« Quick Note and Virginia Coalition | Main | Geek Malaise? »
January 17, 2006
Reading and Studying the Textbook
Categories: Classes
Starting this week, I hope all of you begin reading chapter three in Exploring Education. We'll begin our discussion of the history of education next week. Before folks get too far into things, I wanted to give some tips about how to process the text.
I'm giving these tips, in part, because I do not give out study guides for exams or reading guides for texts. Higher education is about much more than just learning new "stuff". It's about developing skills in reading and interpretation that allow you to continuously learn from your encounter with texts and other materials. Giving out reading or study guides gives you a shortcut to some "stuff" but robs you of developing the reading and study skills which are essential to being a successful college student and a successful educator.
1. Read in small chunks. It's better to read 10-15 pages in 4-5 sittings than it is to try and cram all 48 pages into one reading session. If you try the "read it all at once" approach, you'll get bored and end up missing out on a lot of important information. By setting aside several smaller chuncks of time to read shorter amounts, you will be able to focus better and process more between reading sessions.
2. Pay special attention when the book emphasizes something. The book puts words in italics, creates numbered lists, and quotes certain authors at length. It does that for a reason. Make a note of those things.
3. Make the headings your study guide. Each chapter is broken up into larger section headers (with BIG BOLD TYPE) and topic headers (with Smaller Bold Type). Make questions out of each of those headers; then read to answer the questions. Answers to the topic headers will contribute to the answer of the section header.
Here's an example:
Page 65 ends with a section header: "The Age of Reform: The Rise of the Common School." You can turn that into a few questions, like When was the age of reform? Why is it called 'the age of reform'? What is the common school? How did it rise?
Within that section are smaller topics: "Opposition to Public Education" and "Education for Women and African Americans". First, make those into questions as well: Why were people opposed to public education? Who was opposed? How were African Americans and Women educated during this time?
Formulating questions from the headers offered by the book and then reading to answer them are good ways to generate your own study guides.
4. Read and study with other people. I really encourage group exploration of the topics in the text. It helps to get other perspectives of the reading. Someone else may have generated different questions than you. Others may have answered the same questions in a different way. The more you can talk about your reading and explain what you have read to others, the more you will have to process the material and put it in your own words. This is key to constructing your own meaning of concepts.
5. Constantly ask yourself what you think about what you have just read. Remember, two of our course goals relate explicitly to application of material to your experience and professional situations. Figuring out what you think about the common school (was it a good thing or a bad thing? How could it have developed differently? How did the development of the common school influence the current school situation?) tests your own ideas. Exams don't just measure whether or not you memorized terms; they measure your conceptual understanding of the material and your ability to apply it.
Posted by Nakia at January 17, 2006 01:03 PM