A k-w-l (or k-w-l-h) table/chart is a form of graphical organizer, first introduced in the mid 80′s by a researcher named Donna Ogle.
It’s usually counted among instructional techniques, it sets out to answer the following three important questions:
(1). What I Know
(2). What I Want to know and
(3) What I’ve Learned.
By systematizing previous knowledge in such a fashion it becomes easier for an instructor or a student for that matter to keep track on what has been done previously and what needs to be done in the future.
How does it work?
Divide your paper into three different columns (equally large) just like in the picture below. In section “A” one writes down the current date and the particular course this applies to.
Section B, C and D follows the same order as the acronym KWL; in ‘B’ you write what you know right now. In section ‘C’ you write down what you would like to know and finally in the last section marked as ‘D’ you write down what new knowledge you’ve learned.
Further notes
Although a kwl chart is usually composed of the three columns previously mentioned some prefer to add a fourth and a fifth column; K-W-L-W-H. The second W stands for “Further Wanderings” where the student fills in additional thoughts that came to mind.
The addition of the final “H” was proposed by teaching instructor Margaret Mooney and it stands for How the students can gather further information on the subject.
Helpful resources
Download a template kwl chart – A downloadable template for kwl charts.
Cornell notes – Article discussing a specific note taking technique.
The Cornell note taking system is a systematic way of formating and organizing your notes, the system was initiated by an education professor at Cornell university in the late 50s.
There’s a link to an article by the Cornell University describing this system at the bottom of this page.
How does it work?
Start out by dividing your paper into two columns (click on the image to enlarge). In area “A” (see picture) you fill in your notes as the teacher is speaking or while you´re reading your textbook.
When the lecture is finished you fill in your own questions concerning the notes. Comments or keywords are placed in area “B”.
You can then chose to cover section ‘A’ and ask yourself questions from the left column, this should be done regularly. Finally in section ‘C’ you write a small summary of the notes.
Further Notes
During the lecture, write in paragraphs, leaving a line between each new line of thought. Having your own shorthand mode might be a good idea. Try and stick with the general ideas rather than illustrative ones. And also try to write as legibly as you possibly can.
Helpful resources
Explaining the Cornell notes system – By The Cornell University
Download A Template Cornell Notes – A Microsoft Word file
Do you want to find out how many words you can read per minute (wpm)?
(2) Read the text and try to grasp as much as you possible can while doing so with the maximum amount of speed.
(3) Click on the FINISH button to see your results.
(4) Why not get a copy of the entire text that you’re about to read.
Nota Bene: The text that you are about to read is a short snippet taken from The Study Guide PRO. Also, studies have shown that reading is around 25% slower from a computer screen compared to paper
“”Now you‟re probably sitting there banging your head against the wall, dying to know what a gädda is. It‟s actually just a type of fish, widely consumed in Sweden and considered staple food by many Swedes. Fine and all but what does this have to do with me and my college studies?
Good question Jimmy. A few years ago, a group of scientists performed a couple of interesting experiments, mainly by using this fish.
They placed the fish inside an aquarium and fed it by pouring in some smaller fish.
They then placed a barrier consisting of transparent glass in between the gädda and the smaller fish resulting in the gädda constantly trying to reach its food without success (it was prevented by transparent wall). Finally it stopped pursuing the fish, thinking that it was useless to even try. The scientists then removed the barrier and were quite amazed at what they saw; the small fish actually circulated around the gädda without any counter reaction being executed, how come one might ask?
As it turns out the fish had been subjugated to acquire helplessness, a term that may be used in order to describe how a living being can become handicapped by its mere thoughts, thus forgetting about its true capabilities.Are you like this fish, or do you have the actual courage to stand up with your both feet and proclaim; “I will do my best in order to achieve my goals” or will you in similitude to this fish swim around in a pool of emptiness and self denial?
The choice is yours.“
———————————-
A few words from our sponsor
At test king all the range of testing is made available from mcse certification to mcsa certification. The Cisco certifications are also a feature at test king with test such as 642-453 and 650-173. Another Cisco qualification is 642-812 which ranks among the popular certifications. The Microsoft certifications are much in demand with tests such as 70-290 and 70-270. The test king qualifications are not the ordinary certifications offered but they are well recognized and accepted worldwide.
Speed reading is a controversial study technique meant to help individuals increase their reading speed. The main objective is to escalate the speed while retaining a good amount of comprehension.
This guide is meant as an introduction to speed reading for those who would like to know more. Before we dive into this subject, I would suggest we point out some of the benefits in learning this technique.
The reasons for mentioning these are quite obvious. It will serve as an incentive, making us more inclined to master the technique.
Benefits
You will be able to read more books in a shorter time span.
Learning new languages will become easier as your comprehension level most likely will rise (contrary to popular belief, speed reading could actually increase retention)
It will leave you with more free time to do other things.
Methodology
The first question that comes to mind is of course; how do you go about doing this? There’s no simple answer to that really but there do exist a few things one ought to keep in mind:
Know where you are: We are all familiar with the big red “You Are Here” dot featured on most maps. The map it self is pointless if you don’t know where you are to begin with, the same can be said about speed reading.
A good way to know where you stand in terms of speed reading is by simply taking the free speed reading test on our website. Please note that I’m planning on adding a comprehension test along with it.
Read Frequently: This is the most important and the most fundamental part of all speed reading courses. Practice, practice and practice more. The general rule is that the more you read –> the faster you will read. Isn’t true that a runner who runs often improves his speed? Indeed he or she does and reading is not much more different in this aspect.
Use a tool: A good way to start out is by using a pen or your own finger and use it to follow each sentence as you are reading. Try (gradually) moving your hand a bit faster and take notice of what happens with your eye movement. Your eyes will tend to follow the speed of your hand which is pretty amazing.
On a further note, using some sort of card, bookmark, or page-width item could help you increase speed in a more efficient way compared to using a pen. Wider objects will cover surrounding text which in turn prevents your eyes from wandering away.
Make less fixations: There are several different methods to speedreading and each approach might sound a little different but in the end they all work after the same principle, namely;
the lesser fixations made –> the faster one will read.
In other words; the fewer times your eye stops in a sentence, the faster you will read. Thus we can conclude that speed reading is – in it’s essence – the notion of reducing the number of times the eye needs to halt in order to comprehend the text being read.
Separate the wheat from the chaff: Another fundamental part of speed reading is the notion of prioritizing content. In most of our books we find that there’s a lot of “unnecessary information” that you can just skim over. In order to find these unnecessary snippets, we have to pre-read the content. This means that you have to identify the most important parts of the book through skimming before you start the actual process of “reading”.
It takes a lot of practice to be able to distinguish important content from unimportant information. It’s therefore vital that you teach yourself to begin a reading session by looking over entire sections very quickly. Try to recognize patterns of repeated keywords, ideas, emphasized text (bold, italic etc) or other similar indicators of important concepts.
This will enable you to “pass by” large portions of the books content, slowing down only when you’ve reached something you know is important.
Facing Difficulties?
Learning how to speed read is not easy and some may experience a few difficulties on the road. Sometimes these issues are caused by external problems, not relating to the reading itself.
If you’re experiencing problems with concentrating on you’re reading material, please try the following:
Have your eyes checked: Sometimes people read slowly because they have an undiagnosed problem with their vision. Even if you’re sure that there’s nothing wrong with your eyes, if you haven’t had an eye exam recently, there’s no time time to do it but now.
Remove distractions: There are some people who claim they read better when listening to music or when they’re in a crowded café. The truth of the matter is, if you want to read faster you can not allow other things to compete for your attention.
The lesser the distractions, the faster you will read. You should try your best to find a solitary place to read and make sure that the TV is off. If it’s not possible to be find a solitary place, I would suggest the use of earplugs to drown out all the distraction.
Don’t subvocalise: There is a common tendency among people to subvocalise or pronounce certain words to themselves. The degree to which people do this varies, some will for instance actually move their lips while others simply repeat the words in their head.
It doesn´t matter how you subvocalize (if you do so), it will slow you down! If you’re afflicted by this and want to break the habit, you need to try your out most to be conscious of it. If you can’t rid yourself from it by merely being conscious of it, then you might want to take some greater measures.
For instance, you could place your finger in your mouth when reading. Although this seems somewhat drastic it could be very helpful in overcoming the problem.
Further Tips
Start out easy: It’s always hard to embrace new methods and this is why I recommend new students to start out by reading a book that they’ve already read. By doing so, you will have it much easier to skip certain passages and keep up a good smooth flow while doing so.
Big fonts > Small fonts: Another good thing to keep in mind – if you are new to speed reading – is to keep yourself from reading text written in small fonts. Start out by reading books with larger font sizes since they make it harder to skip lines by mistake.
Understand the purpose: My final and most important advice to you is; never forget the purpose of why you’re reading what you’re reading. Some things are simply not meant to be read fast even if you can grasp all the facts. There are times when you just want to enjoy a certain text’s nuance and beauty and this can never be experienced through speed reading.
Have you ever gone somewhere only to forget what you were doing there in the first place? A great way to avoid such problems is by writing a daily “to do list” also referred to as a task list.
A task list works somewhat as an inventory tool/alternative memory, it helps you to remember things without remembering them (i.e cognitively speaking).
A good task list will enable your mind to forget about the particular things you wrote down in order to focus on other, perhaps more important issues.
Benefits
Helps you stake out your goals.
Saves time, energy and stress.
Gives you something more to rely on than just your memory.
Methodology
There are two good ways to format your task list and they could be combined.
The first way of doing it is by applying the so called ABC method. You divide your tasks into those that go under the ‘A’ category (tasks that should be accomplished within a day) the ‘B’ category (accomplished withing a week) and ‘C’ category (withing a month) and so forth. You can expand or reduce the set of categories (as well as edit their respective time frame) to what suits your situation.
Another way formatting your task list is by assigning each task a number in accordance to its importance. The number “1” is the highest priority while 2 is less important and so on. If you for instance give the reading of my blog a number 1 and eating breakfast a number 2,
then this means that reading the blog precedes eating breakfast; the smaller the number > the more highly prioritized it is (and reading my blog is of course highly prioritized).
Further Notes
Get Yourself a Weekly Calendar: These are great to help you keep track on what to do and when to do what. Remember to classify each task into its relevant category, all educational related tasks go under one category, all the personal to another and so forth.
Digital Task Lists: If you tend to sit on the computer a lot then you might want to consider making your desktop background into a to do list (the writing of this article was on my desktop to do list), if you would like to do this without changing your present background you could always divide the picture into two halves. One half showing today’s tasks and the other showing your background picture. An easier and more effective way is to simply download Google sidebar, it comes with a to do list in widget form and it’s very easy to customize.
A mind map is a type of (radial) diagram that contains words, ideas or tasks that are linked around a central idea or keyword.
A mind map can be drawn by hand or by means of a computer, before a particular lesson, while attending the class or even after the lecture has finished.
Popular Usage
Solving problems
Brainstorming
Note taking
Resolutions
Planning
Benefits
Gives you a good overview of important points and keywords (such as dates, facts or figures).
Organizes your topic in a way that let’s you write less and understand more. Thus making your studies more efficient.
Example of a mind map
Methodology
Always start out by placing your main idea or keyword in the center and then start pondering about anything that might relate to that keyword. List all the things you came up with on a piece of paper (not on the actual mind map) and then write them all down on the mind map by interlinking each idea to an appropriate category.
Remember that each line should carry only one keyword or one image and they should be of the same length as the keyword or image.
Obviously, there’s more than one way of mind mapping since the technique itself is very subjective. So even though I mention ways to form your mind map in this article, you should only take them as guidelines and nothing more. It’s more important that you develop your own style in order to fit your specific needs.
I recommend emphasizing certain elements in your mind map such as using different colors to make the mind map more vivid and easier to digest.
Let your ideas flow
Make sure that you don’t kill any of your ideas at the beginning. It’s a common problem that people try to edit their ideas before they’ve done collecting them. You can remove, edit and add as much as you’d like after you’ve finished listing them all.
Keep it clean
Another common mistake is to scramble in as much information as possible without keeping the format. If your mind map looks like clutter, you wont be able to understand it (maybe at the present moment but certainly not in the future). Finally, mind mapping is something you do to help yourself. Make sure that you can understand and interpret your own thoughts even if no one else understands it.
ou’ll find that it makes things so much easier. Look at the classes you have to attend, work out the time that you need to get to them and then set a realistic time every day so it almost becomes like part of your daily timetable. And how much studying do you need to do?
Well you can use a formula that goes something like this: for every hour of class, put in an hour and a half to two hours of study. Why the difference? Well, some of you might read much more quickly than others, some might take a longer time to absorb the same material. So it figures!
Just keep in mind that very often the ones who are slower tend to remember for longer, so it evens out! If you can study soon after your class, that makes it even better because everything is fresh in your mind.
Do take a quick break in between to relax. And remember – don’t push yourself. If you begin over scheduling your study hours, you’ll find yourself overexerting and that doesn’t really work too well in the end.
Try and set a specific time to study every day and you’ll find that it makes things so much easier. Look at the classes you have to attend, work out the time that you need to get to them and then set a realistic time every day so it almost becomes like part of your daily timetable. And how much studying do you need to do?
Well you can use a formula that goes something like this: for every hour of class, put in an hour and a half to two hours of study. Why the difference? Well, some of you might read much more quickly than others, some might take a longer time to absorb the same material. So it figures!
Just keep in mind that very often the ones who are slower tend to remember for longer, so it evens out! If you can study soon after your class, that makes it even better because everything is fresh in your mind.
Do take a quick break in between to relax. And remember – don’t push yourself. If you begin over scheduling your study hours, you’ll find yourself overexerting and that doesn’t really work too well in the end.
Where to study
You probably will think it doesn’t matter but it does! We’re talking about the place you choose to sit and study. How do you know you’ve chosen well? Well, let’s tell you how to choose so you can concentrate on your studies and don’t get disturbed or distracted. Let’s go through a process of elimination first.
Don’t choose a place that may not be available always to you. Don’t go park yourself in a place where you know you will be interrupted or distracted. And don’t choose a place that’s either too hot or too cold or your mind’s going to be on the temperature, not on your books! Now for the ‘dos’.
Make sure the place you choose is well-lit and airy so it’s a pleasure to be in, not a drudge. Find yourself a comfortable chair – but not too comfortable so you fall asleep! Keep all your study material at hand so you don’t have to go up and down searching for it.
And try and have a large work area or desk so all your material is close by. Keep it neat so there is enough space for you to write comfortably. And last but not least, lock the door if you can and make sure no-one disturbs you.second. We started in a living room back in 2006 and have been steadily working to build our company into a world-class contender. Today we operate a set of popular marketplaces for digital goods, a family of leading tutorial sites and a series of niche sites and projects.
What exactly is SQRW? Well, it’s a study method where you get the best out of textbook study. It’s a 4-step strategy and each letter denotes one step so let’s go through it and see how it could make your study life a little bit easier! Read More
As any good student knows, if you don’t plan for success, you are in fact planning for failure. The core of good planning lies in knowing how to stake out your goals. These goals will then function as milestones, helping you reach your destination much quicker. Read More
