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STRUCTURING YOUR LEARNING IN COLLEGE

Without a concrete learning plan in college, you’ll be barely scraping by academically. As a student, you must adequately plan and perform work. The two steps below should help you achieve top academic performance!

Step 1: Define Activities

Now we come to the real center of your study plan. In the sixth step, you determine all the learning activities that you have to carry out in order to be able to save the collected content in your head in an exam-proof manner. One thing in advance: “learning” is not the same as “learning”.

Learning can mean a lot, such as:

• Read

• Summarize

• To edit

• To repeat

• Learn by heart

• Learn to understand

• Research

• Analyze

• look for errors

• etc.

All these activities are often summarized under the term "learning". But with this inaccuracy, you will not get any further in your learning planning. There is a huge difference between "Read Chapter 2", "Summarize Chapter 2" and "Memorize Chapter 2".

And you have to be aware of this difference at all times when defining your learning activities. Otherwise, you will completely misjudge the time required for your learning units, forget important intermediate steps and destroy all previous efforts.

Therefore, first, determine all learning activities that are suitable for you and your current exam. You can use the list above as a guide and adapt it to suit your purposes. You then assign all relevant activities to each item in your topic blocks. As a result, you will receive a detailed to-do list that comes very close to a finished learning plan.

For example, topic A from the example above could look like this:

Lecture #1

• read transcript

• summarize transcript

• Compare transcript with summary

• learn to take notes

Lecture #2

• read transcript

• summarize transcript

• Compare transcript with summary

• learn to take notes

Lecture #3 (First Part)

• read transcript

• summarize transcript

• Compare transcript with summary

• learn to take notes

Exercises #1-9

• Complete exercise #1

• Compare exercise #1 with notes or study group

• Complete exercise #2

• Compare exercise #2 with notes or study group

• etc.

Chapter 1 from the textbook

• Read Chapter 1

• Summarize Chapter 1

• Learn Chapter 1

Chapter 2 from the textbook

• Read Chapter 2

• Summarize chapter 2

• Learn chapter 2

Slides #1-62

• read slides

• Mark slides

• Summarize slides

• Match slides to summary

• learn slides

Old exam paper #1 from WS 2016/2017

• edit task

• Discuss and compare results with fellow students

• Compare result with sample solution

• Ask the professor for help

Check carefully whether you have really thought of all the learning activities and have not forgotten any steps. At this point, it is better to be too thorough than too sparing and include every little activity in your overview list. The example above is rather crude in comparison.

Step 2: Estimate the Time Required

When all the thematic blocks have been determined and each relevant activity has been assigned, you switch to the time planning level. Estimate the approximate time required for each of your learning activities and, ideally, set a deadline.

For many activities, the duration can only be roughly guessed at; with others, you will be able to draw from your own experiences. Sometimes it can therefore be helpful to ask fellow students or older fellow students for an assessment. Lecturers, on the other hand, very often exaggerate or understate when students want to pick up an “insider tip” in this regard.

My recommendation: Estimate the time required conservatively and plan too much time if in doubt. Make sure your information is realistic. Nobody can summarize a 300-page textbook in one day - at least not with good quality. For our example, a time estimate could look like this:

Lecture #1

• Read the transcript (10 minutes)

• Summarize transcript (20 minutes)

• Compare transcript with summary (10 minutes)

• Learn to take notes (60 minutes)

Lecture #2

• Read the transcript (10 minutes)

• Summarize transcript (20 minutes)

• Compare transcript with summary (10 minutes)

• Learn to take notes (60 minutes)

Lecture #3 (first part)

• Read the transcript (10 minutes)

• Summarize transcript (20 minutes)

• Compare transcript with summary (10 minutes)

• Learn to take notes (60 minutes)

Exercises #1-9

• Complete Exercise #1 (30 minutes)

• Compare exercise #1 with notes or study group (15 minutes)

• Complete Exercise #2 (30 minutes)

• Compare exercise #2 with notes or study group (15 minutes)

• etc.

Chapter 1 from the textbook

• Read Chapter 1 (30 minutes)

• Summarize Chapter 1 (60 minutes)

• Learn Chapter 1 (180 minutes)

Chapter 2 from the textbook

• Read Chapter 2 (30 minutes)

• Summarize Chapter 2 (60 minutes)

• Learn Chapter 2 (180 minutes)

Slides #1-62

• Read slides (60 minutes)

• Mark slides (0 minutes, read along with)

• Summarize slides (90 minutes)

• Match slides with summary (10 minutes)

• Learn slides (120 minutes)

Old exam paper #1 from WS 2016/2017

• Edit task (30 minutes)

• Discuss and compare the result with fellow students (30 minutes)

• Compare result with sample solution (10 minutes)

• Ask the lecturer for help (5 minutes)

Remember, Don’t Be Afraid

As soon as you have determined the duration of the individual learning intervals, you will find that the total time required is quite large. Really big even. But don't let that put you off. It is only important that you get a feeling of how complex your learning sessions can be and how the steps are related to each other. In the end, if you’re not getting enough time to learn every topic, consider using an essay writing service as an easy way to deal with the academic load.

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