Transcript Revision Strategies - Queen Elizabeth High School, Hexham

Revision Strategies
A parent’s guide to supporting
students through their preparations for
exams.
Why are you here?

Because you or your son or
daughter are panicking about
exams getting closer and closer.
So what is revision?

What does the word revise mean?

How do you do it?
My Aims for tonight
To cover two main areas:
 How can students revise?
The Strategies

How can we support them and
help them avoid stress?
The brain’s behind it!
Don’t panic! Don’t Panic!
The brain hates it!
The Brain and Learning
Less than
1% used
It is the size of 2 fists
Left
Logic
Numbers
Language
Letters
Analysis
Symbols
Linearity
Right
Imagination
Visualisation
Rhythm
Spatial
Awareness
Colour
Music
Art
Patterns/Charts
The Brain and Learning
Left
Right
Not creativity
True
learning takes place when
links are made across Left & Right
Linear learning is limited to the
LEFT so find ways to make links
Different
ways of revising
Reviewing and recalling your work
Get Comfortable
• Doesn’t have to be at a desk
• You can have music but not your
favourites
• The best kind of music has no lyrics
and is 60-70 B.P.M - a good bit of Bach!
• Build in breaks, don’t revise for hours
• Ask your family and friends not to
disturb you
Review to Music
• Music at 60 -70 BPM gives the alpha
brainwave state - good for long term
memory
• Summary information is read aloud just
below the music - could tape it and play it
back to yourself
• Or, for new information - higher number
of BPM. Voice alters with music
Mindmapping

Mind mapping on mind mapping
Summarise notes
Do not JUST read them
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Headings and points
Use tables
Use spider diagrams
Put onto postcards 




list the main points
7 points + or - 2
Chunk it down
Use flow charts
Use diagrams
Venn Diagram
Arteries
Veins
Thick walls
Thin walls
no valves
tubular
pocket valves
can constrict
transport
blood
take blood back to
heart
take blood away
from heart
high blood
pressure
can’t constrict
low blood pressure
Chart or table
Arteries
Veins
tubular
transport blood




thick walls
no valves
can constrict
take blood away
from heart
 high blood
pressure
 thin walls
 pocket valves
 take blood back to
heart
 can’t constrict
 low blood pressure
Flow Chart
Global Warming
Fossil fuels burned
CO2 emissions
Blanket of CO2 around earth
Global warming
Sensory

To learn anything fast you need to:
 SEE

IT
 HEAR
IT
 FEEL
IT
POST ITS - around the room
Colourful and visual

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Our memory is better for Images
than for WORDS
Use highlighter pens
Make review posters
Posters
Summary information
onto
Dramatic colourful posters
Place at eye level or above in your
room
Visual memory
Remember
Pictures and diagrams in your upper
left visual field.
The images must be

BIG!
Outrageous

The brain remembers more easily
things that are DIFFERENT and
DISRUPT an expected pattern

outrageous voices

teach a Martian
Ridiculous Applications


The unusual and outrageous are
immediately memorable
Take it out of context
Imagine a PILLOW FIGHT with
one person hitting the other each
SHOUTING OUT advantages or
disadvantages with each hit!!!!
Thematic or Topical

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You need something to relate your
understanding to
E.g. T.Rex was 4.1m high - the
height of a ceiling
Sequenced
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Index cards
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Flow charts
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Clock face diagrams
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Templates for structured response
Chunked
The maximum units of information
an adult can recall without chunking
is 7 + or - 2
01434610300 = 01-434-610-300
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magic numbers 1,3,5,7
Example of 1,3,5,7
Muscular Contraction
1 - Significant learning part
 Muscles shorten when they contract
3 - Essential pieces of information
 TWO types of filament
thick myosin
thin Action
 nerve impulse initiates action and calcium is released
 This causes active sites to be shown on ACTIN and
myosin binds to it by forming CROSS BRIDGES
………………...
1,3,5 Questions that need to be answered 7
5





Questions that need to be answered
Can you draw a diagram of the action?
What is the structure of muscle filaments?
How are the bands arranged?
What happens when the nerve impulse arrives?
What is the role of ATP (energy)?
?
………………………………...
1,3,5, 7
7
key points
Key points
1. initiated by nerve impulse
2. causes release by calcium from T vesicles
3. which causes ACTIN filaments to change shape and
expose active sites
4. myosin heads attach to active sites forming cross bridges
5. this requires
nergy
ATP  ADP + P +
nergy
6. cross bridges immediately detach, reattach, causing
shortening - RATCHET mechanism
7. Z lines move closer together, T band is narrower and stays
the same, H band disappears.
Located


Learn key information in different
places in the house
key facts brought to life by
characters [e.g. Royle family] and
locate them in a place
Numbered

Use WORDS to represent numbers
or dates
186,282 = A DAZZLING SUNRAY IS
FLASHING BY

Number key points
e.g. 5 causes of …..
Mnemonics - Word Games
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R
O
Y
G
B
I
V
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Best invented by YOU!
Initial letters of key points
e.g. functions of a skeleton SLAPRS
Seven characteristics of living
things - MRS GREN
Meiosis in ovaries
mitosis in
toes
Stalactites - tights come down
Stalagmites - mites go up
Alliteration
Rhyme and Rhythm
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Information carried by rhythm or
tune or learned as words to a song
are easily remembered
WHOLE BRAIN LEARNING
Make up rhymes/ sing them to
tunes you know
Tape it and play it back to yourself
Personalised
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Try to make personal connections to
the information you’re learning.
How would you teach this to your
younger brother or sister?
Think about personal projects.
Shared

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You need to test understanding
WITHOUT FEAR
Regular informal tests
Do it at home!
Explain your notes to someone else
Make questions up and ask
someone to test you on your
understanding
Plan your revision

Use a planner

Divide the day up into hours

Allow yourself some relaxation and
build it into your timetable.
Revision
Support
at
Home
Reasons
Symptoms
STRESS
Strategies
to avoid it.
Useful Websites

Revision Moodle at QEHS
http://w1.qehs.net/moodle

BBC Bitesize
http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/

s-cool.co.uk
http://www.s-cool.co.uk