Study Habits and the
Transition from High School to UTD
John Zweck
This document summarizes the results of an informal survey of some
students at my former institution (UMBC) about their study habits and on the transition from
high school to college courses in science, math, and engineering.
Survey Questions
- What study habits/skills have you found most useful at UMBC?
- How did you acquire those study habits in the first place?
- What are the most challenging things about making the transition
from high school math and science courses to those at university?
Demographics of Groups Surveyed
The people who replied to the survey were
- 8 students in an honors sophomore-level Linear Algebra course (Math 221H)
- 7 students in a senior-level Differential Geometry course (Math 423).
These students are all highly motivated and currently have good study habits.
Suggestions were also obtained from two Montgomery High School teachers
and some Math/Stat graduate teaching assistants who conduct discussion
sessions for introductory courses.
Thanks to everyone for their thoughtful comments:
Peter Gaultney, Young Song, Robert Dahl, Adrienne Norwood,
Philip Graf, Leif Huber, Erika Nesvold, Rebecca Lancaster,
Megan Zlock, Julian Withers, Michael Booth-Neades, Austin Rochford,
Alex Lewis, John Kloetzli, Michael Lombard, Sherika Sylvester, David Culpepper,
and Cathy Cross.
Summary of Responses
1. What study habits/skills have you
found most useful at UMBC?
- Try do find something that you enjoy to study. Don't pick a major that
you hate just because you think it will get you a job that you will hate
but will give you lots of money. That is like shooting yourself in the
face because the hospital gives free food.
- Go to class. I don't remember how I 'developed' this trait, but it has
a huge impact in adjusting to the university setting. This is probably
the single most important habit for new students.
- Set regular times during the week to work on specific classes. This
will keep one really hard class from dragging the others down. I set
aside specific days for specific classes and force myself to work on that
material alone and not to think about other things.
- Taking good notes. Writing down pretty much everything the
teacher writes down, and some of what he says. Not even so much because I
use my notes later (though I do), but because writing it down makes it
"stick" much better. Furthermore, trying to keep my notes organized.
- The most helpful skill at UMBC has been good note-taking.
..... Eventually I figured out the key was to record
the process rather than just the question and answer. Another revelation
was that even though it is a math or science class rather than English or
history, you still have to read the book.
- Try to pay attention while taking notes. In a perfect
world, you'd be able to pace yourself in class by asking the teacher
questions as he goes along. This proves to the professor and yourself
that you understand the material. After class, review your notes, and
see if you understand everything. If you do not, ask your professor
questions.
- Use the text: Notes are good, but often the text has insights
and examples of problems that will make the material much clearer.
- When studying for exams I will even copy my notes if necessary -
for Physics, I often end
up writing the formulae down 5 or 6 times, at first using references, until
I can write down every formula I might need to use without consulting
anything. Definitions are the same way. Rewriting things, though tedious
(and hard to make myself do), is very effective.
- Effective time management. I found it useful to devote at least an hour
each day to studying/homework. I use color-coded
post-it notes to put up important concepts I must remember.
- I think the key is relaxation and pacing in
studying. In order to understand and retain information, you have to
learn it at a steady pace. Scheduling of what you will study is
rigorous, but it can be very helpful.
- Make sure that you learn the chapter which you are going to be
covering in class the night before that class. That way it will be
like review.
- When an exam comes around, you should make sure to start studying
heavily at least 2 weeks in advance. This has been working for me. In
regards to memorization, you should look over the information in your
free time, and before you go to bed. This will help you retain
information a lot better.
- Personally, I form study groups. The most effective way of studying is to
review a little of the class material every day or every couple of days.
- Collaborate with fellow students. Discuss the problems out
loud. Have your peers explain solutions/concepts to you and
vice-versa. It is very important to verbalize information that you
know. This serves to crystallize your understanding of it.
- Ability and willingness to truly study in groups, and not just check
answers with each other. As in exploring various ways to solve a problem
and attempting to understand why they use a particular method to solve a
problem.
- More on group work: It greatly improves the efficiency and
amount learned. Also, if just one person
understands the material, they can clarify it to everyone else on a
level more accessible to the other students.
- Good working environment: Work is done much easier when you are
free from distractions. Go to the library!
- An hour of work there is more effective
than several hours spent studying or working in my dorm room.
- Stay ahead: Don't procrastinate work, it will pile up and get
you in the end. The start of the semester is the most important time
for this, since getting behind then will force you to be behind on
your work for the rest of the semester.
- I actually think study itself is not as important as being able to
balance one's study habits with his recreation habits.
Thus, I think good
time management and a good sense of one's own need for both are two key
prerequisites for success.
- Take Breaks! A semester where you don't play a game for a while or
watch a movie several times a week will kill you and will probably affect
your grades. Down time is important, but make sure that you are doing
something that really lets you unwind.
- Talk to the professor or TA even if you don't think you NEED help!
Time is a scarce commodity in college, and not banging
your head against the wall with the "I'm too smart to ask for help" act
will save you some!
- From a Montgomery High School Teacher:
I think one of the most important skills I teach my upper
level high school students is how to read a textbook. A chemistry,
physics, or calculus book is useless to a student if they just sit
down and try to read it as if it were a short story....
Some of the skills I teach them include previewing a
chapter before lecture, identifying new vocabulary before reading,
putting a new topic in context (where is this coming from/ where
might it lead?), writing out a list of questions after reading, and
using sample problems in the textbook as a guide to setting up and
solving problems. Then I will give a problem and ask the students to
write out HOW they would solve it without actually doing any of the
math. The students who become effective at using the textbook as a
resource generally see their grades start to improve.
2. How did you acquire those study
habits in the first place?
- The consensus was that study habits were acquired through necessity
and only when they were needed in order to succeed in classes.
- Typically a systematic approach to studying was not required until
the students arrived at UMBC.
- Several students commented they only worked out for themselves
how to study after doing poorly in their courses for a semester (or two).
- One exception: At my school (Maury High School in
Norfolk, Virginia), my teachers emphasized the importance of asking for
help, getting help, and actively engaging in help sessions. Also, my
school district provided incentives to encourage after school
participation for both the students and professors. Basically, my study
habits were solidified in high school and were necessary upon entering a
science magnet program and AP courses.
3. What are the most challenging
things about making the transition from high school math and science
courses to those at university?
- Homework is a lot more difficult - less of the
problems mirror examples given in the books, and a lot more creativity is
required; you must be able to put very different aspects of your knowledge
together to solve problems.
- Exams are a LOT more difficult and they count for somewhere between 60% and 85% of your grade. This can make
poor performance in one exam crippling.
- Exams tend to
be written in such a way as to really make sure you know your stuff. Thus,
it is possible to feel like you are performing well on an exam while you're
taking it, but you end up getting a poor grade, because there were a number
of subtle points that you did not grasp that cause your grade to take a
nosedive.
- The speed of the course is often much faster than high school courses
on similar material. What a calculus course in high school takes an entire
week of classes (3-5 classes a week) to cover, a college course will cover
in one class period. There is no time in class to reflect upon what you've
learned - that's for after class, and you absolutely have to take that time,
or you'll quickly fall behind.
- The courses move A LOT faster than they did in high school. In high
school, I remember I just showed up to my classes, listened and took the
tests. The teacher would repeatedly go over concepts so I didn't devote
much time to studying by myself. However, in college, the class' progress
didn't adhere to my own progress. And unlike high school, you don't get
the individual attention when the courses are lecture courses.
- The greatest challenge is the responsibility of college. You are not only
forced to attend classes, complete homework, and study on your own, but
you have a whole lot of other new responsibilities to deal with as well.
- The inherent penalty for missing classes can get pretty
steep, however... a lesson hard-learned.
- It becomes habit to start hanging out with people all day and
night. You can harness this into a strength, though, by spending time
with people in your classes and your major studying.
- Time management becomes crucial.
- Health is most important,
make no mistake. Getting enough sleep and exercise, and eating
healthily can be a real challenge, because grades seem to become the
ultimate goal of life (for many.) Many pull all-nighters on nights
before exams. This should only be used as a last resort (or not at
all... I haven't decided, because I have luckily gotten good grades on
exams by doing this.)
- High school courses were less theoretical and focused more on solving
problems. Basic theory was explained, but many of the finer details I
have since learned about were glossed over. This has made college courses a lot
more theoretical and there is a distinct shift in the type of
problems towards theoretical situations and proofs, even in classes
not oriented around proofs.
- Overall, college
is no longer allowing me to cruise through my classes and still get
A's, I now have to work much harder for them.
- In college, I've found, its more important than ever before in my life to
make sure I get help early if I don't understand something. Most people,
like myself, are stubborn about this at first. I never had to get any
sort of extra help in high school. I figured if I just worked extra hard
that maybe it would come to me. Sometimes it does. But you end up saving
yourself a lot of stress and time if you get help from the teacher, or any
of the help centers available for you.
- The most challenging transitions I have found are the changes in terminology and material. Before college, math is about numbers and series of operations. At college, professors often use new terms and symbols, which I found hard to understand at first, and the understanding of concepts holds more weight than just being able to mindlessly solve a problem.
- I think college puts alot more pressure on students to do well
academically. The environment is definitely more competitive, and the
stakes are much higher (college unlike high school is very expensive).
I think this in turn makes students more concerned about the grades they
get rather than learning what they want (or need) to learn. Some end up
studying for days without rest while others sacrifice their integrity by
cheating (copying homework and such), all for something so little as a
letter grade in a transcript. This reality is a sharp contrast to the
values of education and self improvement which we seem to value so highly.
- The most challenging thing about the transition from high school to
college was recognizing that I would need help. After sailing through
high school without having to do any actual hard work, that was difficult
to accept. I'm still working on that.
A final comment on developmental learning stages from
a Montgomery High School teacher.
In the college bound high school students that I teach, there is
a mix of those with the ability to use higher order thinking skills
and those who have not yet reached that developmental stage. In all
cases, they are new to higher order thinking. By higher order
thinking in chemistry, I mean the ability to apply a concept in a new
situation, or analyze what steps are needed to solve a problem
(See
Bloom's taxonomy).
Specifically, in
Advanced Placement High School Chemistry, students are comfortable
with a quiz where I ask them to do problems exactly like homework
problems. But if I ask them to use their knowledge in a different
way, or ask them to combine knowledge from this unit with previous
units, they get uncomfortable. My goal is to increase their comfort
level using and applying their knowledge. I want them to be able to
analyze how to solve a problem they have never seen before, but
should know how to do. The AP Chemistry test often asks them to
apply knowledge to a unique problem involving chemicals and changes
they have never seen.
High school learners are accustomed to teacher produced
calendars, which tell them exactly what they will be doing each day.
They expect rubrics, where teachers share how an assignment will be
graded when they are giving the assignment. They benefit from review
sessions in class, and help in figuring out "what they have
learned." Providing this structure helps them take their mind off
of assignments, due dates and grades and helps to keep their focus
on learning the material.
May 3rd, 2006