Planning for a successful school year can prove tricky for students. Countless back-to-back study sessions, piles of assignments and packed schedules all act as frequent struggles. Students may choose to construct a complicated study schedule they abide by or build hardly any plan whatsoever, shifting them into disorganization. Proficient students craft well-articulated notes, purchase a planner, prioritize homework into different categories and utilize effective study methods.
Buying a planner benefits students when organizing events. Not only will purchasing a planner help students identify their commitment weeks in advance, but it also provides an efficient way to plan study sessions. Students who own and use planners showcase a higher academic success rate because those students will not easily forget important dates.
Students may opt to categorize their assignments based on the time they will need to complete them. This process can reduce stress around their deadlines. For example, a student might encounter two assignments to accomplish: an essay to write and math homework to complete. To ease the workload, instead of focusing on the essay, the student would complete the math homework first. Completing the simpler assignments first allows the student to encounter an improved flow of what homework to complete. In other words, students succeed by prioritizing the shorter task first, then the longer homework.
Writing insightful notes can help students understand the material. For example, Cornell notes showcase an efficient note-taking method for students to organize various subjects. To set up their notes, students divide their papers into two columns. In the first column, the students write a question. In the second column, the student would write an answer responding to the question. Then, located at the bottom of the page, the student provides a brief summary discussing all they talked about. Writing down material helps the brain retain information, so efficient note-taking skills improve classroom performance.
“I make a whole lot of Quizzlets, which is really helpful for studying and retaining information. I jot down what I hear, and then I organize it after I’m done with what I’m hearing because it makes it easier to organize information. I find it really easy to go over them and then make Quizlets off those notes, which those Quizlets help me study,” magnet Junior Shaivee Shah said.
The Entrepreneur conducted a study about the brain’s limit when processing information, finding the brain’s ability to focus lasts from 10-52 minutes, depending on the individual. Long-lasting periods of cramming information will not help the brain retain information, as the focus time overexceeds its limit. Incorporating breaks between study sessions helps students remain focused, and techniques like the Pomodoro technique enhance students’ focus while not overloading their brains with information.
“I use it [the pomodoro method]for my class and myself to make myself focused on a task, so that I can get things done in an organized fashion. For instance, it forces you to focus on a task for 20 minutes, so if I’m grading papers, I will step away from my computer and my phone and set the timer for 20 minutes or 30 minutes and focus just on grading papers so I can get things done. Then, when the timer goes off, I give myself five minutes to look at my emails, check texts that came in, and then decide what to do next,” Advanced Placement (AP) Statistics and AP Research teacher Dr. Nataile Hise said.
Practicing long-term study memory remains crucial for exams. Last-minute cram sessions do not activate long-term memory in the brain, which remains crucial for scoring well. Briefly stated before, the brain can only retain a finite amount of information at once. When first studying, the brain starts as a sprout, weak and ineffective. Frequently “watering” the brain by training long-term memory allows it to sprout and grow stronger and later into a strong tree.
Using the methods of purchasing a planner, prioritizing school work into different categories, and taking efficient notes can help students remain academically successful throughout the school year and beyond into their adult life. Even after graduating from high school, adults still use the same strategies they used in high school. Though not identical to studying for exams, full-grown people find the same successful methods crucial in adulthood.