How to study in a group

 

Holo there fellow Gobs, today I will show you how we study as a group and some valuable tips for you to study with your friends. 

I will cover:

• Why study in groups
• Who should you pick to study with
• How you should cover your studies
• How do you do last minute revision
• How our study sessions work

These tips can also come handy when you don't have a group but it's always best to study in groups!

Why study in groups?

Why are groups studies important, you may ask, can't I just study on my own?

Here's the thing, you totally can! But there's a catch, let's say I don't understand Concept X but Zobs does. Zobs doesn't understand Concpt Y but I do. Mito understands Concept X and Y but doesn't understand Concept Z. Alito doesn't understand Concept X either but understands everything else. This way all of us have a upperhand and a shortcoming. If we all come together and explain it, we understand it better. 

Secondly, teaching eachother helps you learn the concepts better yourself! This can help you develop your teaching skills and learning skills together. Here's a random bombshell; your friends can help you learn better than your teachers sometimes, because you are more relaxed in the company of your friends and sometimes it does feel like the teacher's explaination is flying over your head. BUT this is not to disregard focusing in class! Watch out for the next tips.

Thirdly, studying in groups can help you recap what you studied in class and can get your brain moving. Sometimes you might get carried away, far away from what you're studying but in your group, you might have a Zobs who brings you back. 

Who should you pick to study with 

1. Choose people from your class

the reasons you must pick a fellow pupil are many; some of them are:

• You can bond more easily
• You can relate to what you've studied
• You can understand eachothers perspectives better. 

Sometimes, you might have a friend who isn't in you class but is in the same level as you. This can also be great to have. 

2. Try getting more than 1 friend. 

This can help you:

• When you get distracted, you might have a person who pulls you down to the earth
• When you get stuck. As mentioned earlier, different people are skilled in different matters. For an example, Mito is great fractions (why??), I hate them. Zobs, Alito and I are better at percentages and Mito hates percentages. 

These are only a few points but when you start group studies, you might realize the benefits on you own. 

3. Try choosing people who are interested in studies

You can't just choose someone because you like them; you need to see if they are really interested in studies or they might ruin it for you. 

How should you cover your studies

1. Your first important point, before all your study sessions is your school itself. Focus in you classes and take little scribble notes along with notes that your teachers tell you to write. I will put down a picture of my personal scribble notes. (please note; they are scribble notes and do not need to be pretty.)

1.0 An example of notes asked to write down

1.1 An example of scribble notes

2. Do your homework. Now, I may sound like your teacher, who naggs you to complete your homework, yeah i know, its the same thing you have heard a hundred times, but trust me, it helps. This helps you remember what you've learnt and assess what you have already learned. (now all my teachers will look at my 100+ unfinished assignments)

It's not really going to be easy, sometimes you just get so confused sometimes or really sleepy and can get demotivated.

 

3. Take notes while studying. Usually, you and your group can open a docs, open your textbook and right down what you see briefly.

1.2 An example of notes taken while studying for remembering

Usually, we do this for exam study so that you can briefly sift through the piles of information from your textbook. The example above is not very brief because Mito is a learner who memorizes things and doesn't really rephrase the thing which is totally fine!

Here's how my brief notes look:

1.3 An example of really brief notes taken in bullets

Though we did both notes together, I did majority of the picture 1.3 and Mito did majority of 1.2.

4. Flashcards. If you have a lot of keywords to learn (which you probably do), it is always best to use flashcards to learn them. If you like handy ones, you can pick out some from temu/amazon/shein or whatever you use. Personally, I use the online ones. An amazing site for flashcards is Quizlet

Review these flashcards every time you sit to study and also before your assesments. 

5. Before your assesments, tick off the topics you understand.

 

1.4 An example of a subject schedule to tick off topics you understand.

When do you start studying and how to do last minute revision

So when should you start studying, you may ask. What is too late and when is the best time to begin?

Firstly, it is never to late to start but you do need prior studies. Once you have covered your studies, you wouldn't have to worry about not being able to remember everything. 

I would say, depending on how big the assesments is you have to plan. For our first assesments, all of us were very lenient and only started a week before our assesments but that was okay because the teachers were slightly lenient and it was okay for the begining of the year. 

However, when you have assesments that are bigger, like the one we would have in two months, you have to begin right then. 

We began our sessions seriously yesterday (5th of December) which is 1 month and 15 days before our assesments. 

About last minute revision, it is completely okay to do it if you are just having a quick recap. In our previous assesments, the morning before the exam, we would come together to assess eachothers knowledge on the subject that the exam is about.

You can review:

1. Keywords (flashcards)

2. Presentations sent by the teacher

4. Brief notes reading

 How our study sessions work

Our study sessions are two times a day and we meet on Zoom Workspace which is pretty efficent besides the fact that the meeting ends in 40 minutes. Zoom is great to use whiteboards and docs while being in the meeting. But if you have any better applications to meet on or prefer meeting in person, that is also totally awesome as long as you still get to study. 

We have two sessions, one in the morning (5:00 KSA) since our school begins at 6:45 and another in the evening (3:00 KSA) which extends all the way down to 6:00 sometimes

 1.5 Our study schedule for everyday

Here's what we do:

• Take notes together on Zoom Docs
• Finish Past papers or worksheets 
• Review flashcards and the tests that come with Quizlet.
• Review the textbook, notes, or presentations
• Assess eachother 

After our study sessions, we write down some things:

1.6 How our review for our sessions look

What is important is to check out what we know and how the session went because each session is different. Some can be a bit bad, boring or maybe we wasted time but what matters is that we showed up.

Notion

We use Notion to track our progress.

*this isn't a tutorial; just a brief display. You can find Notion tutorials online. Spoiler: you won't need it, Notion is very easy to navigate

1.7 Our cover page for our Notion team

Your first step is to create a team and add your friends in. 

Right below that, we have our subject schedules as displayed in Figure 1.4

1.8 our subject schedules

This is to tick off whatever you've learned to assess yourself and see if you have understood.

1.8 what we store in this.

Lastly, you can add anything you find essential for your learning; for us it was Quizlet, study schedules, and school timetables. 

As always,

Have a Wonderful Day,

Nobz and Zobz