A Memo to Students about Studying for Finals | The Teaching Professor Blog

To: My Students
From: Your Professor
Re: Studying for Finals

Photo: Maryellen Weimer, Ph.D.

Maryellen Weimer, PhD  summarizes, "The end of the semester is rarely pretty. You’re tired; I’m tired. You’ve got a zillion things to get done—ditto for me." 

Photo: The Teaching Professor Blog

You’ve also got grades hanging in the balance to be decided by how you perform on the final exam. The pressure is on, and it’s not just this course. It’s all of them.

I’d like to offer some advice on how to prepare for these last tests. Am I hearing groans? But the suggestions I want to offer are evidence based and have repeatedly been shown to improve performance on exams. In other words, they work! And there’s more good news. Most of what the research recommends isn’t all that hard to implement.
I know you’ve got your own ways of studying. You’ve used them for years. They work for you. But maybe some other approaches work better. You’ll never know if you don’t try them.

The Teaching Professor Blog

Start with a game plan. 
Think about sports and how there’s a game plan based on what a team needs to do to beat the next opponent. The same applies to a game plan for studying. What do you need to review? What don’t you understand? What’s mixed up in your mind?

Be realistic. 
There’s one week before the exam. How much time can you devote to studying—not how much you’d like to—but what’s reasonable? Then make a schedule of those practice sessions, and yes they should be thought of as practice sessions.
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Source: The Teaching Professor Blog