20200316

Online reading assignment question: helpful/unhelpful Midterm 1 astronomy study tips

Astronomy 210, spring semester 2020
Cuesta College, San Luis Obispo, CA

Students have a weekly online reading assignment (hosted by SurveyMonkey.com), where they answer questions based on reading their textbook, material covered in previous lectures, opinion questions, and/or asking (anonymous) questions or making (anonymous) comments. Full credit is given for completing the online reading assignment before next week's lecture, regardless if whether their answers are correct/incorrect. Selected results/questions/comments are addressed by the instructor at the start of the following lecture.

Describe something notable that either helped or did not help with studying for this midterm. Selected comments may be discussed in class. (Graded for completion.)

The following are all of the student responses to this question, verbatim and unedited.
"Go over my notes and quizzes."

"This doesn't relate to my study methods at all, but I found the main page difficult to look through. It takes me a minute to get used to its format and maneuver around to find the material I need."

"The notes we take in class are easy to remember because of all the drawn-out diagrams."

"Being allowed to form our own groups is very helpful for studying on the midterm because I can work with people who I know and get along with, making discussion of possible answers much easier."

"What doesn’t help is that we don't have a study guide for help."

"I need to have some background noise on. Nothing too loud or too quiet. If it's too quiet I can get tired or get distracted by the smallest noise. Also, I eat something before studying because I can’t focus well if I haven't eaten."

"Remembering those gosh darn moon phase/time charts"

"Flash cards help me most and having someone quiz me harshly days before, not just the night before. Putting away all distractions and going somewhere quiet. It's awkward at first but really helps. Writing down diagrams immediately while it's fresh in your mind will eventually help remember it better which should help massively on the midterm."

"I need help catching up. because I have missed so much. I apologize."

"I find that studying with music personally helps me. I don't fully understand why but I think it's a bit Pavlovian, listing to music that already makes you happy makes the studying nicer."

"When teachers explain and give examples during class time."

"Study with a fresh mind and practice the mid term review questions."

"Something that really helps me study for the midterm are all of the practice tests we did as the in class activities."

"Diagrams and pictures help the most for me. I am a visual learner, so the diagrams we learned in class have especially helped me understand the material. Going over class notes, quiz packets, old quizzes and material in the book also helps out a lot. The old quiz questions and the ones from the packets help review past material learned."

"Using analogies always helps! Especially remembering the ones you came up with."

"I enjoy working with the groups because we can discuss our answers and I can get a better understanding of something I am confused about."

"Flashcards!"

"For me it helps to have some soothing background music playing it helps my brain focus and tune into the information I need to know."

"I focus on trying to spread out my studying and try not to cram everything in the day before."

"Going back through the practice tests to look at all the questions that you had difficulties with."

"Study guides."

"Having the practice packets for the quizzes and giving out the answers to the quizzes so I think you should do the same for the practice packets."

"It really helps to go over the quizzes!"

"Studying the quiz question packets = life saver!"

"The correct answers of the tests help, and something that would really help would be if the quiz question packet answers would be posted as well."

"Doing practice problems."

"I think that you should give us the answers to the quiz question packets so we know what's right and what's wrong because it would be a great studying tool for this midterm and the upcoming ones."

"For me, making flashcards is really helpful. I also like to do all of the practice quiz questions and draw out all of the pictures we have drawn in class."

"I really benefit by drawing out simplified versions of the diagrams again and again. That way when a question comes up, if I don't immediately know the answer, I can draw the diagram and figure it out."

"The past quizzes seem to help but I'll see how I do on the midterm first to see if it was effective."

"The quiz question packets helped me a lot, but sometimes I wasn't sure of the answer or couldn't find it in some cases. It would be helpful to have answer keys or have a condensed study guide for the midterm with an answer key to refer to when stuck."

"Studying on an empty stomach does not help at all and so does looking at my phone constantly."

"It helps to draw the diagrams over and over in the context of different problems."

"Something that doesn't help is trying to overload your brain with too much information too fast."

"Really good notes from class and practice questions! "

"Something that helps while studying for this midterm is making quizlets and practicing those over and over, as well as going to the tutor."

"Flashcards on the various diagrams we drew throughout the first half of the term."

"The focal points in the telescopes are when the lines come together"

"Understanding the notes and questions is way more valuable than trying to understand all of the reading."

"Reviewing lecture slides remind me of helpful analogies."

"I do not find the set-up for the study guides all too helpful. With so much information, I often do not know what to focus on, and get lost."

"Reviewing quizzes or the quiz packets. Every time I have gone through an entire quiz question packet I get 100% they over prepare you for the quizzes."

"I think a small, simple study guide would help to become familiar with the material."

"The study guide helps a lot. Thanks. Also the in class questions from last year's midterm helped a lot too."

"I think something that isn't helpful while studying for the midterm is that the quiz question packets don't have answers. Therefore, we can't check to see if our answers are right or wrong."

"I enjoy the Snowboarder Model for looking at which planets are visible at certain times of the day."

"It is helpful to look back at past quizzes to get a good idea of what the questions on the test will look like."

"While studying for the midterm I have found it helpful to go over the questions in the quiz packets that have been provided."

"I believe that doing the quiz question packets will help a lot for the midterm. I did that for the first time with the last quiz and it was my best one yet."

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