Filed under: tips | Tags: concept maps, definitions, exams, sleep, The Big Picture
Students here are starting to think about final exams. You’ll get no lectures from me about how the time to think about finals is all semester. In my mind, in the ideal world you work your butt off for all the quizzes and midterms, and then the final is cake.
That’s no consolation for those of you who don’t live in my pedagogical fantasy world, so here’s concrete advice for your concrete world.
- Party. Get three or four of your classmates together. Order a couple of pizzas. Resolve to talk about nothing but science, and then do that: talk about nothing but science. Quiz each other. Predict exam questions. Find a blaockboard and draw a few concept maps. There’s no substitute for studying in a group, partly because you keep each other awake and engaged, and partly because the only way to see the gaps in your knowledge is to have other people point them out.
- Think big-picture. The final exam is the prof’s opportunity to pull some threads together, to explore how entire textbook chapters relate to each other. Think about some of these big-picture issues. A good way to start your thinking: try to figure out why you were required to learn what you learned. How did learning about polar covalent bonds help you later to understand protein structure? How does understanding protein structure help you understand Mendelian genetics? And why bother understanding Mendelian genetics, anyway? Sometimes the real answer is, “Because it fills out the semester,” but usually it’s something like, “Because it’s part of understanding some other big thing.” Like inheritance patterns of human genetic diseases.
- Study sentences, not definitions. The time for definitions is over. It’s now time for you to which contexts call for which words and phrases. (Even if you’re shaky on the definitions, learning how scientists actually use the words will help you shore up the definitions.) Read textbook chapters out loud, and pay attention to how the boldfaced words are used. Look for fine distinctions among related terms, and try to internalize them. Practice using the terms casually in conversation.
- Teach. During your pizza party, take turns teaching key concepts in detail and at length. Do it as an imitate-the-prof contest, play Keyword Bingo, whatever. Nothing is as good at moving information into long-term memory as forming sentences and then physically saying those sentences.
- Sleep. No all-nighters. Questions on final exams are frequently big synthesis questions, so the most important thing is to keep your mind sharp. A good night’s sleep does that.
Filed under: tips | Tags: concept maps, conceptual superstructure, tricks, words words words
Bio students learn a lot of definitions. It’s important and it makes sense: if you want to live in France, it makes sense to know what une baguette is, and if you want to live in Scienceland, you should know what Caenorhabditis elegans is. That does not mean, however, that students should be studying definitions as such.
Think about how scientists learn. Scientists don’t learn new areas of science by studying vocab flashcards. They just see words used in context — in articles, in lectures — and by seeing how they’re used they learn how to use them. Note that I didn’t just write: they learn what those words mean. They learn how to use the words: in what situations, and to get what ideas across.
It might be a subtle difference, but it’s useful. Scientific language is just language, and no one really uses language as simply a set of words and their meanings. Try this: define please, as in , “Please pass the ketchup.” Even if you come up with a good definition, does it convey the role that the word please plays in your daily life?
Now define hydrophobicity. A glossary or dictionary might give you something like, “the property of being water-repellent; tending to repel and not absorb water.” Okay, that definition is correct. It doesn’t, however, tell you much about what kinds of things are hydrophobic, what makes them hydrophobic, or what any of the biochemical consequences are of some molecule being hydrophobic.
A better way of understanding the word would bring up its connections to some other terms — maybe nonpolar, lipid, micelle — and some typical contexts in which the word is useful — like in explaining the importance of some transmembrane transport proteins, describing how protein folding happens, and explaining how surfactants work. Flashcards won’t do any of that. Definitions in isolation don’t help you follow the connections among concepts, and they don’t help you form associations as memory aids.
So what should you do? My favorite trick is to make concept maps. I’ll write more about concept maps in future posts, but here’s the gist:
- Write your concept terms on a piece of paper or (better, especially if you’re studying in a group) a chalkboard. Don’t write in columns and rows; spread them out at random.
- Take one pair of terms and draw an arrow from one term to the other.
- Label that arrow so that the terms and your label-words form a sentence. Example: if your arrow points from nonpolar to hydrophobic, the label should read: …molecules are…. The relationship thus reads: Nonpolar molecules are hydrophobic.
- Draw as many of these labeled arrows as make sense. Not all term-pairs will have sensical relationships, but many, many will.
As you map out the key concepts in a textbook section, you’ll find that you’re clarifying your understanding not only of each concept, but also of how it all fits together.
