Finding a Place To Study

Written by: Duane Norland

Founder of getintocash.com

Figuring out a time and place to do your homework and study is of the utmost importance. Once you have figured out when to do your homework, the next question is where to do it.

A good study area should have a desk or table big enough to spread out books, notes, worksheets, etc. without them all being on top of each other. You do not want to make a mess, but you also do want to have ample room to work.

Make sure you have plenty of light. Ideally, you will near a window with an overhead light and perhaps even a small reading lamp.

Most important in choosing a study location is finding a place that is relatively free from distractions. That means no TV on in the room, no brothers or sisters running by, no phone conversations to listen in on, and no instant messenger or emails to keep you busy.

Whether or not you listen to music while you study depends on your personal preference. You may choose to ignore any phone calls, or turn off your cell phone, and forget about the urge to go and get a snack every ten or fifteen minutes.

Depending on your home, you may be able to find this area at the kitchen or dining room table, or in your bedroom. You may be able to set aside a study space in your basement or an office in you home. Some people find their homes too filled with distractions, and prefer to take their studies to the local library.

Wherever you choose, it is best if you can study in that same place all the time. If you can study in this same location consistently, your mind will get used to this being a focused and important place. When you enter this area, you will know it is time to get down to business. Your pens and pencils, paper, erasers, stapler, calculator, and anything else you use often can be kept nearby. Also, you can keep them in a bin or bag which can be pulled out whenever you need them. This will avoid having to stop studying to collect supplies.

Having this dedicated study spot will help you get down to business and focus more easily on getting your work complete.

Keep Supplies in a Homework Kit

It’s four o’clock…you know what that means…time to do homework. You scour the house looking for a pencil. Then you need a pencil sharpener. Ten minutes later you find one. Finally you sit down to start your homework. Where’s the calculator? Dad’s desk? Brother’s bedroom? Once found, you discover that it is low on batteries…there have to be some in the house…but where? If you find your typical study session unfolding like this, then here are a few suggestions to make you finish your homework with ease…

You can waste a lot of time looking for homework supplies and making sure they are ready to be used. OR, you can use a homework box or supply kit of some kind to keep it all together. Then, when it comes time to do homework, everything is in place for you. No running around, no scouring the house.

Any kind of box will do. You can use a storage tote, an old shoebox, or even a drawer. The key is to keep everything you need in there, ready to go. Make sure the tote or box is placed conveniently in your study area. It should not move from the spot.

Make sure siblings and family members know that these supplies are for homework, and not for other activities. Those supplies should stay there, and only be used for homework. You may want to label it so there is no confusion as to its purpose.

Pencils and crayons should be sharp, calculators fully equipped with fresh batteries, markers with lids tightly attached. Here’s a tip, since your parents are always offering to help with your homework but it is up to you to do the work, suggest that they take responsibility for keeping the supply kit full and in working order.

When it comes to studying, there are few people that want any more struggle or stress than is necessary. Keeping all materials and supplies handy and ready to go will make your studying not only go smoother, but possibly quicker. And who wouldn’t want to shorten the time they need for studying?

Concentration is Key

Learning to concentrate while studying and doing work is a skill that will be used for the rest of your life. The art of concentration is to eliminate any possible distractions and completely focus on the task at hand. Many students will read through material and discover that they have no idea what they have just read. Or, they will attend lectures and have difficulty paying attention to what is being said. Here are a few suggestions to help you stay focused and boost your grades…

When scheduling study times, try to stick to a consistent and efficient routine. Try to avoid studying one day late at night, and the next in the afternoon. Write in your planner or calendar when you will study so as not to have conflicts.

Always study in a quiet environment. If you haven’t already, find a designated study spot free of distractions. If you live in a noisy house or dormitory, this may mean heading to a study room or even the library.

When you need a study break, do something different from you have been doing, and in a different area. Get up and walk around in another room. Listen to music for a few minutes. Grab a snack. Try to take a break every hour for about 10 minutes.

Every student struggles with day dreaming while studying…thinking about plans for the night or tomorrow’s basketball game. To avoid daydreaming, ask yourself questions about the material as you study it, which will keep your mind focused.

If you have trouble focusing during classroom lectures, look over the notes of the previous lecture and read the course material pertaining to the lecture beforehand so you can anticipate the main ideas that the instructor will cover. Additionally, show outward interest during lectures. Have an attentive expression and posture. This will self-motivate internal interest. Also, resist distractions by sitting in front of the room away from disruptive occurrences and classmates and by focusing on the instructor through listening and note taking.

Just a few minor adjustments in your studying habits will go a long way in improving grades and concentration.

Skimming with Skill

Think about how you find a name in a telephone book. You don’t read any more than necessary to find the name. Maybe you use your finger to guide your eyes. This type of reading is known as scanning. Skimming uses the same type of skill mechanically but a different skill mentally. In scanning, you know what you are looking for; in skimming, you don’t.

Since you don’t know exactly what you are looking for while skimming, prepare yourself by reading the title, source, author, and any pictures; then question yourself,–who, what, when, where is this likely to focus on? With a questioning mind direct your eyes down the column of print, or in a zigzag, if the lines are quite long. Look for exact names of people, places, things, ideas, numbers and words like therefore, whenever, until, because, and instead, to clue you to how and why.

When you first start to learn to skim you may see only the words in bold type, italics, digits, or capitalized words. Soon you will note new or unusual vocabulary. As you become an efficient skimmer your span of perception will develop and your ability to make closure will increase.

Skimming is a step you should always take before you read any article of factual or practical narrative. You will soon be able to detect most important facts, strange vocabulary, and words that are clues to important relationships.

It’s a good practice to skim everything in mass media after reading the title and first paragraph. You may get all the information you want. This keeps your skimming skills from deteriorating, or will give you the practice you need to develop necessary skills.

Skim everything you intend to read before you make a final decision to read, discard, or study the material.

Skim all highlighting and develop a read-skim pattern to use for rapid review. And don’t overlook this! Reviewing frequently and rapidly is the best way to memorize (or simply remember information) from notes and long text assignments. Skimming is a very useful tool for studying, so learn it and use it!

From Start to Finish

Confused about what to write down in your notebook during class? Get stressed when preparing for tests and looking over your notes? Here are some suggestions to take you from the beginning of the studying process in the classroom, to the end, or the test itself.

Read assignments before heading to class. This will build your background for the information that will be presented in class. It helps you be familiar with the vocabulary and concepts. This is especially helpful if you are unfamiliar with the subject matter. As you read, underline and highlight important information. If you don’t have time to read the entire assignment, at least look over introduction paragraphs, bolded words, and summaries. This will give you a good overview of the information.

Although it seems obvious, you need to go to class and take notes. Most professors or teachers lecture during class periods, emphasizing points of importance. Head to class ready to be attentive and write during the entire class. Don’t stop taking notes until the lecturer is finishing. Pay particular attention to the end of the lecture, as professors will cram information into this part to finish up for the day. Use abbreviations; get details and main ideas to get complete notes.

While the notes are still ‘fresh’ in your mind, look over them and make any additions or corrections as soon as possible after class. Be sure to make note of any parts you didn’t understand or missed. Ask either the professor or a friend via email or before the next class period to get the missing information.

Try to pass your first test in each class to boost self-confidence. Make up a list of study questions and definitions and practice reciting this information aloud, either to yourself or someone else. Don’t wait until the last minute study. Rather, study for short periods over several days. Of course, you will want to review the night before a test.

Finally, test day arrives. Use these strategies during your exam to make all your hard work worthwhile. Read directions carefully before you begin. Take a few minutes to look over the test, then answer all the questions you know first. This will help you get sure points and builds confidence. Don’t leave any blanks; it is better to guess if you don’t know. Watch your time, and manage it accordingly. Don’t rush, but don’t go too slow. Take a few minutes at the end of class to look over your test to be sure you have answered all questions and that your answers make sense.

And when you finally discover that school’s not all it’s cracked up to be, you always have alternatives.

How about earning RESIDUAL income on the internet???

Give: Pay It Forwards 4 Profits a chance.

Easy to follow step-by-step instructions show you how to earn RESIDUAL income without costing you anything!!!!

FREE!!!

http://www.getintocash.com/recommends/pif4p

Round Table Democracy in Decatur, Georgia

Though it sits on the outskirts of Atlanta, the city of Decatur is no suburb. A community of 18,000 people and many historic homes it was founded in the 1830’s. Within its 4 square miles are houses like the old bungalows valued by renovators, some of the oldest public housing in America and two town squares or commercial districts. Three public transit stops are within the city limits. And, as seen in the “Decatur Round Tables” project, it can also boast of a more vigorous civic life.

Decatur Round TableOver 450 citizens were involved in the Decatur Round Tables project, which were organized by Jon Abercrombie, a longtime Decatur resident working with the Study Circle Resource Center (SCRC). The long-range goal was to “ensure that citizens from across the community become actively involved in the process of making decisions.”
Support Of Local Government

The effort received the support of local government from the start. The City Council, City Manager’s Office, Downtown Development Authority, and a number of other organizations were heavily involved. The organizers were reacting to a number of controversies, including contentious school board elections and a zoning battle over a parking deck built by Agnes Scott College in the middle of a residential neighborhood. In addition, tensions were rising between longtime residents of color and newer residents, many of whom were young and white.

To help residents address these challenges, the organizers worked with SCRC to create a new study circle guide, which included sessions on growth and development, race relations, and education. Some of the material in the Decatur guide was later published as part of SCRC’s Building Strong Neighborhoods, a guide for organizing study circles on neighborhood issues.
A Key Innovation: The Leadership Map

Decatur Round TableDecatur added a key innovation to the organizing process: a “leadership map” of formal and informal associations in the community (109 in all). Each group listed on the map — from gardening clubs to neighborhood associations — was asked to recruit Round Table participants from its membership. “We took the map to every meeting and presentation we did, as a way of showing people the scope of the Decatur Round Tables.”

The Round Tables and the resulting actions changed things. City Hall created a new position for a Neighborhood Liaison who worked directly with neighborhood associations. An action team that emerged from the Round Tables, working with the city leaders created a broad-based strategic planning process, which was led by an urban design group in 2000. A neighborhood action team led by Lyn Menne of the City created the Decatur Neighborhood Alliance, which brought the leadership of all of the city’s neighborhood associations together for support, training, and planning. And the Decatur Recreation Authority reported that the Round Tables helped them ‘reorient’ the way they work. Finally, some Round Table participants formed a new group, the Decatur Greens, to advocate for and to create new parks and green spaces.
Addressing Concerns of Senior Citizens

One of the concerns voiced by many participants was the plight of older African-American residents in Decatur, who were finding it harder to stay in their homes as property values — and taxes — rose. An action team identified and helped senior citizens qualify for tax abatement plans and reverse mortgages.
Zoning Issues Spawn a New Study Circle

One example was the zoning process, which had often led to angry debates and misinformation. After the first round of circles concluded, a new challenge arose: a developer wanted to build a 200-unit condominium complex in a neighborhood zoned for residential use. Working with the city government and the neighborhood association leadership, the Round Table Team designed and conducted a “mini study circle” format that brought the developer, the architect, and the residents together in an even-handed, low-key meeting that allowed for honest discussion and an expression of opinions. Subsequently, the condominium proposal was dropped, but the team had created a better system for dealing with controversial issues.
Looking to the Future: How do you build citizen participation into city life?

This question defines the overall challenge now facing Decatur: how do you build citizen participation more fully into the way the community conducts its business? “We need to have elected decision makers, but we also need enough of a democratic setup that all people have access to power,” says City councilman Jim Baskett. The City won’t be dictating any answers to this question; instead, in true democratic fashion, they’ll be using Round Tables to find out what citizens think. “We should be asking citizens what they want when it comes to the future of democracy in Decatur,” Baskett says, “and we should be open to whatever they suggest.”

As we attempt to analyse dialogue as a human phenomenon, we discover something, which is the essence of dialogue itself: the word. But the word is more than just an instmment that makes dialogue possible; accordingly, we must seek its constructive elements. Within the word we find two dimensions, reflection and action, in such radical interaction thai if one is scarified – even in part – fhe other immediately suffers. There is no ime word that is not at the same time praxis. Thus, to speak a true word is to transform the world. (Freire, 1996) This article covers study circle history, tradition, research, practice, development and challenges for the future. As a method for ‘liberal adult education,” the study circle has existed for a hundred years. The study circle is a democratic and emancipatory method for leaming. *For the people, by the people’ became the study circle slogan influencing adult learning in Scandinavia for years. The article is based on a presentation at the Umguayan govcmmental conference on leaming for youngsters and adults in Montevideo, June 2006.

Study circles may – when they are functioning at their best – offer leaming without humiliation, leaming without guilt and bad consciousness, non-violent leaming, a humble way of leaming and leaming for self-confidence and selfesteem. But there was a long way to go to here. As a Nordic traditional method for liberal adult education, the study circle has been active for more than a hundred years. From the beginning, the Study Circle has been seen as a democratic and emancipatory method and arena for leaming, particularly among adults. Study circles were bom in New York in the 1870s. By their peak in 1915, 700,000 people were participating in 15,000 study circles in the USA. People close to the union, co-op, the temperance movement, and the Social Democratic Party carried the idea to Sweden to educate their followers. Even though study circles have more or less passed away in the USA, they have flourished ever since in Sweden and Scandinavia. Still nearly three million Swedes participate in more than 300,000 study circles annually, partly funded and subsidised (but not controlled) by the public sector and the govemment. Scandinavian communities have even convened study circles to work through major issues facing their local areas and towns, with study circle participants turning into activists who then have a significant impact on events. In the last ten years, there has been a renewed and blooming interest in study circles in the USA also.’ The study circle followed the ‘top-to-botfom approach’ for enlightenment developed in the eighteenth century, expressed, for example, through the University Extension movements in France, England and Scandinavia,- to become a ‘bot1om-up’ method. The so-called founder of the study circle, the Swede Oscar Olsson, expressed that ‘the emancipation of the working class should be a task for the workers themselves.’ ‘For the people, by the people’-’ became the political slogan that infiuenced the study circle and the adult education system in Scandinavia for years. The close links between the method study eircle and the tool for democracy study circle may also be exemplified with the expression by the former Swedish Prime Minister OIov Palme: ‘Sweden is to a great extent a Study Circle democracy’ (1998). The study circle is a human, easy, and fearless way to leaming for adults with low self-esteem and self-confidence. But the study circle method is also demanding. It claims activity and dialogue between its participants (members), and just occasionally you can rely on a teacher or an expert joining in. Normally the study eircle is a group of equals, the leader the ‘primus inter pares.’ The pedagogical idea may – in my words – be summarised by ‘leaming by sharing,’ relying on each member’s experience.

‘The Study Circle, which voluntary organisations claim to be their special method, from both ideological and educational reasons, has very much been taken for granted,’ says the Norwegian researcher Hallgjerd Brattset in her study (1982, p. 13) on how to describe and analyse the experiences from methods of planning and organising study circles. Because the Norwegian Act on Adult Education”* (NOU, 1976) requires students’ involvement in contents and method in the courses, Brattset thought it was of special interest to find out to what extent this is practised in study circles.

Scandinavian Background
The study eircle was developed in late-nineteenth-eentury Sweden. It is usually dated to 1902, the year Oscar Olsson, ‘the father of the study circle,’ started his first circle in the Lund branch of the Intemational Order of Good Templar and named it a ’study circle.’^ The most distinctive features of circle studies, as Oscar Olsson (quoted in Brattset, 1982, p. described them, were that: * * * people studied in small groups, ofren at home; study material was rare; teachers were not considered a necessary prerequisite of study. The leader of the group was an organiser, and he possessed no theoretical qualifications; people supplemented their group studies by attending lectures or meetings; circle members had no previous theoretical qualifications but a good deal of practical experience; members leamt to discuss, argue, show consideration for others, accept defeat, and share responsibility; members experienced a sense of community and identity; the knowledge members acquired could be directly related to their everyday lives; and studies began at the initial cognitive level of the members and were guided by their needs.

* * * * * *

According to Oscar Olsson, the most important features of study circles were that they operated independently of teachers, were based on the reading of fiction, and used conversation and discussion as methods. His definition of a study circle was ‘a circle of friends who come together to discuss problems or subjects of common interest’ (quoted in Brattset, 1982, p. 9). From this definition it follows that the leader should be more a guide to the members than a traditional teacher. A practical consequence of this is the terms applied: circle members or participants, not pupils or students: circle leaders. Convergence, Volume XXXIX. Number 2-3. 2006 51

not teachers, circles or groups and meetings, not clas.’ses or lessons. This use of tenninology has been considered quite important, because the participants should not associate the studies with ‘bad previous school experiences.’

Voluntary Organisations
Historically, study circles and popular movements are inseparable concepts. Oscar Olsson’s study circle exemplifies the close links that have always existed between popular movements and the study circle, and also that adult education has always been strongly associated with the voluntary sector in Scandinavia. The aim of their educational activities was to promote changes in society, according fo their values. Therefore adult education can be described as instrumental to reach their goals, and the study circle their tool to do so. The study circle is a fiexible tnethod. Several terms are therefore in use, such as: ‘ * * * * * * circles with or without a teacher; circles combined with lectures; circles based on prcproduced plans; correspondenee eireles; combined circles – members taking correspondence courses individually, supported by circle studies with teacher; multimedia courses, studies integrated in a pre-produced scheme, including usage of media; and, finally and most recently, ‘E-circles,’ in which the members communicate on the Intemet.

Research
The study circle as an aeademic field of research has been rare. Most of the research being done in recent years is known from Sweden and the University of Linkoping (see, for example, Andersson et al., 1996). The most comprehensive study was conducted by Jan Bystrom (1976). The aim of Bystrom’s study was lo investigate and discuss the reasons why study circles develop differently and to pay special …