Campus Connection

  By Charlene Holler, Academic Specialist, Counseling and Testing Center

For students

People learn best when they know how things fit together. We need dates, names, battles, formulas, theories, etc., to lay a foundation of knowledge, but we need to do more than just memorize those facts and details. You may say that sometimes, based on your interest and background with the subject, memorizing works for you. But when last-minute cramming does not work, and you do not get the result that you want or need, it is time to rethink your study approach. I believe one change in your learning should be to look for relationships and connections between those facts and details. A non-academic example may help you better understand this strategy. What if I gave you a 500-piece puzzle to set, but told you I do not have the picture? Would that puzzle be impossible to set? No, but it would certainly be easier if you knew what the finished product looked like. When you memorize information without trying to see how those details fit together, you are paying too much attention to the “pieces” of information, and not enough to how those pieces support the understanding of a particular theory or concept. So prepare yourself to get a more complete picture of the chapters and of the subject. Get that bird’s eye view of a chapter by looking at the title, introduction, bold headings, visual aids, italicized words, summary and chapter questions or objectives to name a few. The detailed information in the lecture and the body of the text will make more sense if you can see how it fits into the mental outline you have visualized. This strategy is a must when studying for exams, because the “big picture” is how instructors will fashion their questions.