You must include the assignment submitted in HLTH 101 regarding your Learning Style Self Assessment

STEP 1: EVALUATE YOUR STUDY HABITS

1. Describe your current methods of study. How do you study for each class?  

First, I portion out my time dependent on what I need to study for based on what is coming up in the next 24 hours, day, 3 days, and then week. Example: if today is Sunday and I have a homework assignment due monday in chemistry, a quiz Tuesday in sociology, and a test in chemistry on Thursday, I would portion my time around my work schedule to make sure I have enough time to get my homework done a few days before the due date, study for my sociology quiz for a few hours each day until, and make sure to review my chemistry homework and notes for my test a little bit every day, alongside doing test practice questions. To ensure I have account of all of the things I need to study beside their respective due dates, I log in my planner specific hours I plan on sitting down to study and when I finish that, I go back to my planner and cross it off (nothing makes me happier than crossing things off lists), so by the end of the week my planner is full of crossed off tasks (seeing this encourages me to recreate that for the next week by continuing to plan, complete, and cross out).

To specifically study courses, I look at the course material and determine the most effective way to study from that, which usually looks like

• Sociology: quizlet for definition, review chapter and zoom ppt. notes, and do practice quizzes on connect
• English: Prof. Kunkel creates a checklist for us at the beginning of the week, and I go down the list and complete everything on the checklist. If I am unsure of a specific topic (ex; ethos, pathos, logos) I’ll review her slides, or watch youtube videos further explaining the topic
• Chemistry Lab: I will look over the weeks lab, read what we are doing, do the prelab assignment, take notes during the lab, and do the postlab with my notes in hand ensuring I have everything I recorded during the lab into my postlab.
• Chemistry Lecture: I take notes of the chapter slides and highlight key terms, do practice problems, watch youtube videos for better understanding of things I am not sure about, and try to do the homework without help from my notes the first time. 
• Statistics: I take notes during the chapter work, do practice problems, go back to youtube or ask a friend for help with specific things, do homework and extra problems for this if I really need help with something
• Intro to Health: honestly, I really don’t study for this class, however if I needed to I would just look over the notes I took during zoom. 

1. What specific techniques do you use in class? 

During my classes I have to be online/ on campus for, I make sure to have everything I need for class right infront of me so I don’t have to go hunt for things and step away (taking away valuable class time), put my phone out of reach so I don’t get distracted (currently doing this assignment and my phone is in another room because I kept getting distracted), and really pay attention and ask questions when I need clarification. I always take diligent notes to look back on, and when Prof. Lopez holds his sociology zooms I will have the copies of the slides up on my ipad to take notes/highlight overtop of.

1. What specific techniques do you use outside of class? 

Outside of class first and foremost I make sure I am in a comfortable, non-distracting environment, which usually means giving my family and friends a “hey, I really need to do my work so heads up if I’m not replying to something, that’s why” message. I also make sure I’m comfortable, not mentally distracted by something (work stress, money stress, etc.) and have food and water nearby. I don’t study in my bed so I always go somewhere else, either a coffee shop (Cure in Smithfield is awesome), a beach if it’s nice enough out, or the game room where it’s quiet in my house. If during my studying I realize I really don’t understand something, I’ll either phone a friend I know is good at that specific subject, or watch youtube/ Khan Academy to get a better grasp on a topic. I also use quizlet to make notecards and do the test/matching games to check my proficiency. It’s especially fun when the whole class uses a specific quizlet because I try to do the matching game the quickets (very competitive!). The biggest thing for me is just reviewing my notes and doing practice problems. 

2. Identify one class in which you are doing well (not HLTH 101).   What study methods work best and why?

Currently, I have all A’s, so I don’t have a class I’m not doing well in, so I’ll talk about my hardest class – Statistics. I was in tears over statistics the other week, as I figured there was no way on God’s green earth that I was going to understand Standard Deviation before my test. First, I texted one of my friends that’s good at it and asked them to explain it a little to me. After that (which helped a little) I was doing practice problems to try to get better at it, which I ended up doing. I watched a couple youtube videos because I know specific teachers teach it specific ways and sometimes other teachers have their own way that works just as well, and that really helped me a lot. I would do a couple of problems, work on a completely different subject, come back and do a couple more problems, and repeat the cycle. Right before my test I did the test review, and when it was time for my test I started the recording (it was with ProctorU), had a few sheets of scrap paper that I did a full brain dump of (jotted down formulas, reminders, defintions) and then completed my test. A big thing for me when I’m taking a test is I talk to myself and basically hype myself up, for some reason it helps a lot (well, it did help until my proctor told me I could not talk during it). Amazingly, I got an 88 on my test and my current overall statistics grade sits at a 96. 

STEP 2: IDENTIFY AND APPLY NEW LEARNING TECHNIQUES

• Identify one class where you are experiencing challenges and address the following questions.  

Example class: Statistics. 

Planning: I typically plan out my time with what subject needs to be reviewed and how I plan on doing that (for statistics I review notes, watch videos for different perspectives to solve things, and do practice problems). I find it better for me to do long hauls of studying, so I tend to section out a few hours of my day to sit down and get into the thick of things. If I am struggling with a certain concept (standard deviation), I’ll study the material for a while, switch to a different subject, then return to that material to practice and test my understanding.

Monitoring: I check to make sure I am being systematic in my studying of everything that will be touched on in the exam by making lists of the concepts, working out practice problems for each, and then crossing out the concept from my list once I have mastered it. I also get in touch with friends that know the subject and can help me. Every now and then, I will have absolutely zero motivation to study – that’s when I sit and think about how this time last year I was crawling face down in freezing rain in Army boot camp so that I would be able to pay for college, and think about all of the stuff I put myself through for the betterment of myself through education, and find motivation from that. Especially since during boot camp when things were hard, I would get motivation to drive on by thinking about how I was doing that so I could get out and into college. If I can get over a 12-mile ruck march after only sleeping 8 hours total in 4 days, I can get over standard deviation. To clarify confusions, I resort to my notes and youtube videos to help me.

Evaluating: Practice problems, practice problems, and then more practice problems! Those saved me. Also, make sure to go over the test review because it’s most likely formatted the exact same way as the test will be (it was!). Note for next time, try to not talk out loud during studying because you will not be able to on the test. Lastly, just make sure you aren’t making careless mistakes – double check things like decimal position, simple addition, ensure you are using the correct formulas and take your time. 

Image retrieved from: https://cft.vanderbilt.edu/2013/01/thinking-about-metacognition/

• Review at least 5 academic tips/resources listed here: https://www.odu.edu/success/academic/tips What is one new technique you could try in class to help you better understand the material?

One new technique I could try is predicting concepts based on background knowledge. I love knowing what people are talking about before I am specifically told about things, so looking over the chapter/days notes before getting into the thick of the material help me relate things in my brain with “ok so this is what this specific thing was talking about, and we are about to go deeper into it”. An example would be how when I have to present a slideshow to my commander (I’m in the Army reserve), in the first couple of slides I will include a topics slide, so that my audience knows exactly what I am going to be talking about so when I do talk about something specific, they already knew I was going to address it. With this while I’m looking over the stuff I can already have that background knowledge and determine the questions (if any) that I want to ask to ensure my full understanding. 

• What is one new technique you could try outside of class to help you better understand the material?

To review the material immediately (or as soon as possible) after class. Usually, when I get done taking notes for my asynchronous classes or leave a zoom call, I will either go to sleep (that 8 a.m. zoom for sociology is painful) or switch to a completely different subject and do some work for that class, instead of reviewing the material for the class I just covered. The study cycle informed me to read over my notes from the material I just covered to ensure I have proper and full understanding of whatever it was I just went over. Also, to help with my studying, immediately after a taking notes/zoom, I should make a summary of everything I just learned, so that when I am looking back in my notes I can look for said summary to show me what a specific concept was covered on what day/chapter of the course. After my next sociology class, I will try that and see if it helps!