Before you get your hopes us, I haven’t suddenly become a Wikipedia convert. I just want to draw everyone’s attention to valid ways to use Wikipedia when doing research for a paper or project.

Wikipedia should never be used as a primary source, but it can be used to find a jumping-off point when you can’t find any other way to get started researching your topic.

Posted by Rebecca as Responsibility at 7:50 AM EST

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Among other things, I teach study skills at work. They fight it tooth and claw, but eventually my students understand that organizing their learning material and reviewing that material is more helpful than just shoving everything into the bottom of their backpack.

When you take care of your notes and ideas, you’re far more likely to learn from them. You write the notes. You read over the notes. You review the notes. With any hope, you reflect on the notes you’ve taken. This is what creates the more permanent memory of what you learned, and helps you retain information past tests and projects so you’ll have it at your fingertips the next time you need it.

Tim Milburn recently shared his Learning Journal Worksheet over at Joyful Jubilant Learning. It’s pretty nice. There are spots for notes, sketches, learning-related actions, reflections, and my favorite part, how the learner can teach the skill or concept to someone else. I’ve long supported peer teaching because it’s really in being able to clearly explain something to someone else that we acquire full mastery over it.

Maybe you can find a way to work it into your own studies.

Posted by Rebecca as Learning methods at 8:06 AM EST

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