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How to Study
- University Press of New England
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171 into them at an elegant dinner party and commented, “Isn’t that deoxyribonucleic acid something?” I have no idea what kind of response I’d get. But with Krista I could honestly say, “She knows what she’s talking about.” Last night I had a dream that YouTube had all but replaced me in the classroom. I had been relegated to the role of a conduit, conveying video clips to my students the way a downspout funnels water. There they sat, before their computers, clicking away, nodding, and then typing up their responses. My entire course— lecture, laboratory, discussion questions—was now being delivered by video clips of the most diverse and wondrous natures, segregated by topic. It was an ebb of images followed by a flow of finished work back to me. And then the dream ended. How many in history have been inspired by such visions? Not long ago I would have considered the whole video clip business tawdry, and even now there is something of the dirty fingernail about it, because it seems too easy. But I have become intrigued by such possibilities and am actually considering the creation of an entire biology course based on YouTube, with me as the arbiter of acceptable results and good taste. I think there are real possibilities here, and for the first time in my professional life, I feel that I just might be at the leading edge of a unique wave. o p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p howtostudy Biology—or any science, for that matter—is a rich stew of the factual, the conceptual, and the theoretical. On the one hand, there is the immense overhead of terminology, discoveries , dates, and personalities. On the other are the intricate, and 172 p m e t h o d o l o g i e s daunting, themes of evolution, cell physiology, and genetics, to name only a few. In short, biology, unlike history or English composition , is truly an alien world with its own—and for the student , sometimes unbreathable—atmosphere. My impression is that, more than with any other introductory courses—including dreaded math—beginning students fall like flies from the sciences because they are overwhelmed with anxiety about how they will come to terms with a language as unfamiliar to them as Hottentot. In my introductory biology class, I try to bear this in mind. On the very first day I ask, “Is there anyone here who has never had a biology course?” Several hands go up. My second question: “Is there anyone here who is afraid of biology?” A few more hands, mostly in the back row. My response: “I accept the challenge.” There is one powerful difference between the biology major and the non-major. The former has, arguably, learned how to study biology. The latter has almost no idea. What I propose to do here is to review how non-majors do study, and then suggest how they should study. Through years of instruction, I have learned which concepts my students invariably have difficulty with. Semester upon semester , they make the same mistakes about the same material. My conclusion, based on careful observation and interviews, is that they make the same mistakes because most students study the exact same way, even as they continue to do poorly. Whenever I have a student who just doesn’t “get it” and whose test grades remain in the basement, I take that student aside and, after ascertaining that there are no personal crises or other issues to account for his or her lackluster performance, I ask a simple question: “How do you study?” Invariably, they tell me that they go home and read their notes. This, I point out, is the worst way to study. Reading notes and expecting to recall details is like taking one look at a roadmap to a remote destination and expecting to recall every junction and turn. If we were allowed to use roadmaps only before—but [52.205.218.160] Project MUSE (2024-03-19 03:57 GMT) How to Study p 173 not during—a trip, would we examine them any differently? I think so. Let’s talk about Neil, a tall, wiry, articulate student who was not doing well in my course (although I depended upon him to occasionally lighten the mood with his pointed sense of humor). I looked at him as he draped his frame...