With exams looming and the semester drawing to a close, some students, looking for additional study tips to prepare for exams, turned to the College of Humanities And Social Sciences Study Skills workshop.

Dawn Henderson, a graduate student in psychology and academic advisor for the Academic Support Center, presented the workshop, held Tuesday.

The workshop focused more on long term or “deep” learning to prepare for exams, rather than short-term memorization or “shallow” learning. The workshop stressed that organized, repetitive learning is more helpful in the long run, because truly understanding concepts makes then easier to remember.

Henderson introduced the Teach-Reteach method as a general technique of studying for most types of courses. In the method, students work in groups, pooling their resources and information gathered from class lectures and discussions. One student teaches the others so that everyone understands the concept and then the information is spoken back to them.

When working in groups there are both negative and positive effects. More information can be pooled when working in a group and there is less of a chance that something will be left out. Also, talking and discussing concepts reinforces them much better in our minds rather than reading them to ourselves, according to Henderson.

Some of the negative effects can be simple, such as not focusing or being able to stay on task. Henderson said the environment groups choose to meet can cause this or simple conversation that leads the group off track. Also in many situations one person may end up being the most involved turning a study session into a Teach, rather than Teach-Reteach-oriented study group.

“In my opinion there are more pros than cons to group study,” Henderson said.

 In addition to the Teach-Reteach method, Henderson also covered some other strategies that work studying alone or in a group. Guessing games like flash cards are a good way to study, using fill in the blank to make you recall an answer.

Concept maps are visual charts or graphs used to link concepts and facts together. Using concept maps, you can follow the process used to get to a specific conclusion. This works well with math problems and scientific processes as well as literature and historically based facts.

“Recently, I’ve started using more elaborate visual aides to help me study,” Stephen McDonough, graduate student in psychology, said.

The last strategy that was covered was a process called chunking. Work or study material is broken down into tasks or section and then divided amongst a group. This can be a good way to knock out a large reading section, using the Teach-Reteach method to relay information on each section. Although this strategy is more group designed it can be used when studying alone to better organize your time and make workloads seem less daunting.

Henderson shared some of her experiences about studying for exams and was very supportive of group study.

“In grad school we partnered with people and that’s how we learned,” Henderson said.

These are not the only methods of study and some students use what has worked through experience.

“I usually read over the material and email the teacher about concepts I don’t get,” Ian Calloway, senior in creative writing, said.

Calloway said that he uses different types of studying for different types of courses.

“For science type stuff I focus more on major points, and for literature it’s more about the themes,” Calloway said.

Tyler Worrell , junior in film studies, said that working in a quiet area is what works best for him.

“I use note cards and go to a secluded area, usually the library,” Worrell said. “For math, I use repetition and do a lot of practice problems.”