Go to class, sit in front if you can, ask questions, and take notes.
Get to know your Professor. If you go to their office hours, they can seem very different from how they seem in class.
Outside of class, find a quiet place to study, preferably near some plants and with good ventilation.
Read the assigned sections and do the homeworks.
Homework is meant to help you learn by doing. It gives you practice and should help you prepare for tests.
Would you expect to improve if you had someone else do your practicing for you?
Find someone else to study with:
Often different people pick up different things in class or as they read.
You can remind each other of upcoming deadlines or things your Professor said in class.
You can take notes for each other if one of you needs to miss a class.
You can provide each other with moral support and keep each other motivated.
You may find concept A easier to grasp while your study partner finds concept B easier to grasp.
Explaining things to each other helps solidify what you have already learned.
Asking each other questions can point out holes in your understanding.
Communication and Teamwork are skills useful in any career.
You can meet others taking similar Math and Science classes at the Tutoring Centers or by participating in GPC's STEM, MESA, LSAMP, or ENLISTEM programs.
Meet people with similar interests by doing a STEM Internship.
Look in your textbook and class notes for examples similar to your homework problems.
Look in the back of your textbook for answers to certain homework problems.
Inspect your textbook's table of contents, index, and appendices.
The index can help you quickly find a specific topic in your textbook.
Review the end-of-chapter summaries and special review sections before quizzes and tests.
Find an online web page for your textbook. Such pages often have interactive content to help you learn.
Find a student study guide or solutions manual for your textbook. Some of these have detailed solutions to many homework problems.
www.cramster.com has solutions to problems from many different textbooks as well as online quizzes.
InterAct Math has online resources for many Math textbooks.
If you get stuck, try searching Google or Wikipedia for the answers.
Several good Science Encyclopedias are in Clarkston's Library with call numbers like Ref Q121-Q123.
Sometimes getting a textbook on the same topic but by a different author can help.
TED: Ideas Worth Spreading has many interesting (and sometimes controversial) science and technology talks.
Here are some where the physicist Richard Feynman talks about energy, atoms, heat, chemistry, etc.
Here is one where Mae Jemison talks about bridging the gap between the Arts and the Sciences.
Here is another talk by Mae Jemison about Science Literacy.
Lorenzo's Oil was a good movie based on a true story about a lay-person who reads many articles on his own and prods the right scientists in order to develop a cure for his son's rare neurological disease.
This web page and the sites it links to may change without notice.
Please send questions or comments to Jeff.
Copyright 2008-2012 Jeffrey Michael Canfield, Ph.D. All Rights Reserved.
