Home - College Skills - Learning Tools

Learning Tools

Tools for manipulating your course study material:

Index Cards

• Useful in many courses
• Easy to carry so you can use them during spare moments
• Shuffling cards helps you avoid danger of knowing the items only in a certain order
• You can separate cards into mastered and un-mastered stacks
• Reviewing cards periodically spaces practice and builds confidence
• Useful in learning vocabulary, dates, formulas, steps in process, parts of a whole, lists of causes, etc.

Term Lists

• Keep in back of notebook
• Use self-test method to review periodically
• Can be incorporated into index cards

Time Lines/Literature Plot Lines

• Essential in any course with an historical perspective
• Useful in literature courses for mapping story development
• Provides foundation and background for details

Problem Lists

• Useful in courses, which mainly require you to solve problems (math, chemistry, physics)
• Problems from such courses should be practiced daily. It is not enough to know how you "should" work a problem or simply know the concepts. You must master working the problem through.
• Keep a list of the key problems--ones that illustrate how to solve a certain type of problem. Especially note problems highlighted in class or emphasized by the professor.

Self Tests

• Beneficial in all courses
• Practice predicting what will be on tests-make out personal study guides
• Simulate test conditions by timing yourself
• Swap your self-tests with a friend's or work on them with study groups.

Two-Six Notes/Cornell Note Taking System

• Method of note-taking, which requires you to condense notes and write summaries in 2 inch column on left of page
• By covering up either the 2 or 6 inch column you can test yourself

Charts

• Useful when you need to learn information, which can be categorized. For example, an art history chart might have the categories: art work, artist, date, cultural period, style, subject matter, significance
• Can be various types such as mind maps

Marking Textbooks

• Superior to highlighting
• Write out notes in the text (use pencil if you plan to re-sell the book) or write out questions you may have and tab the page to refer back to them
• Forces you to find the structure of the material
• Allows you to review more easily

Chapter Outline

• Useful in courses, which you need to understand the relationships among ideas-outlining would help you to see the structure of the material and maintain focus.

printable version

The Learning Enrichment Services can assist with the achievement of your academic goals. Contact the Programs Coordinator at 824-6731.