I Can't Study, So I'm Definitely Going To Fail...

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Children these days are being increasingly exposed to higher levels of stress. Gone were the days whereby children could just go to school and come home playing. School, or rather learning, has evolved into a system of constant testing and knowledge remembering. This has led to a student seeing me after class and we talked. This student is one of those who most will label as 'naughty', 'disruptive' and 'challenging'.

A few minutes through our conversation, I asked what was his plans for the future. He shrugged, saying that he's going to just go with the flow. I tried to dig a bit further as to why he has decided to do that and found out that he has given up. He has been told constantly to study hard. As such, he concluded since studying hard does not work for him, there's really no point in persisting. To clarify, I asked what he meant by studying hard, he pointed out that he would read, memorize and try to remember what he had studied.

I nodded and suggested two alternative methods to studying. I have found both these methods to be effective especially for students who are unable to focus on reading. I fall in that same category. When I have to study a certain subject, reading just does not work for me. My eyes will get heavier and heavier with each word read. My longest record of studying was no more than half an hour. Thus, I had to find other ways.

Don't Study, Practice

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A method I teach is to practice questions found in reference books. I find this method helpful because it takes into account two points. First, it can be quite counterproductive to force the students to study if it does not work. As such, learning through practice can help a student in familiarizing with the content and the possible questions that could be asked in the exams. How I would go about it is to first purchase at least three reference books from different publishers, especially the ones with practice questions in them. Then, attempt the questions, it does not matter if the students get it wrong, but what matters is that the students copy down the question with the correct answer on a piece of paper.

The teacher can supplement this by explaining to the students the reasons behind them making the mistake. After that, the students can try the questions from another reference book. This can help the teacher see if any improvements were made. Repeat this cycle enough times and the students should be able to improve on their exam results. This method also leads to the second point, which is statistical probability. If a student has attempted enough questions, it is likely that the questions in the actual exam should not differ too much from the practice questions. Thus, this prepares the student to attempt the question and this mitigates any possible exam anxiety.

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This method of course has its limitation, but it does provide weaker students with a fighting chance in the exam. The only thing needed from them of course is the tenacity to keep it up. Of course, if this method does not work, perhaps the next one could be useful.

Don't Study, Prepare A Lesson To Teach

For older students, I would use this activity to help the students gain an understanding for what they are studying. In many situations, students assume that after a teacher teaches, they will be able to understand the most difficult of concepts. However, for students to truly understand a concept they have to first know what they don't understand. For that to happen, they have to assess their own understanding.

This can be done by having the students create a lesson to teach a difficult topic to their friends. This would require them to first research on the topic. The point is not for the students to teach well, but to give them an avenue to apply and practice what they have learnt. This method is also based on the learning pyramid.

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As seen in the learning pyramid, a student is able to learn best via teaching a particular concept. The teacher can implement this via a group activity or an individual activity. Personally, I would prefer that the students do this at most with only 2 other friends. If there are too many students in a group, some may end up being passengers, going along for the ride but not contributing.

Conclusion

These are two of the methods that I would like to use with my students, especially those who are not able to study via reading a book. These methods also work very well with students with shorter attention span. I hope you have found this useful. If you have implemented these methods before, do let me know your thoughts in the comments below.

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