There are several high school study skills that are often ignored by students, not because they wouldn't use them if they knew about them but because they are not frequently taught. Perhaps the most essential of these study skills is studying in a group. High school study groups provide much of the benefit that students often simply neglect.
1. Study groups make use of multiple minds...
2. Study groups maximize the benefits of social learning...
3. Study groups uncover individual strengths and gaps in learning...
4. Study groups increase the speed at which you learn...
Let's explore these benefits of studying in a group.
Private studying is the requirement for entering into successful group studying. Part of the learning cycle demands that you study in isolation. Perhaps an example will illustrate the point; you just finished reading a chapter on the properties of gasses in your chemistry book, a chapter you found most problematic. The material is mind-numbing but important to understand as it provides a building block for the remainder of the class. When all is said and done you understood about half the chapter.
Here's where a study group provide insane benefits. You get half the chapter. Your friend, Sam, gets about half the chapter but not the same half you clearly understand. There is some overlap between you and Sam. Now enters Brenda. She also gets half the chapter but what she knows is different than both you and Sam. Now three heads, each with particular but different knowledge of the material, come together to study. What could not be accomplished alone is done together.
Aside from being fun to study together, it is something more; it increases the probability that all three of you will come away with a more complete knowledge than you would have if you studied alone. You will not only have the advantage of knowing what Sam and Brenda know, by working together you will all know more than the sum total of what you know before you got together.
By studying together your understanding comes more rapidly and your knowledge is more complete than if you only worked in isolation. Working together takes time off your overall effort while making your learning more complete. Win-Win!!!
So this is one high school study skill that you shouldn't overlook. The benefits are simply too great to not take advantage of. If you aren't in a study group, start one yourself. Your friends will think you are a genius.
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Plants are shaped by cultivation and men by education. .. We are born weak, we need strength; we are born totally unprovided, we need aid; we are born stupid, we need judgment. Everything we do not have at our birth and which we need when we are grown is given us by education.
(Jean Jacques Rousseau, Emile, On Philosophy of Education)
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