Learning Tips and Study Habits

WikiAnswers is not going to help you cheat on getting homework answers - that's wrong and you could be suspended or even expelled.

It is best to do homework yourself. This way you can learn and then be able to impress your teachers and friends and learn how to getter better in that subject. Then you can go to the next grade. Then you can graduate and get a good job all because you do your own homework.

Yes, most children hate homework but the rewards are ever rich.

There are many websites which can aid you to complete your homework. It is therefore upto you to do the research relative to your homework.

No. You need your notebook and your textbook and whatever the teacher has assigned for you to do. Cheating will not help you to learn anything -- you might pass the assignment, but you'll be dumb when it comes to trying to do the test.

Besides that, here are some reasons that this is not the best idea you might have:

• Homework is supposed to give you practice so that you learn how to do the things in school. Can you pay somebody to practice your sports training for you? Can you pay somebody to learn how to drive a car for you? The same reason works for homework - if you don't practice, you won't ever learn how to do the work. When it comes time for a test, you will either have to keep cheating and risk getting caught and expelled, or you will flunk because you never learned how to do it.
• Paying somebody else to do your work leaves you with a very good chance that they don't know the answers either. Good students usually don't cheat, so anybody who is willing to do your work for you is likely to be just as clueless as you. You might just pay somebody a lot of money and still make a bad grade.
• You will eventually get caught. Everybody thinks they can break the law and get away from it, but the truth is, the police catch most criminals because they do stupid things. Students who cheat and copy someone else's work, or who pay to have somebody else do it for them, are doing something pretty stupid right there, and sooner or later they will slip up and get caught. Many schools will expel you for cheating, which is a lot worse than getting a bad grade or doing a boring assignment.

Learning Tips has a lot of good questions that will help you do your homework. We at WikiAnswers are always happy to give you help, but we won't do the homework for you. Look through our Learning Tips questions to see what's already been answered. If you need quick facts and speedy answers, try using a search engine like www.google.com or www.dogpile.com!

or you could just do it yourself and stop being such a duma**

The best way to organize your homework would to be to get an expandable accordian style folder, a three ring binder, or use of folders. You need to find a way that helps you since there are so many different ways to do that.

One thing that you can do is color code things. If your math book is blue, then use a blue spiral notebook and a blue folder/binder for math things.That way you can grab everything you need, even if you are in a hurry.

Also, have one Homework Notebook. Write down all of your assignments in that book every day so that you know exactly what you need to do. A good calendar is useful too - get one of those with big squares that you can write down all your assignment due dates - that way, you can see everything that is due way ahead of time and won't fall behind.

When you have too much homework to do, the best thing to do is prioritize and get the most important things(the things worth the most points) done first and move on from there. You might want to learn to manage your time better so you don't get in a time crunch. If you ABSOLUTLY HAVE TO HAVE IT DONE TOMORROW, and it seems like there won't be enough time, even afeter you've prioritzed, you could consider and all-nighter or a (insert percentage here) all-nighter, while I don't recomend this method, sometimes it cannot be avoided.

When I have a lot of homework, I think which bits need to be done sooner because of their due date and also which ones aren't going to take very long. I don't think people should have to result in an all-nighter but what I usually do when I have too much homework for one night is get to bed reasonably fitting in all the homework you can and then get up in the morning to finish it. This not only benefits you from a sleep but it also means that you are more fresh in the morning and likely to do a better piece of work.

The best way to organize homework is by using the following items:

--A binder for every class

--A planner that has space to write in assignments and due dates for each class

--Highlighters or colored pens

The first thing you need to do when organizing your homework is to sort it by class. Some people like to just have one big homework binder for all the classes combined, but by keeping each one separate to its individual binder, assignments won't get lost or put in the wrong place by accident.

Next, you need to use your planner to record your assignments. A smart thing to do is to write down everything you get on Monday and record for Monday night, but also work that's due later in the week, month or school year. If you have a long-term assignment, you should ration the assignment over a period of a week or so, so you only do a few bits of the assignment at a time. This will keep you from freaking out the night before it's due because all you've written is your name. :-)

Last, you need to highlight or underline in colored pen each assignment with a system. Here is a system that may work for you (you can also just use the pen to record instead of underlining):

Highlighted/Underlined in Blue: Short Term

Highlighted/Underlined in Red: Long Term

Highlighted/Underlined in Green: Study for Quiz/Test or Prepare for Presentation

My method is slightly unusual. My school offers free planners, but I don't really take advantage of them because I find that keeping it all in one place is annoying. Every class, you have to pull out your little planner to write down the homework, and in high school, most homework doesn't consist of just page numbers, but a lot of questions, etc. So, I have started just copying down homework as I would do it at home. For instance, in my AP Comparative class, I get around 5 questions every day, so I will write down the 5 questions and leave about 4 lines in between. For AP Statistics, which is actually just page numbers, I would just put down my heading and write in the information I will have to answer. Then, when I get home, from memory, I open a "Stickies" app on my Mac dashboard and just list the subjects where I got homework. Every time I complete an assignment, I erase the subject from the "stickie."

I know this is long, but it definitely helps me organize and do my homework more efficiently!

The best "punishment" for not doing the work is their grade. You need to make it very obvious that they are the ones who are in control of their own studying, and that if they don't work hard enough to pass, you are going to be sad when they fail, but you are not going to step in and do any of the work for them.

Be careful about threats and punishments to get your child to do homework. They may be less motivated to do it. It is almost better to not make them do it, let them fail for a brief period, and let them learn the lesson by themsevles. Then, if after say, five weeks, they still aven't learned a lesson, it's time to intervene.

• Have a set time each day when they must sit down and do schoolwork. This means no tv, no internet, no cellphones, no loud music (soft music is OK but no iPods or earphones because they do turn those up too loud and distract themselves). If they do not have homework that day (or if they claim that they don't), they still have to spend that time studying - have them read over their textbook and write down an outline of what they read into their notebook, or have them write out the important terms and definitions from the chapter, or have them recite what they have learned out loud to you. So long as they are spending that time studying, they'll learn something.
• Get a big family calendar. Write down every assignment's due date on this calendar - also include things like extracurricular activities, important events, and whatever else they need to plan ahead for! With a big visual cue in the kitchen or family room, they cannot say they didn't know something was due, or they forgot to study for a test.
• Bribe them! It's not as bad as it sounds - just as you work for a paycheck, kids need something to work for. If your kids are not motivated by the desire to get a good grade, then you have to come up with something else as a motivation. The only thing to watch out for here is the temptation to use "negative motivation" and take away something fun whenever they don't do well - that's not what I'm talking about, and it doesn't really work well anyhow. Psychological studies have proven that rewards help you change your bad habits faster and more permanently than the fear of punishment. Come up with some sort of reward with your kids - it could be a special movie night, or a small monitary reward for each good result, or a family trip - whatever they would want badly enough to work at their homework and "earn."

Here are some ways to keep yourself motivated for any job you might find difficult:

• Set up a timeline -- mark out the time you want to spend on this job, or the time you feel that you can realisticallycomplete it. Then, figure out how much you will have to do per day, or per week, in order to attain your goal. Mark your progress on your calendar or timeline so that you can instantly see how far you've come.
• Get other people involved -- ask your friends and/or family to help you. Get them to give you pep talks telling you how well you're doing. Get them to agree to "reward" you by doing something special together if you succeed. Get them to do the job with you if it's something like exercising more, losing weight, or anything else that would help them as much as it will help you.
• Reward yourself -- instead of trying to punish "wrong" behavior, give yourself a reward whenever you succeed. This should not be anything like food, because you'd just end up gaining weight and having to motivate yourself to diet! You could put a certain amount of money into a jar and spend it after you succeed. You could put tokens into a jar and "redeem" them for favors from friends and/or family (see above). You could make up any reward that you want, so long as you reward yourself every time you make progress toward your goal.
• Stay determined -- post inspirational notes around your room, office, or home. Listen to motivational speeches. Read about other people who have done the same thing you're trying to do. Talk to people you know who are trying to achieve a difficult goal. If you're doing something like quitting a bad habit, trying to become more healthy, you can probably find a support group out there somewhere that you can attend for even more motivation!

By valuing education and learning yourself! The more important education is to the parents and family, the more the child values education.

Here are some specific techniques that work:

• Have a large family calendar with due dates posted so everybody knows when things have to be done
• Set up a regular study time every day so there is no argument. Help your child understand that school is their job - just like you have to go to work every day whether you want to or not! If they don't have homework, then they spend the study time working on whatever is due next on the calendar, like studying for a test or practicing their vocabulary or outlining the textbook in their notes for the next day's classes.
• Make sure they have a homework notebook - this is one book where they keep all of their assignments written down, and it should always be in their backpack or book bag. This makes it less likely that they'll lose something, and makes it easy for you to know what's due.
• Teach them how to take good notes in class so they can use those notes to study with instead of trying to muddle through the textbook again.
• Reward them for their hard work. Set up some kind of reward system with your child, so they know that work will get them something they like. It doesn't have to be money, either. You can set up a pizza night for every good grade on a test, or have a family fun day after a certain number of study days, or even allow them to play a certain time on their video games after they do a certain amount of work.

One major thing is being prepared. Having something to write with and some paper to write on. Being prepared also means that you have read the material in advance. Reading the material helps you determine what information is more important.

Make sure you pay attention! You cannot take good notes if you cannot focus on what you are taking notes on. Your teacher will be emphasizing different information, and you really want to notice that. Usually the teacher will emphasize what they think is important. What they think is important is more likely to be on the test.

If you are having a hard time paying attention, you need to do something about it. Are you sitting in the front, middle, or back? Students in the back are more likely to be distracted or to daydream. If you want to focus, you should probably sit in the first few rows. So if you want to move, then ask your teacher (before or after class) if you can be moved up. If you explain that you are having trouble focusing and think that sitting close will help, most teachers will be glad to help you with that.

• Make your notebook an outline of the material - you can even use the textbook as a guide and write down major topics ahead of time
• Write down anything the teacher puts onto the board. If they think it is important, it probably will be on a quiz or test.
• Write down anything the teacher says more than once. If they repeat something, they think it is important also.
• Write down any words that the teacher explains - give definitions, examples, and any diagrams or drawings that the teacher uses to explain the terms.
• Ask the teacher to explain again if you do not understand anything, or ask they they write it down so you can copy it into your notes
• Copy any drawings, diagrams, maps, or images the teacher draws (if it is very complicated, make sure it is in your textbook so you can study it later, or see if the teacher can make you a copy)

There are a variety of different systems for taking notes - here's some information on how to do each one! Click on the Link at the end for more complete examples of each

• The Charting Method - this is a way of taking notes for a confusing lecture which involves a lot of relationships, dialogue, comparisons and other connections between a lot of different areas. Make you paper into a set of columns with the main topics to be covered in your lecture written at the top of the sheet. As the teacher covers each fact, write it into the correct column. This is a good method if you have a lot of information and not a lot of time to write, but you have to know what topics are going to be covered ahead of time, so that you can make your columns.
• The Cornell Method - this is a way of adding extra information and "clues" to your notes without recopying the whole thing. Basically, you just leave a huge blank margin on the left or right side of your page, then add cues, hints, and extra information in the blank spaces. When you study, you can cover up your notes and just look at the cues in the margin to see if you know the material.
• The Outline Method - this is the one I usually recommend; it is a way of showing main facts and how they are related to one another. You can do a formal outline - the kind with numbers, letters, etc. - or just use the indented areas to show what goes underneath what category. The major points or most important facts will be listed further toward the left-hand side of the page. Information which explains these facts, defines terms, or otherwise supports the main points will be listed underneath them and indented toward the right. This is a good way to make your notebook because all you have to do to study is read each point as a question. The only problem with using an outline would be if you have a teacher who covers a lot of information very quickly so that it's hard for you to keep up; in that case, use another method during their class or ask for a written outline to keep in your notes.
• The Mapping Method - this is a visual method of taking notes, and involves making a map or diagram showing how all the information is connected. It is a good way to keep up with a teacher who covers lots of information, or when you don't know exactly what the lecture will be about (such as a guest speaker). Instead of taking detailed notes, you just jot down the main points. Then, you draw lines connecting facts or details; show connections with arrows; circle important information; or any other visual way you want to remind yourself of the lecture and the information you learned. This method works best if you use it as a rough-draft, then recopy the information into an outline or list afterword for easier studying.
• The Sentence Method - this is another way of handling a lecture with a lot of information. You just copy down the important information as the teacher speaks, writing each fact on a new line - you do not actually have to write complete sentences so long as you get the important information down. The best way to use this method is as a rough draft, because you have trouble reading through the mass of sentences later on when studying - use this method to get the information, then recopy it into an outline so that it makes more sense and is easier to study.

• I have 17 notebooks, and if you were to read them over, you would read about my day, what the cafeteria food tasted like, what I wish would happen the next day, etc. You can write generally anything in your notebook. I doubt you'll run out of room anytime soon! Ha! The above is called JOURNALING. It is a good writing tool, but it won't help you study for your classes.

You take good notes in every class by answering these three major things.

How

Who

Where

Why

Research into note taking says use these three steps:

1. Takes notes in your own words (don't write them down verbatim)

2. Reviewing notes is a must. Try summarizing key points when reviewing.

3. Organizing and Reorganizing notes aides in recall.

Words that describe homework are:

• helpful
• learning
• teaching
• practice
• easy
• hard
• boring
• interesting

If you're studying for something other than a standardized test (see Jponbac's answer for that) then you study by using your notes. You should be writing down all of the important points your teacher goes over in class, keeping your graded homework papers, and taking practice tests from your textbook. That way, everything important is in your notes and you don't have to try to read the textbook again the night before an exam.

You don't really need a tutor unless you're doing really poorly or really struggling to understand the material. In that case, ask your teacher how to find a good tutor - there are usually people in your community who will help with that.