June 5 2009 - Thornlea - SharpSchool

Thornlea Newsletter Page 2
Vice-Principal’s Message
Dear Thornlea Community:
As the school year is again winding down, we come to that time of year when students should be
spending time studying in preparation for the final exams. Over the years, I have asked students
who have not done well on a test or exam to tell me how they study. They often lament that they
really studied “hard” by reading over their notes the night before. Unfortunately this study method,
which is common among students, will give one a retention rate of about 20 percent. There are
three basic principles behind improving one’s memory. The first is to practice active recall during
learning. This means involving oneself in the learning process rather than merely reading the
same paragraph a number of times because one is distracted by the text that a friend has just
sent or the three MSN conversations being held simultaneously. Try to make connections
between what you are currently learning to what you already know. Visualize what you read and
think of questions before, during and after. Summarize information within a section and list key
points you have just learned about. Creating an acronym which is silly often helps recall. For
example, the three members of the Triple Entente in World War 1 was BaRF (Britain, Russia,
France).
The second principle is to review your notes on number of different occasions rather than just the
night before. One technique is the PQRST method which stands for Preview, Question, Read,
State and Test. Preview the material by skimming through your notes, ask key Questions, Read
your notes carefully in order to answer your questions, State the answers to the questions out loud
and Test yourself on the material. A recent study from Purdue University compared the memory
recall of students who read over their notes, those who read over their notes and tested
themselves and those who did not studying at all. Not surprisingly, those who studied and tested
themselves retained the information more effectively. For those subjects that require the
demonstration of more application based learning, one should test using application type
questions. An example of this would be to try to solve a number of different math questions.
The third principle is to over learn the material to the point of mastery. Rather than merely having
the goal of retaining the information for a couple of hours, we should try to place our new learning
into long term memory. The more we know, the easier it is to relate to next new concepts and
ideas which further improves our ability to understand and recall. The purpose of learning is to
enhance who we are, to be the most interesting and interested person we can be. While I will
wish everyone best wishes during the exams, I won’t wish anyone good luck because if one
studies effectively, luck won’t be necessary.
Best wishes,
Mrs. Hetherington