Study boost for seniors

Some suggestions:

Work on time management and plan out your revision and assessments

Make a dedicated time each week to work on a major work

Use the Syllabus to make study notes

Check your study notes against a study guide

Draft and redraft you assessment

Engage with Marking criterias against your assessment draft

Send a teacher an email of a draft assessment for feedback on a draft

Review past HSC papers

Review NESA exam workbooks

Complete textbook chapter revision questions

Use the library for additional material for gaps in your learning

Use the library for additional material for provide evidence for your answers  – Statistics, Quotes

Use the library to view CSSA Trial papers to practice

Predict questions by switching verbs and write a response under timed exam conditions

Some suggestions:

Make a mind map of extended response planning

Make palm cards of key words and their definitions on the other side

Peer mark a draft assessment

Work through NESA multiple choice questions

Practice an oral presentation with a peer and ask for feedback

Advantages of working with a study group

1. It gives you a chance to ask questions about things you don’t understand rather than having to stop work as you don’t know how to go any further.
2. It can save you time when a number of minds join together to try and understand a difficult concept rather than struggling with it yourself.
3. Other people have different methods of approaching a problem, which you can learn from.
4. You can pick up tips on study skills and techniques and strategies and learn from what other people do.
5. You will strengthen your teamwork skills, which will be valuable for later life.
6. By meeting together after school and working for an hour or so in a library many students find that they complete much more work than if they had gone straight home.
7. Explaining something to someone else is also a great way to ensure that you fully understand the topic.
8. Brainstorming in a group at the start of an assignment ignites lots of ideas due to the interaction and piggybacking of ideas that occurs. Students can fast track the initial development of their ideas then go their separate ways to develop them.
9. Encouraging and motivating each other is an added benefit from meeting in a group. Students can set work targets together of what each of them will try and achieve when they get home

To avoid problems that may arise from working with a study group

1. Try and select students who have similar goals to you and will be willing to share and do the work.
2. Don’t make the group too large (the bigger the group the more side-tracked discussions and distractions).
3. At the first meeting discuss the group’s expectations and perhaps any guidelines that you feel should be in place.
4. Have an action plan for each meeting: what do you want to achieve in the allocated time?
5. Perhaps have a different student each meeting whose job it is to keep the group on track and work through the action list of what you want to achieve.
6. Be sure you do independent work yourself before coming to the group so that you have something to contribute.
7. Only use a study group for appropriate types of work, if it is the sort of work you’d be better off doing quietly yourself then don’t do this in a group situation.
8. If things are not going the way you’d like them to in the group, try and raise your concerns with the group otherwise you may need to tell the group you need to go and do the work by yourself.