What are Study Skills?
Study skills are the skills one needs to study and learn efficiently, these are an important set of transferable life skills. From note taking to developing vocabulary study skills are the essential tools needed to become a great learner. The creation of digital tools is making it easier and giving students more ability to create, share and learn information.
Challenges Related to Study Skills
Challenges related to study skills include organizing important information, locating key elements of a topic or subject matter, identifying main concepts and familiarity with vocabulary knowledge. Students that struggle with these challenges are at a huge disadvantage because they are not always able to demonstrate understanding of a concept based on assessments. Building these skills for students is rather easy if a teacher is consistent and thorough in teaching them throughout the course.
Solutions for Study Skills
Mind maps or concept mapping can assist students with their ability to organize new information or review a concept before a test. Many students struggle with being able to organize, collect, identify and learn key information for assessment. Study skills are an essential skill for students to learn as they get older and begin to pursue higher education. If a student is not able to demonstrate effective study skills then they will most likely not be able to demonstrate understanding, thus not promoting themselves to pursue higher education. Flash cards and study aides are helpful tool to continue to test ones learned knowledge of a topic or concept.
Concept mapping is a great tool to build study skills for students who have issues gathering ideas, identifying main topics and organizing their thoughts and opinions. A concept map is a type of graphic organizer used to help students organize and represent knowledge of a subject. Concept maps begin with a main idea (or concept) and then branch out to show how that main idea can be broken down into specific topics (Inspiration.com).
Research to Improve Study Skills
The vast majority of successful students achieve their success by developing and applying effective study habits (Study Skills for Student). Students who developed well rounded study skills can learn more efficiently and can process more information. Many students who are able to remember tons of key information do so without any study habits at all. Thus, struggling students can improve their academic success by following these study skill guides.
Students will gain more if each teacher takes the time to teach students every year or semester to review study habits or skills. Many teachers lose sight of this and assume students have already been taught successful study habits. Study skills instruction improves the academic outcomes of all students (Study Skills Strategies Module). Study skills can help students demonstrate understanding in several ways including reading, taking notes, writing, presentation, productivity and collaboration.
Tools to Build Study Skills
Studyblue–online flashcard app
Evernote–collaborative workspace that integrates with many other apps and websites.
Quizlet–online study aide that creates custom flashcards, quizzes and study guides
Links to Mind Mapping Apps–Mind maps help to organize thoughts and ideas about a concept
How to Build Note Taking Skills–online resource about teaching note taking skills.
Link to Study Skill Apps— various study skills apps recommended by the University of New England
Videos of Solutions for Study Skills
Creating flash cards with Studyblue
Merging Studyblue with Evernote to create collaboration between apps and classmates
Introduction video for Quizlet
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