#learningguide

Choose a moderate amount of material or a chapter to begin

Get a grasp of how the material is organized: Scan the section for titles, headings, sub-headings, and topic sentences to get its general idea; pay attention to graphs, charts, and diagrams

If there is a summary at the end of a chapter, read it.

Check the beginning and the end for leading questions and exercises

Read first for what you do understand, and to determine difficulty.

Mark what you do not understand to review later

As you read, practice the look-away method:

Periodically look away from the text and ask yourself a stimulus question relating to the text

Phrase the question positively!

Respond, or restate, in your own words

Make connections and associations, but don't use this exercise to memorize--but rather understand

Look up words Look up words whose meanings are important to your understanding of the material, but you cannot discern from the context.

Read to the end Do not get discouraged and stop reading. Ideas can become clearer the more you read. When you finish reading, review to see what you have learned, and reread those ideas that are not clear.

Organize your notes by connecting ideas you choose into an outline or concept map. Pay attention to relationships between ideas.

Do not confine yourself to words! Use representations, graphics, pictures, colors, even movement to visualize and connect ideas. Use whatever techniques work to help you understand

At this point, if you do not understand your reading, do not panic! Set it aside, and read it again the next day. If necessary, repeat. This allows your brain to process the material, even while you sleep. This is referred to as distributed reading.

Re-read the section you have chosen with the framework (outline or concept map) you have constructed in mind Separate out what you do understand from what you do not.

If the reading is still a challenge, consult with either your teacher, academic counselors, or reading specialists.

Week 1! You can tell from the returning students who have kids - we are the ones who can't wait to be back. :D

Week 1 lectures usually consist of general information, and give a general idea on what each unit requires in terms of workload, attendance, and assignments. At WSU you will also hear the lecturers talk a fair bit about PASS (Peer Assisted Study Sessions), which are excellent free study groups lead by fellow students. More on PASS in a later post, but for now I recommend noting when the sessions are held for your units as they are proven to provide better grades for attending students.

By now you should have the following sorted:

Timetable including a copy handy (mine is set as a laptop wallpaper)

Learning guides for each unit checked and read

Weekly plan for week 1 including tasks due

Semester plan filled out with deadlines

Working towards a great result in final exams starts this week. No joke. Have you checked the learning guide (yeah that thing I keep banging on about) for unit assessment items? If the exam is 40% or 50% of the final grade, you have a chance of passing the unit before exams kick off by really focusing on assignments; walking to an exam with a pass already secured is a great feeling and takes a lot of stress out of the situation. Do your preparation well, you have 14 weeks to ace this.

Remember to prep for week 2 at the end of this week. Think back on week 1, what needs to change, what worked well, which deadlines are coming. Factor all these in, and allocate a time for each task in your weekly schedule.

What am I doing this week?

Attending all lectures with learning guides studied and checked for questions

Completing all the required WHS quizzes and other tasks scheduled for week 1

Testing how the weekly schedule works and what needs fine tuning

Creating a schedule for week 2 on the weekend

Lets try to memorize these characters.

Happy learning! 

がんばりましょう！

This is my first post for my guide on learning kanji.