It’s that time of the year when parents eagerly purchase a multitude of revision guides, often topping the book charts. However, the reality is that this acquisition can be optimistic yet lacking in the specific support and guidance necessary for effective use.
Students tend to be overly confident in their knowledge and rely on less effective strategies, such as mere reading and re-reading. To enhance their approach to using revision guides, consider these accessible tips:
- Share Successful Strategies: Encourage students to employ effective strategies like quizzing themselves, self-testing, writing about the content, self-explaining, and spaced repetition.
- Prepare with Pen and Paper: Emphasize the importance of writing as opposed to just reading. Writing aids in organizing information meaningfully, generating ideas, summarizing, and fostering deeper thinking.
- Eliminate Overconfidence: Have students assess their confidence/knowledge for each topic on the guide’s content page, ranking them and identifying trickier areas for focused revision.
- Explain Themselves: Ask students to explain both their highest-ranking and lowest-ranking topics to provide insight into their strengths and weaknesses.
- Tackle 20-Minute Sessions: Apply the ‘Pareto Principle’ by encouraging students to break down their revision into manageable 20-minute sessions, fitting approximately 4 pages of the guide.
- ‘Just a Minute’: After a revision guide session, challenge students to close the guide and either verbally explain a topic in ‘Just a Minute’ style or quickly map it out on paper.
- Focused Flashcards: For confident topics, suggest creating flashcards or formulating their own questions. After some time, prompt them to test themselves on the flashcards.
- Evaluate Usage: After each revision session, have students articulate areas where they still struggle or areas where they are now more confident, promoting reflection and seeking further help.
- Create Your Own Questions: If familiar with the guide’s material, encourage students to generate exam-style questions by scanning the contents page, drafting answers, and then revisiting the guide.
- Tell a Friend: Recognize the challenge of staying motivated when using revision guides alone. Encourage collaboration by finding a reliable friend or study partner to implement the aforementioned tips together.
Having written about revision for years, the author recommends two brilliant books on the subject.