Study Skills are an integral part of creating lifelong learners. Students who quiz or test or will, sometime in their future, need to learn study skills. As far as we know, that pretty much includes everyone.

Learning study skills builds resiliency, a growth mindset, better note-takers, students who take on more responsibility for their learning - ownership, critical thinking skills, and so much more.

In this episode, we'll discuss study skills and their benefits, techniques and strategies for implementation, and so much more. Tune in for inspiration on this important topic.

Topic Discussed

• Study Skills
• What are Study Skills
• Reasons for Learning Study Skills
• Strategies and Techniques of Teaching Study Skills
• Strategies to Enhance Memorization and Recall

Resources

"Special Needs in the General Classroom - Strategies that Make it Work" by Susan Gingras Fitzell

"Umm... Studying? What's That?: Learning Strategies for the Overwhelmed and Confused College and High School Student" by Shivahn Fitzell and Susan Gingras Fitzell

Time Management for Students Blog Post

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Grab your holiday activities today!

The holidays will be on the minds of students in November and December so embrace this season within your content areas. You don't have to pause academic practice - you can bring the joy of the season into your curriculum with these tried and true activities from The Colorado Classroom. https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/store/the-colorado-classroom/category-06-holidays-nov-amp-dec-190806

A Guide to Study Skills - Strategies, Techniques, and Insights into Teaching Study Skills

[00:00:20] Ellie: Welcome to another exciting Teaching Toolbox podcast episode. I am one of your hosts, Ellie, and I'm here with Brittany.

[00:00:30] Ellie: Together we've spent over five decades in the world of education shaping the minds of countless students. Today we're diving deep into a topic at the core of what we do as teachers, teaching study skills.

[00:01:00] Ellie: We'll reveal specific strategies, techniques, and insights you can use to supercharge your teaching toolkit. Let's get started.

P1 - What are Study Skills?

[00:01:14] Brittany: So, I'm gonna be honest here. I went out of college and

[00:01:26] Ellie: Oh boy.

[00:01:39] Ellie: Mm-Hmm,

[00:01:46] Brittany: It was like A-P-S-A-T book or a, you know, a Just a prep book where you picked up a booklet and it had tons of problems in it. I didn't realize that there was so much more to study skills at that time.

[00:02:02] Brittany: And so it took quite a few years for me to realize how intricate and deep study skills can be for students.

[00:02:35] Ellie: But I was pretty lucky in the first couple years of my teaching career. Our team of fifth grade teachers at the time put together a big study skills packet for our students that had all kinds of different strategies in there. So fairly early on in my teaching career, I was lucky to have that benefit and, and have other people that were also focusing on that.

[00:02:55] Ellie: Yeah. So what exactly are study skills then, if it's not just going through practice problems?

[00:03:05] Ellie: I think quizzing other people like taking your own information that you're supposed to be studying but asking other people about it or telling other people about it, even though it might not seem like a study skill, it's definitely studying 'cause you're teaching it or asking other people about it

[00:03:23] Brittany: Just reviewing.

[00:03:24] Brittany: Yeah,

[00:03:26] Brittany: over and over and over.

[00:03:30] Brittany: I love,

[00:03:34] Brittany: big one.

[00:03:37] Brittany: Mnemonics.

[00:03:48] Brittany: Yep.

[00:03:53] Brittany: Breaking things into timelines and adjusting things based on time.

[00:04:10] Brittany: Time can be very but I think it really, you know, it's the reality of life and so we get

[00:04:16] Brittany: used to it.

[00:04:19] Ellie: All right, so there are so many strategies and we're gonna talk about very specific examples of some of these,

P2 - Why do we want to use study skills?

[00:04:31] Brittany: Well, it definitely improves academic performance. You're gonna get higher scores from your students, which may in help you as a teacher if you're in that kind of district.

[00:04:44] Brittany: But it's also gonna help the students in a lot of different ways. So, teaching study skills helps students manage their time, helps them take organized notes.

[00:05:00] Brittany: different strategies for active learning. It helps them practice self-assessment so that they're better prepared for exams when those come around, I think they become efficient and effective learners leading to improved grades a deeper understanding of the subject matter. So this. This success of in their study boosts their confidence because overall they're doing as a

[00:05:35] Brittany: student

[00:05:36] Brittany: and they get a more positive attitude towards learning. So, so overall it's going to them with time management. It's going to make them a more active learner. It's gonna help them with note taking and organization with critical thinking skills, with their own test preparation and self-assessment. It can reduce stress and anxiety. It can give them and consistency and just better skills within themselves for responsibility. And then it can give them some self-assessment and feedback when that, when those test scores come back in.

[00:06:50] Ellie: And that gets them on the path of continuous self-improvement, always being able to learn, enabling them to adapt to new challenges. New opportunities long after they leave your classroom and potentially when they're entering the, the job force, plays a, a vital role in shaping individuals into lifelong learners for a few reasons.

P3 - Strategies for Teaching Study Skills

[00:07:50] Brittany: I like to teach students how to break down a question or a problem like circling the underlining the words after the verb, what the verb is asking you to do,

[00:08:05] Brittany: Boxing, any words that are important to the question so that you're really focusing in on what you're being asked to do, because it, becomes critical for a student as they get older and older to know the difference between When a question asks you to examine versus identify.

[00:08:42] Ellie: Mm-Hmm.

[00:08:44] Brittany: So those kind of key words, Can really just change the question. And so it's important for kids to see those words and know what they're dealing with.

[00:09:16] Ellie: And although this book is entitled Special Needs there are strategies and things in here that apply to every single student in every classroom. And there's a wonderful chapter that is called Strategies to Enhance Memorization and Recall. So there are a bunch of ideas in here, and I'll just mention a few of them.

[00:09:57] Ellie: They can draw some little pictures to help generate a connection in their, in their mind to help it make it more memorable. And they can make other little notes in there. And that just gives the information a, a visual that they can remember, that they can connect with. And then if they're kind of testing themselves, they could take that mind map and compare it to the information that was in the book, or the information that was in the notes, and see what did they get, what did they remember, and then maybe what did they miss? And they could add that to their mind map and then use that to study. According to the book and other research, when students draw, it does help them to learn. A quick practice you could use in the classroom.

[00:10:52] Ellie: So when they go ahead and use it to study for a test, it's something that they're, they're used to doing. So, so mind mapping and, and incorporating some drawings is one great idea that's in there.

[00:11:16] Brittany: that a lot of are asking for and putting back in place the old. The old school memorization that maybe we used to do when we were in school of Timestables. And,

[00:11:42] Brittany: and those . ,

[00:11:55] Ellie: No

[00:11:57] Ellie: And there is something,

[00:11:58] Brittany: If

[00:11:59] Brittany: having to hunt for the basic answers,

[00:12:03] Brittany: you can't build Uh, bigger skills

[00:12:08] Brittany: memorization is starting to come back

[00:12:11] Brittany: And so that's, it's kind of off topic a little bit, but yet sort of related.

[00:12:16] Ellie: Because honestly, it is a brain exercise.

[00:12:21] Ellie: I mean, there's something to be said in the, like getting off topic about the multiplication tables and you know, thinking, okay, we want them to understand the strategies. We want them to understand how they got there. Absolutely. But then they're, they do need to use their brain for that type of exercise because it makes the brain stronger.

[00:12:41] Brittany: grow and stretch and

[00:12:43] Ellie: right.

[00:12:58] Ellie: Mm-Hmm.

[00:13:11] Ellie: But if you wanted to remember them in the order, you could probably come up with a different device,

[00:13:18] Ellie: maybe a sentence or something that would help you remember the order

[00:13:23] Ellie: the names. Sorry, go ahead,

[00:13:34] Ellie: I did not, I found that in the book that I referenced. Yeah,

[00:13:42] Brittany: Oh,

[00:13:53] Brittany: Okay, but now there's a Southern Ocean, so we've gotta add an an S word

[00:13:58] Ellie: the book was written in 2005, so

[00:14:01] Ellie: it is a little bit older. Yeah. So we could make up something different

[00:14:05] Brittany: Surely, I am a person." There we

[00:14:09] Brittany: And then we have acrostics, like, "Please excuse my dear Aunt Sally," for the order operations where you parentheses, exponents, multiplication division together,

[00:14:21] Brittany: addition subtraction together.

[00:14:28] Brittany: yes.

[00:14:31] Brittany: Students can also come up with these on own. And know, if wanna learn the digits of pie,

[00:14:39] Brittany: You know. They go 3.1 4 1 5 9. You can do a three letter word, then a one letter word, then a four

[00:14:48] Ellie: Okay.

[00:14:50] Brittany: you could

[00:14:53] Brittany: So

[00:15:03] Ellie: Mm-Hmm.

[00:15:06] Ellie: Right. Excellent. All right. Another important thing to help us in study is the use of color. In the book I mentioned, she quotes Brain-based learning book, in which Eric Jensen stated that we remember colors first and content next. So colors affect us on both a physiological and psychological level according to that research.

[00:15:54] Ellie: So using color in the notes and in learning in general, is very, very beneficial. It can potentially speed up the study time, because if they're associating something with a color and they, they remember it that much more quickly, it speeds up the amount of time they have to spend studying or shortens up the amount of time they have to spend studying because they've got it.

[00:16:33] Ellie: Without the color, the phone is less engaging and then the desire to stay on the phone will likely go down. So color is so powerful.

[00:16:44] Ellie: Mm-Hmm.

[00:16:48] Ellie: I'm sure.

[00:17:44] Ellie: Awesome. Most of these study skills are things that don't require technology, but these days we do have more things that, you know, we can incorporate technology. So do you have any specific ideas or things that you liked that might be helpful for study skills that use technology.

[00:18:03] Ellie: Hmm

[00:18:06] Brittany: You just enter

[00:18:07] Brittany: your terms and then your definitions. And you can practice your flashcards over and over and you can enter pictures and that sort of thing as well. My daughter uses Quizlet endlessly. You can make one Quizlet and you can share it out among a class.

[00:18:28] Brittany: She often does that, just to be nice to her classmates.

[00:18:31] Ellie: That's awesome.

[00:18:44] Ellie: Oh my

[00:18:45] Brittany: Yeah.

[00:18:58] Ellie: That's nice. That comment about doing it in the car as you're going around town leads us pretty nicely into some ideas about time management and organization with their study skills. That's something that is great to focus on when you're talking about study skills because sometimes students don't really understand how much time they need or when they can study or what they should work on first.

[00:19:23] Ellie: So if I could share, for quite a few years, I used to spend time teaching students how to plan when to do their homework and study as part of our study skills, because for quite a few years I would have students come in and say, well, I couldn't, I couldn't get my homework done, or I couldn't study because I had this event, or I had to go to my brother's soccer practice, or my sister had a violin lesson, or whatever the case was, or my mom took me to the store.

[00:20:11] Ellie: And if they had so many things on the schedule, we would talk about the idea of taking the homework in the car. Doing things in the car, maybe, you know, quizzing your parents or quizzing your brother or sister when you're in the car. And if it was a sibling's activity, they'd take the homework along and they could work on it while their sibling was doing whatever it was, instead of waiting until everything was done to go home and start working on the homework and stuff like that.

[00:20:54] Ellie: They really appreciated that. 'cause they never really thought about about doing that.

[00:21:02] Ellie: Mm-Hmm.

[00:21:08] Ellie: Oh.

[00:21:14] Ellie: mm-Hmm.

[00:21:38] Brittany: And so they could go quickly down their planner and see, okay, I need to tackle the red things first I, and then I need to tackle the yellow things and so forth. But doing things in the car is how my son... survived lementary survived elementary and middle school

[00:22:00] Ellie: Hmm.

[00:22:07] Brittany: dropping her off at daycare and then getting all the way up to where our school was,

[00:22:12] Brittany: And so,

[00:22:17] Brittany: math practice, in the car, everything

[00:22:26] Brittany: you know, next to me, um, on the left hand side of the car taped to the dashboard.

[00:22:35] Brittany: or math practice or history terms, and he would have to Recite things to

[00:22:44] Ellie: Honestly, that's how like my kids learned their multiplication facts because that's what we would do as we would drive, we would do the multiplication facts and things like that. And I remember quizzing them on spelling too.

[00:22:54] Brittany: Yep.

[00:23:03] Ellie: It empowers them to take ownership of their education by helping them set goals, help helping them seek, learn to seek out resources and monitor their own progress. And, the sense of self, self-regulation instills a sense of responsibility and independence, which are some fundamental attributes of lifelong learners who actively seek out knowledge and growth opportunities throughout their lives.

[00:23:32] Brittany: I took this formative assessment course as part of it, we learned better to instill some self-assessment into the classroom.

[00:24:11] Ellie: Okay.

[00:24:27] Brittany: , and the kids will write down in each column. The topic that they're covering, so that in the first column they would write adding fractions, and the second column they would write subtracting fractions and so on. so then as they're learning how to add fractions, start coloring in that column they start to feel more and more comfortable with. the procedure and how to do it.

[00:25:03] Brittany: And so by the time they've achieved mastery of the whole sheet, then they should be ready to test.

[00:25:12] Brittany: And so testing kind of. Evolved more into being in their hands rather than on a set date.

[00:25:20] Brittany: But that's how we self-assessment and, stuff. It

[00:25:28] Ellie: Ooh, that's awesome.

[00:25:50] Ellie: And that adaptability is crucial in a world where this information is constantly evolving as it allows individuals to tackle new topics with confidence and curiosity.

[00:26:10] Ellie: Hmm mm.

[00:26:44] Ellie: Excellent. Yeah. We've got so many benefits of learning the study skills,

[00:27:11] Ellie: And even though it is labeled as high school and college. There are definitely ideas in there that would be great for middle schoolers as well, so we'll link both of those books up in the show notes.

[00:27:54] Ellie: And so there you have it. We have explored the power of teaching study skills, and it's safe to say that this is more than just another teaching technique. It's the cornerstone of building brilliant self-sufficient minds. Teaching study skills encourages independence and responsibility, as we talked about.

[00:28:37] Ellie: As you take these insights and strategies back to your classroom, remember you're not just teaching subjects. You're guiding your students on a lifelong journey of discovery and personal growth. By empowering them with the tools to learn effectively and independently, you're providing them with a gift that will serve them well beyond the walls of your classroom.

[00:29:10] Ellie: And remember to check out the show notes for everything mentioned in this episode. See you next time.