final draft, and somebody else in charge of creating the
PowerPoint slides.
·
Step Four – create reasonable
project deadlines.
o
Allow for slack time in the plan. Everybody will fall
behind, so build in a couple of weeks for catching up, one in the middle and
one near the end.
o
Allow at least two weeks for preparing and practicing the
PowerPoint presentation.
o
Insist on practicing the PowerPoint as a group, using a
timer.
·
Step Five – prepare an agenda for
group meetings.
o
Circulate it ahead of time.
o
The group usually agrees with the first suggested meeting
place. If you know a convenient spot for you, suggest it.
Tests:
For
multiple choice exams:
·
Read all of the possible answers. Cross out any answers that
you know are wrong.
·
Circle the number on questions when you are unsure of the
answer. Skip them and finish the questions you know. Now go back and look at
the circled ones. Often the later questions will give you a clue to earlier
ones.
For essay
exams:
·
Anticipate what the questions will be. Look at the questions
in your textbook at the end of each chapter. See any questions that require
listing several details to answer? Well, your professor is doing the same
thing.
·
Write each likely exam question on a flashcard. On the back of
the flashcard, list the ten or twelve key words that you need to include in
your essay.
·
Generally each item in the list is going to be worth one
point. The professors or their TA’s are grading on the key words, not the logic
of your sentences or arguments.
·
Carry the cards with you and look at them whenever you get a
chance, like at a traffic light.
Definitions,
Terms, Acronyms, and Formulas:
·
Use flashcards to help you memorize the materials.
Time Management:
·
Don’t try to do too much. The world is not going to end
tomorrow; take your time to get the most you can out of school. If you’re
working full time and taking more than two or three classes, you’re overdoing
it.
·
Using flashcards was an extremely efficient way to learn. I
could use them in the car at red lights, during TV commercials, etc.
·
I scheduled some quiet time for studying when I knew I would
be undisturbed. For me this was Sunday afternoon and evening, at a minimum.
·
I kept a calendar that listed each class and when each
assignment was due. I estimated how long each assignment would take.
·
I broke down the big projects into smaller tasks with a
deadline for each task.
·
I tried to keep a week ahead, in case I got sick or
something unexpected came up.
Tutoring:
I found it
was extremely helpful to study with another student, so I did a lot of
tutoring.
·
If I couldn’t
explain the material to somebody else, I didn’t know it well enough.
·
My study buddy’s
questions helped to clarify my thinking and exposed gaps in my understanding.
·
Knowing that somebody
else was depending on me helped to keep me motivated to study, on those days
when I was feeling lazy.
·
It was also fun
as a social activity.
Written Assignments:
I handled
these in three different ways, depending on how familiar I was with the topic.
·
If I knew what I
wanted to say, I would sit down a week or two before the assignment was due and
write a complete first draft, then edit and rewrite it three or four times.
·
If I knew some
of the material, I would write an outline of the entire paper, based on the
professor’s instructions. Then I would fill in different segments, at different
times, over several days, leaving the tough parts for last.
·
If I wasn’t sure
what to write or how to write about it, I would think about the paper for
several days, and then write the whole thing down the night before it was due.
·
The common
thread is that I thought about the paper for several days.
·
I would often
copy and paste background information into the document as I was researching,
including the website so I could cite the source.
·
I also created a
bibliography entry for the website address at the same time I pasted the info
into my document.
·
I always
proofread an assignment before turning it in. Reading it aloud helps to catch
mistakes.
·
Get help with
grammar and spelling if you need it.
Please send comments and suggestions to
Splane_M@cob.sjsu.edu.