Thus far, we have looked mainly at working from printed texts. However, studying has always involved other activities, and in recent times the range of these activities has expanded rapidly. An effective student now needs a wider variety of skills and must be able to balance the demands of different types of studying. It is time to cast an eye over the broad range of activities which studying can now involve.
A
ctivity Break If you are returning to study after a break, what kinds of study activity do you expect to encounter (other than reading texts)?If you are already studying, what different kinds of activities occupy your study hours?
In either case, jot down a list and add it to your Study Diary (see page 19).
Your answer will obviously depend on your course of studies, your circumstances and your personal preferences. To give you a point of
comparison, I asked an Open University student to tell us about the activities that make up a ‘typical’ study week.
Pam enrolled for a Level 1 mathematics course last year. This year she is studying Level 1 technology. She lives in Hull and works shifts at a garage. She started as a sales assistant at the petrol counter, but now also works in the office on the accounts. Pam is the first person from her family to study for a degree. Thirty years ago she left school without qualifications to have a baby.
At 15, she did not imagine that she would ever want to study again, and certainly not maths and technology. Pam and her school were glad to see the back of each other. Now, she has amazed her whole family, from her retired parents to her grandchildren, by passing her first course and surviving the second so far. The hours are long, the money hard to find, and sometimes she hits a difficult patch when she seems to be losing the battle. But she is determined to continue because she feels she is proving, at last, what she is really capable of. In any case, she enjoys a lot of the work. She has developed a love for her subject and an unexpected thirst for knowledge.
As a part-time student, Pam tries to fit 12 to 14 hours of study into a busy and tiring week. She works shifts, so her study times vary a lot. The technology course has several strands to it and she finds managing her time tricky. She tries to do two hours of study per day, six days a week, although sometimes she doesn’t feel up to it. At other times, she can spend three or four hours studying without really noticing the time.
This is Pam’s account of a ‘typical’ study week.
Monday: Came in from work at 10:00 p.m. (I usually feel wide awake after work.) Read the main study text and took notes. Studied till just after midnight. (I always try to complete the section I’m working on. If I don’t finish it, I tend to get confused and forget things.)
Tuesday: During quiet spells at work, I did the computer-marked assessment questions for the section I read last night. (I always take the course books into work with me – although I don’t often get much chance to look at them.) The next piece of work was a computer-assisted learning package, so I spent from 8:00 p.m. till 11:00 p.m. on the computer. I have to be careful not to get carried away. You can spend hours trying to ‘beat the computer’. You learn a lot, but you feel very tired the next day.
Wednesday: Worked on a different strand of the course: did some calculations, drew some graphs and solved some problems. Studied from 10:00 a.m. till 1 p.m. (I prefer to work during the day when I can because there’s no one around. It helps to be fairly fresh when you’re working on problems.) I got stuck on some of the problems, so I moved on to an audio-cassette exercise for the last hour.
Thursday: Attended a group tutorial from 7:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. It was a life-line – I sorted out what I’d been stuck on. Then spent two more hours studying at home – while my brain was still hot. I looked at the study text to check what we’d covered in the tutorial, especially the bits I’d been stuck on. Then I looked ahead to the next section, which was also discussed at the tutorial.
Friday: Studied from 8:00 p.m. till 10:30 p.m.. Started to gear up for the assignment due next Wednesday. Went back over the block we’d just been doing and organized the notes on my computer. Just after midnight, watched a half-hour TV programme for the course (and recorded it on video).
Saturday: From 9:30 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. I reviewed recent TV programmes for an hour (recorded on video) to help me think my way into the assignment, and looked in books and newspapers for extra material. Checked back to the assignment title and jotted down a few ideas on how to answer the question.
Sunday: Rest day – storing up strength for starting the assignment on Monday.
When she saw all this written down, Pam was surprised to find that what she had remembered as a ‘typical’ week amounted to about 16 hours of study, without counting the tutorial. She said that the Tuesday computing session had gone on longer than she had meant it to, as she still had the week’s reading to get through. And because an assignment was due, she was putting in extra time
2 hours
at the end of the week. So, perhaps the week was not quite so ‘typical’ after all (but then, none of them ever is). Anyway, the main point is that her study week involved a wide range of activities. Did your list cover a similar range?
In fact, Pam gets involved in even more study activities. When she spoke to us she had just come back from a very different kind of week at an Open
University summer school held on a traditional university campus. She had spent a very intensive six days doing practical work in laboratories, working in groups to solve problems and attending lectures – keeping at it from breakfast to supper time. She said that it had been marvellous, and that she had learned more than she could have imagined in such a short time.
So, in Pam’s ‘typical’ week, together with her week at summer school, she had experienced the following different ways of studying:
X reading text and making notes
X computer-marked assignments (CMAs) X computer-aided learning (CAL)
X calculations, drawing graphs and solving problems X audio-cassette exercises
X group tutorials
X using the computer to organize notes X watching TV
X informal searching for assignment material X practical work
X problem solving in groups X listening to lectures
X tutor-marked assignments (TMAs).
So, in the space of these two weeks, Pam could remember using at least 13 different ways of studying, each of which she felt had made a valuable
contribution to her learning. She said that a variety of activities made studying interesting. In particular, it allowed her to switch from one activity to another to keep her mind awake, or to provide a new way forward when she got stuck.
As was noted in Chapter 1 (on page 20), learning at higher levels is about a lot more than just remembering information. It involves taking in new ideas, thinking them through, and learning how to use them. A range of study activities enables you to come at these different aspects of learning from a variety of angles, and helps you to develop a well-rounded and firmly grounded understanding of the subject.
As a modern-day student, you need to be comfortable with many more ways of studying than simply working from books. In this chapter, I shall explore a variety of ways of studying, looking at what they offer and the skills and techniques they require.
I have grouped these alternative ways of studying into three broad clusters:
X those that make learning a collective activity, rather than a solitary one X those that involve listening and watching, as opposed to reading X those that emphasize the ‘doing’ side of learning.
Key Points
X There is now a variety of ways of studying, and each approach helps your learning in a different way.
X Mixed together, these approaches can make study more interesting and help you to learn in depth.
X To take full advantage of this variety, you need to understand the benefits of different ways of studying and develop appropriate skills.