1. & How to Study When Your Professor Doesn’t Give a Study Guide
Metacognition
& How to Study When Your Professor Doesn’t Give a Study Guide

2. What is Metacognition?
Monitoring and managing your learning

3. Types of Metacognition We use this knowledge to regulate our learning
Declarative Knowledge:
Knowledge about yourself as a learner & what factors influence your performance
Procedural Knowledge:
Knowledge about how to do things, strategies that you can use. Let’s you do tasks more automatically
Conditional Knowledge:
Knowledge about when and why to use procedural and declarative knowledge. How to allocate your resources and strategies
We use this knowledge to regulate our learning

4. Declarative Knowledge- Create your study environment and grab your study tools
Knowledge about yourself as a learner & what factors influence your performance
Am I a visual learner, auditory learner, hands-on learner or read/ write learner? Or some combination?
What time of day do I study best?
What environment helps me study best?

5. Procedural Knowledge- Make your study plan
Knowledge about how to do things, strategies that you can use. Let’s you do tasks more automatically
WHAT material should I study?
HOW should I study it?
How will I know I’ve mastered it?

6. How do you figure out WHAT you should study?
WHAT should I study?
How do you figure out WHAT you should study?
Ask yourself: Is this exam going to be based off of lecture, book or both?
Go through these materials & make a bulleted list of topics/ chapters to study.
Ask yourself: Do I know some of these well already? Am I really unsure about some of these topics?
Prioritize!
Put a # 1 next to the topics you feel weakest on
Put a #2 next to the topics you feel so-so on
Put a #3 next to the topics you feel okay on

7. Now that we know what topics to study- what do we do?
HOW should I study?
Now that we know what topics to study- what do we do?
Well we need to find out how deep down the rabbit hole we need to go.
In other words, how well do I need to know each of these topics?
Or, another way to ask it: what is the professor going to ask me to do with this knowledge on the exam?
Is she going to ask me to define key terms?
Will she ask me to apply it?
Or is she going to ask me to compare and contrast terms?

8. Blumen’s Taxonomy is a framework for understanding how WELL you understand a topic. We always want to encourage “higher order learning” for ourselves and our students. This is key to truly learning and doing well on exams.
Point out key ideas- key terms
Helpful You tube video:
Figuring out how well we understand something, and what our learning level is- that is a metacognitive experience! We can ask ourselves self-reflective questions to figure out what our learning level is.

9. How studying on the wrong level can impact your performance on tests

10. So how do I know what learning level I should operate on?
Listen to what the professor says about the test
Do they want you to be able to “apply” key terms?
Did they say you will need to compare and contrast theories?
Start with your syllabus’ course outcomes or learning objectives.
Look for key terms in the learning outcomes
You can make a solid guess about the learning level based on the action words in the learning objectives
When in doubt, aim high

11. What learning level do you think this relates to?
Students will be able to read and analyze sociological data and analyses, thus, be able to critically examine “knowledge” claims through an understanding of sociological concepts and sociological research methods (data collection, sampling, data analysis).

13. Tips for building your Study Guide
Now we combined the LIST of TOPICS with the QUESTIONS we select
Using the previous sheet, start making questions about the list of study guide topics you came up with earlier.
Pick questions that make sense for each topic. You may choose to use two questions on one topic.
Once you have all your questions, look up the answers to your priority #1 questions. Then move on to your priority #2 and priority #3 questions. Write down the answers.

14. How will I know that I’ve studied ENOUGH?
Come up with a SMART goal
S- specific
Is it specific?
M- measurable
Can you count or measure it?
A- appropriate
Does it make sense for your materials and subject?
R- realistic
Is it practical
T- timely
Are you checking your mastery early enough
And not just the night before?

15. How will I know that I’ve studied ENOUGH? (cont.)
Come up with a SMART goal
Examples of SMART Goals:
I will know I’ve studied enough when…
I can answer 18 / 20 study guide questions correctly without looking up the answers.
I can recite the information on 75% of my flashcards
I can describe all parts of these 10 theories in my notes without looking at it.
I can label all the bones in the human body and get 90% of them right.

16. Conditional Knowledge: Allocating Resources
Check your plan
How have I done on this subject in the past?
Am I saving enough time to study?
What should I do if I get stuck and don’t understand something?
What if while I’m studying, it’s not “sticking?” What will I do?
Have I used a similar plan in the past? How did it work?

17. Quiz Yourself!
Now… quiz yourself! Try and answer these questions without looking at the answers you wrote down.
Keep quizzing yourself until you reach your SMART goal.

18. WRAP UP
Use your knowledge about yourself to create your study environment and grab your study tools
Make a list of topics and prioritize them
Identify the learning level of the exam/ class
Select questions appropriate to that level
Combined with your list of topics and make your study guide
Look up answers to your questions
Define your SMART goal- how will you know you’ve studied enough?
Check your plan
Quiz yourself

19. “Make It Stick” Workshop
Want to learn more about creating a solid study plan? Ready to take your study plan to the next level?
Join us for “Make It Stick” to learn how to use techniques that research tells us leads to retention.
Learn about the three rules for studying for retention
Learn what “Spaced” studying means
Learn what “Interleaving” subjects when studying means
Learn why self-quizzing is so important