Purpose Statement
The purpose of the Study Pyramid is to provide students with
a method to ensure thoroughness in their study habits. The pyramidal structure
outlines four steps from the beginning through the end of the study process.
The function of the graphic organizer is to make organization overt for
students who benefit from a structured step-by-step approach to study.
Description of
Activity
The Study Pyramid is a graphic organizer representing four
sequential stages of the study process. Students who complete all the stages
have a better chance of demonstrating their knowledge accurately.
a. Time Planning: The first stage is Time Planning and includes climate
organization, or creating an environment conducive to study. The student uses
course syllabi and translates assignments onto short and long-term calendars.
Working with the Time Traveler's Guide and Project Planning Guide (see
"Time Management"), the student analyzes the steps integral to
completing assignments. The student determines how long it takes him or her to
read a page of text and employs this estimate to predict the amount of time
needed to complete reading assignments, including reviews. Working backwards
from the due dates, the student determines when the aspects of the tasks should
be started. Time planning requires the student to monitor his/her practice and
make appropriate adjustments. The study area is also organized to achieve the
greatest efficiency by removing distractions, providing good lighting, and
making sure all the needed materials are close at hand.
b. Reading Strategy and Notetaking: Next, the student chooses the best study
strategy to use to complete the assignment. Reading strategies or study skills
should be used at this point (i.e. SQ3R) in combination with notetaking methods
(i.e. Cornell). While reading the text and reviewing lecture notes, the student
highlights key words, major questions and issues, and creates lists of data
(terms, dates, names, procedures) to be remembered.
c. Test Preparation: The student reviews, highlights and consolidates essential
information from class and text notes onto summary sheets using the Cornell
method. The details on the right side of the sheets are covered so the student
can test him/herself by answering the questions or explaining the main ideas in
the left-hand column. Study is continued until the student does not need to
look back at the details to confirm his/her answer.
The student creates mnemonic devices at this stage for those items that still
need to be committed to memory. (See Cliffs’ Memory Power for Exams by Dr.
William Browning for instruction on how to make and use mnemonic devices.) The
student should devise test questions at this stage, and try to answer them as
fully as possible.
d. Test Taking: In order to demonstrate knowledge, the student must have a
certain testwiseness that involves concentration and calmness. (See
"Reflection" under "Wellness".) These are more readily
available if the first three steps are completed; however, self-talk strategies
can be used along with breathing exercises to deal with test anxiety if
necessary. Once in the test situation, the student may choose to write down
mnemonic devices on fresh scratch paper in order to remember essential key
words to include in the answer.
The student should read the test questions carefully, analyze the language in
phrases, and thoughtfully reflect upon his/her answers before answering to
improve the quality of responses. On objective type tests, the student reads
the sentence stem and brings to mind the best answer from his/her study, then
reads the possible answers, and chooses the one that most closely matches the
initial intuition, if solid.
Essays should be written out only after organizing ideas and information using
an outline or diagram form. This is where a judgment must be made about how
much of what to include to produce the best possible answer; the student should
avoid both the minimalist "get by" approach and the "pad the
answer" technique. The student can intelligently include fresh ideas,
perspectives and important information that may interest the reader by doing
his/her own thinking on the issue and by drawing out relevant connections.
The student must keep an alert eye on time throughout the test in order to be
able to reread the answer and make final changes.
Any student who continues to have difficulties at any stage listed in the Study
Pyramid should see a tutor, counselor or specialist.
Materials Needed
a. Study Pyramid graphic organizer
b. Study skills or strategies handouts (i.e., SQ3R, RAP, REAP, etc.)
c. Cornell Notetaking sheets, example summary sheets and procedure
d. Mnemonic device examples and directions (i.e., Memory Power for Exams)
e. (Optional) Resource books on strategies and study skills. See weblink.
Application
a. Time Management: Introduce time management sheets and
discuss time planning when distributing the course syllabus to students.
Include use of time management sheets as an essential part of the class
requirements.
b. Strategy: Introduce reading strategies when going over passages from the
text. Provide a handout on the chosen strategy, describe the steps of the
strategy, and role model how to use it by thinking aloud about your topic of
the day, demonstrating with an overhead. Require the students to try the
strategy while completing a class assignment.
A strategy is an organized approach to learning, and should augment a natural
thought process contributing to intellectual clarity. The purpose of teaching
strategies for most students is to answer questions; thus, strategies are to be
used with course content materials actively as a process rather than imposed
artificially.
The audience addressed by the Student Success Project consists mainly of
students considered "under prepared" who may lack learning strategies
for acquiring, elaborating and expressing information. More explicit
instruction in strategies may be needed, therefore, to teach students how to
learn in a systematic way and provide the structure that is often not readily
perceived. Strategies differ from basic skill instruction because they focus
upon problem-solving aspects of using knowledge rather than reviewing
particular skills. They involve students making decisions about the most
effective strategy to choose, consciously monitoring the problem solving
process, and engaging in self-correction. These modes of learning may be
individualized according to cognitive processing orientations or learning style
preferences and generalized to many other situations.
An important guideline to keep in mind with "under prepared" students
is that they may need to be taught the covert cognitive processes involved in
the explicit task defined with specific outcomes. For example, to understand a
passage in literature, a student may need to visualize or imagine, paraphrase,
self-question, and monitor comprehension. To learn new information in biology,
a student may need to relate new information to prior knowledge, analyze
problems, predict, generate hypotheses, prioritize, and make decisions. In most
classes, a student needs to identify patterns, organize information into
patterns, develop concepts, create analogies, evaluate lines of reasoning, and
monitor progress toward goals. An instructor may analyze what is required by a
lesson plan, and choose to incorporate the teaching of covert processes, the
mastery of which is assumed by overt procedures. (See weblink to
"Cognitive Map".)
c. Notetaking: Prepare an overhead of the Cornell notetaking model, and write
notes out as you lecture to the class. Demonstrate how to pull out essential
information from lecture and record it. Describe how summary sheets may be made
when reviewing class and text notes, and how to study by covering the details
side, as explained in c of "Description of Activity". Students with
auditory or visual-motor difficulties may need to tape record the lecture, use
shared notes, and fill in their notes later. (The Pauk and Kanar books included
in the bibliography explain the Cornell method.)
d. Memory: Teach students how to make mnemonic devices by showing them a few
examples from your course lecture and textbook. This involves teaching the
students how to pick out essential information, how to organize it using a mnemonic
device such as an acronym or a sentence type memory device, and how to create
an association using visualization or similar sounds to store and retrieve the
memory device. (See Memory Power for Exams.)
e. Test Questions: To help students become test savvy, role model how to
linguistically analyze test questions using demonstration statements or
questions in class. This can also be done with reading passages: how to take
the phrases apart to extract the most meaning? Students often have a difficult
time knowing how to analyze language and benefit tremendously by hearing the
instructor think aloud using the vocabulary, grammar and syntax of the sentence
as clues.
Students also benefit from hearing summary statements about what was conveyed
during class by the instructor as a way of making the lesson stick in memory
and as a role model for writing main, organizing ideas or thesis statements.
Related Student
Services
a. The Tutorial Center is the first place to direct students
who need more help than can be given during office hours or in class.
b. The Academic Skills Center offers modules that support study skill
development and test taking skills.
c. The Writing Lab assists with finding main and supporting ideas and
organization of practice essay test questions.
d. English Skills instructors are excellent resources for recommendations
regarding reading and study skills.
e. A student may be referred to DSPS to find out about testing for a learning
disability if the presenting problems are chronic. See "Referral
Guidelines" on the weblink to the DSPS website.
f. A student with severe test anxiety should be referred to the Mental Wellness
Counselors in SS 170.
g. A bibliography is provided through the weblink which lists several books on
learning strategies and study skills.
Links/Handouts
Study
Skills and Learning Strategies Bibliography
Guidelines
for Screening the Student with a Learning Disability
this
web page was created on 5/29/99 at 2:13:50 PM
and modified on 6/17/99 at 7:45:31 AM