Active Study Strategies

Learning for Recall

1. Select the portions of the powerpoint presentations that you will focus on during your study
period (you won’t have time to study everything equally)
2. For each topic area you have selected, review the powerpoint slides and annotations you made
during the lecture
3. Ask yourself the following questions:
a. Why is this thing the way it is?
b. What do I know related to this topic and how does it all fit together?
c. This reminds me of _________. I think this would happen if…
d. What else do I need to know and what is the fastest way I can learn it?
e. What do I expect to learn next?
4. Summarize the key points in your own words as much as possible. Create a bulleted list of these
key points
5. Create potential test questions that reflect the key points you summarized
6. Answer your questions
7. Create condensed notes/summary of the topic based on these activities. These notes will
replace the powerpoint slides during any additional review periods.

Concept Maps
1. Ask yourself, what are the major concepts that I want to include in this map? How should the
concepts be linked together?
2. Create an Overview map
a. Defines overall territory for a major topic and gives you an immediate visual feel for how
material is subdivided
b. Does not include details
c. Identify most general heading you can find (section heading from PP presentation)
d. Put that heading in a bubble in the center of the page
e. Find the major topics within that section (individual slide titles). Add these topics to the
map to show how they are connected to the general heading (center bubble).
3. Create Topic Map
a. Place each topic from the overview map in a bubble at the center of a new page
b. Look at your PP and notes for the terms and concepts related to each topic
i. Categories
ii. Lists of components
iii. Steps in a process
iv. Characteristics
v. Cause and effect
 c. Look for important facts, definitions, descriptions or other important details to attach to
these topic maps in separate bubbles
4. Create Expansion Map
a. Expansion maps allow you to select any component of the topic map and expand upon it
in more detail by creating another “layer” of the map.
b. These expanded details will become a separate map with the selected component at the
center in a bubble.
c. Search for words or phrases and attach them in bubbles.