Keys to Success

Anatomy and Physiology is a challenging course but it serves as a foundation of the knowledge you will acquire during your entire education about the human body, its parts and functions, its ailments, and treatment regimens currently utilized.  Learning the proper study techniques now, will provide a deeper more thorough understanding of the material and serve you well throughout your education and in your future professional life.  This course will require a significant amount of time, dedication, and effort.  Consistent and timely reviewing of the material after each lecture is the key to success along with not only learning the vocabulary, but using the vocabulary properly to describe the structure of parts, how parts work to make processes happen, and how this influences body function as a whole.   A plan or approach to studying for Bio 240-241 and other suggestions on how to study the material are described below.  Use all of the approaches and suggestions to your best advantage.  If you try all of these approaches with an honest effort to do well, but you do not, please do not hesitate for even a day to come see me for help!

A MASTERY APPROACH TO STUDYING FOR BIO 240-241

 Let’s say that the first lecture of new material will begin on Friday.

1.         Thursday night – look at the syllabus and see what we are going to do tomorrow.  Print off the lecture notes. Read from the lecture notes and the book only the pertinent material.  DO NOT highlight the text, DO NOT underline, DO NOT outline, DO NOT read all of the other stuff that I will not be talking about.

2.         Friday morning -- Come to class and pay strict attention.  Try to be engaged with me, thinking about what I’m going to say next.  See if I am answering the questions that your initial reading may have brought up.  Take minimal notes in the margins of the lecture notes you printed off that I have provided for you.

3.         Immediately after class (11 am is best), sit down and review what we just did in class.  Take out the vocabulary sheet and highlight only the words that we used in class.  DO NOT TRY TO HAVE A MARATHON VOCABULARY SESSION.  Make minimal flash cards of these words (do something so that you can learn the words and definitions)

4.         Friday night – review lecture material and vocabulary again

5.         Saturday -- review lecture material and vocabulary again

6.         Sunday -- review lecture material again.  Look at the syllabus and see what we are going to do on Monday.  Print off new lecture notes if necessary and read from the lecture notes and the book only the pertinent material.  Think about how this new material fits into the old material from last lecture.

7.         Monday -- Come to class and pay strict attention.  Take minimal notes in the margins of the notes I’ve provided for you.

8.         Immediately after class (11 am is best), sit down and review what we just did in class.  Take out the vocabulary sheet and highlight the new words that we used in class.  Make minimal flash cards of these words (do something so that you can learn the words and definitions)

9.         Monday night – review all lecture material again; review vocabulary

10.        Tuesday – review all lecture material again; review vocabulary.

11.        Tuesday night -- look at the syllabus and see what we are going to do on Wednesday.  Print off lecture notes if neccessary and Read from the lecture notes and the book only the pertinent material.

12.        Wednesday morning - Come to class and pay strict attention.  Take minimal notes in the margins of the notes I’ve provided for you.

13.        Immediately after class (11 am is best), sit down and review what we just did in class.  Take out the vocabulary sheet and highlight the new words that we used in class.  Make minimal flash cards of these words (do something so that you can learn the words and definitions)

Continue to repeat this procedure through the end of the materials for the next test.  In this way, you will invested increasingly more time each day as you approach the test.  You will have gone through the material 14 or more times and will have learned a lot of new words. 

 HOW TO MAKE ALL THE NEW WORDS AND CONCEPTS HELP YOU TELL A STORY:

 As we complete a section, look at the list of objectives in the handouts, or the objectives listed in the text, and the sections of the text called “Before You Go On.”  See if you can answer these questions OUT LOUD.  Write on a chalk board or a white board, use scrap paper, whatever.  Pretend you are teaching that topic to a high school class. Talk it out.  If you stumble over it, study it again, and then talk it out again.

 About 3 days before the next test, take last year’s exam or the one on the CD, grade yourself and diagnose what you know and what you do not know.  Study what you DO NOT KNOW.

 Good luck!!!

OTHER SUGGESTIONS ON HOW TO STUDY THE MATERIAL: (from syllabus)

 There are several approaches to this class that each student should use to prepare for examinations.

1.         Be in class each day.  Prior to class time you should study the preceding material, and then read from the syllabus the material that will be discussed that day.  I do not recommend taking notes in class for reasons that will become obvious.

2.         There is a written study guide that came with your text for each chapter we study.  If you can answer each of the questions in the study guide without looking it up, then it will be safe for you to say that you know the material.  Some people like to fill in the study guide as they go along to create a good set of notes; others like to try to fill in the study guides after they have studied to test themselves.  Either approach is useful.

3.         Thirdly, on the website are the PowerPoint lectures and on the CD I gave you are ToolBook lectures and interactive study guides and practice tests that I have written.  They follow class exactly and, in fact, you can find your lecture notes there (this is why I said I do not recommend note-taking during lecture).

4.         On the CD you received with your text and other materials, all of the interactive study guides are transcribed in Word format.

5.         Also on the CD and on my webpage you will find:

            a.         Course objectives

            b.         Vocabulary lists

            c.         Handouts (I will refer to them in class as appropriate and they are referenced in the syllabus)

            d.         Exams and keys from last year