The Sunday News
IN Part II of this Student Roadmap, I alluded to time management and prioritising tasks. The success of time management and task prioritisation lies on your ability to use academic planning tools. These tools include the timetable, a to-do-list and a calendar.
Individual timetable
An individual timetable is a very important tool that you can use to structure your exam preparation. The timetable should specify the day of the week and the subjects and their respective daily time slots. You may add a note to your timetable to annotate certain issues such as the venues and materials needed.
To-do-list
A to-do-list is a very important tool that students should learn to use. The list should be used to complement one’s daily timetable. The to-do-list breaks down the tasks on the timetable into stand-alone tasks which are specific to syllabus requirements.
Calendar
In examination preparation a calendar is a very important planning tool that students should effectively utilise. A calendar informs students of the time they have to prepare for a given examination.
Although a calendar shows the specific dates of an examination, students should specify the exact time of the examination. During examination preparation students should allow for adequate revision time on their calendars. This is very important as many students are tempted to try to master certain concepts right close to the examination date since certain tasks and concepts may require more time to master them.
Depending on the availability of task scheduling tools for students, Microsoft Outlook and Google Mail provide very important facilities for task management. However, in the absence of electronic calendar facilities, ordinary calendars can be used with stick-on markers annotating the task details.
Further to your planning tools, you should be able to manage yourself emotionally. The anxiety and pressure that come up from intrinsic and extrinsic expectations of an examination result in inevitable stresses.
Stress
Stress can be defined as a stimulus responsive to perceived or appraised environmental change. Thus, the stressfulness of an event depends on an individual’s perception or appraisal.
Stress can also affect the functioning of the human body. It lowers one’s immune system hence susceptibility to other diseases.
There are many techniques and approaches one can use to manage and cope with stress while preparing for and/ or during examination time. These include:
Relaxation — muscle relaxation, deep breathing and light exercises.
Cognitive restructuring — modifying maladaptive thoughts.
Enhance perception of control
Behavioural approaches — time management, task prioritisation and assertiveness.
Environmental adaptation — altering study environment.
Enhanced psycho-social support
In as much as the effective management of internal and external environment is of paramount importance, as a student preparing for examination, you should develop effective revision strategies.
Revision strategies
Revision is an active process where a student should practically participate. To gain the most from your reading, you should apply different revision strategies. Revision strategies help you breakdown your tasks and understand concepts better. Thus, active revision enhances your comprehension and mastery rather than rote memorisation. You may try the following active strategies:
Establish linkages and inter-relationships within and among your information.
From a topic, you can draw flow-charts and diagrams.
Establish differences and similarities.
Where a formula is used, try to understand it first then its applications.
Develop mnemonics that will guide you in remembering concepts.
Engage in group discussions
From a given topic highlight key words and draw themes and principles
Draw summaries of topics where you write key concepts, formulae and conclusions.
Evaluate critically the content you are revising.
Apply the content you are revising to real life situations.
Gather as many past exam papers and questions as possible for each topic and attempt answering them after reading.
Avoid reading from past exam papers but let them guide you to know important concepts.
Condensing your work through summaries of lecture notes is a very good strategy you can adopt as it helps you understand your notes. It is believed that if you are able to summarise your work using your own words, then you have understood the concepts.
However, there are times when you want to go further than summaries in condensing your work. In this case you may use “mind maps” or “spider diagrams”. These approaches make use of key themes and subthemes.
The key theme or title is put at the centre. Outline words or key phases are developed and lines lines are drawn outwards connecting the key words or phrases.
Effective use of the above strategies is your success roadmap.
Eugine Makaya (PhD) is a university lecturer, researcher and author. Feedback: [email protected] or WhatsApp +263773208002
