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Home --> Departments --> Enhanced Learning = = =Enhance Learning Department= =HOD: Mrs Suzann Kreft=


 * HOMEWORK CENTRE** open again on Wednesdays from 3:20 - 4:15 all welcome - come along and get some Peer Tutoring too!


 * July 2009:** welcome back to term 3 a busy term

Personal Development Programme for year 11s ...last 3 tasks to be done by the end of the term...get stuck in - remember to PLAN - DO - REVIEW all you do. CVs should be started by now...due week 4

__**June 2009:**__

This study tips information has been around a while now but it is very valuable...take a look coming soon mindmapping skills! = = =__Some Helpful hints for studying well__= = = = = DRINK AT LEAST __8__ GLASSES OF WATER PER DAY (NOT Coke, Sprite, sports drinks, orange-juice etc). WHEN STUDYING //__EAT BRAIN FOOD__// AT LEAST ONCE AN HOUR (e.g. plain popcorn, nuts, chicken, fish, fruit and veges). EVERYTHING IS HARD __BEFORE__ IT IS EASY! STUDY AT MY BEST THINKING TIME. STUDY FOR 20 MINUTES – TAKE A 5-MINUTE BREAK (LEAVE THE ROOM ON MY BREAK). LEARN THE INFORMATION I DON’T KNOW (//__DON’T__// GO OVER THE STUFF YOU ALREADY KNOW!!) USE //__LOTS__// OF COLOUR
 * Presonal Development Course - year 11 students**: T
 * The next phase of our course is supporting you in your 8808 for English - Reading and responding to the text...get on with this.
 * Also we are left with at least 3 more tasks to complete to achieve our Level 1 SPEC Award...get on with the ones you have chosen to do - the ones you and I agreed to on your contract. Remember keep evidence of all you do.
 * Check out a CV - we will be doing this next term.

LEARN MY //__MOST IMPORTAN__//T INFORMATION //__FIRST__//.
REVISE MY //__MOST IMPORTANT__// INFORMATION //__LAST__//. //__TALK__// ABOUT MY INFORMATION AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE //__MOVE AROUND__// WHILE LEARNING (NODDING, FIDDLING, DOODLING)! PUT ALL MY INFORMATION //__UP HIGH!__// – UP ON THE WALL! MY BRAIN REMEMBERS THINGS WHEN I HAVE STUDIED THEM UP HIGH (IT REALLY DOES)! WHEN I CAN’T REMEMBER – //__LOOK UP!__// GO OVER MY NOTES //__ONE DAY__// AFTER LEARNING THEM, THEN //__ONE WEEK__//, THEN //__ONE MONTH__//, AND THEN //__EVERY SIX MONTHS__//. WHEN SITTING AN EXAM READ THROUGH THE ENTIRE EXAM PAPER – GO BACK AND //__DO THE EASY QUESTIONS FIRST__// AND THEN DO THE HARD ONES. //__MAKE UP STORIES__// ABOUT MY INFORMATION, e.g. R O Y G B I V = COLOURS OF THE RAINBOW //__FRAME__// IMPORTANT INFORMATION. //__DRAW PICTURES__// AND //__DIAGRAMS__// CREATE //__REAL LIFE EXAMPLES__//. LEARN ONLY 3 OR 4 PIECES OF INFORMATION AT A TIME (i.e. //__CHUNKS OF INFORMATION__//). //__PRACTIS__//E OLD EXAM/TEST PAPERS. LEARN FROM MY //__MISTAKES.__// SET GOALS AND ACHIEVE THEM //__STEP-BY-STEP.__// = =

__27 Study Tips for Success__
= = No. 16 Brain Food Information Children's blood sugar level cycles about every 45 minutes. In adults, it's every 90 minutes and in teenagers, about every 60 minutes. When their blood sugar levels are low, learning is difficult. Keeping your and their blood sugar levels up is important. However, what children eat is important. There are good foods for your brain and memory, and there are some not so good foods.
 * 1) Use lots of Colour
 * 2) Drink at least 8 glass of water per day
 * 3) Talk about your information
 * 4) Border your work
 * 5) Eat brain food at least once every hour
 * 6) Lighting should not be bright
 * 7) Barouque music playing quietly in the background while studying - listen to Motzart for ten minutes will increase your ability to learn Maths!
 * 8) Wear comfortable clothes while studying and during exams - use your jersey or jacket to sit on for a more comforatble seat!
 * 9) Practice old exam papers
 * 10) Study at your best thinking time
 * 11) Learn your most important information first
 * 12) Revise your most important information last
 * 13) Study for 20 minutes and take a 5 minute break.This tip is especially useful if you're finding your study difficult. If it's going well and you're in a good flow and you're remembering what you are learning, you don't need to take a break. However, if it's hard and beginning to feel like a chore you should take a five minute break, every 20 minutes. During your break, always leave your study area. You could have some brain food, drink some water, go to the bathroom. During a break from studying, ensure you stretch, like before exercising, as this allows more oxygen into your lungs and therefore more blood and oxygen to your brain - enhancing learning.
 * 14) Go over notes one day after learning them, then one week later, one month later, then every six months. Review is not just repetition. Actively reviewing your notes can a least double your recall. By reading over your mindmaps, grabbing your notes and go through them or talking about and discussing your notes, your recall will stay at 90%. However, if you do not review your notes for three days, your recall will drop to 30%. You will forget 70% of what you have learned in three days. without active reviewing. Most information is forgotten because it wasn't moved from your short term memory to your Long term memory. Reviewing ensures new information is ‘installed' into your long term memory. Make it a priority to revise you notes the very next day to keep them at 90% recall. If you wish to keep your recall at 90% then you will need to review your notes within 24 hours, then one week, one month and every 6 months. An important reminder when reviewing... each subject should only take 3-4 minutes for review. Only go over your notes and mindmaps, not the original book. Only refer to the original source of information if you need clarification of facts, details and information.
 * 15) Learn only three or four things at a time. The short term memory can remember between five and nine pieces of information in one chunk. When the brain is given too many pieces of information to remember it installs amnesia.This is what happens when you study too much information at once. This is exactly why cramming for an exam, the night before, is not effective. Have you ever done this? Shoved all the information in the night before a test or exam only to discover when you sit in the test or exam room, you can remember studying the information, what side of the page it was written on, what you had for dinner, what you were wearing - everything except the information you need. This is because you are studying too many pieces of information at once and your brain ‘chucks out' As a rule of thumb, your short term memory can only cope with 7 plus or minus 2 pieces of information at a time. That's anywhere from five to nine pieces of information. When remembering a telephone number, we often break it into smaller chunks. The smaller more manageable the chunks, the faster you will pick up the information. Break your study content into small pieces so you find it easy to recall. Learn three or four pieces of data at a time, then revise it, check you can still recall the facts. then learn three or four more pieces of information, revise these and the last ‘chunk'. If you still know this, continue this way, always pausing to revisit the previous ‘chunks'.
 * //Food for the Brain//**

Takeaway food looks quick and easy and even tastes good. On February 23rd 2002 I purchased a burger from a well known burger restaurant. I left it on a plate in my office. To this day three and a half years later, this hamburger looks the same as the day I purchased it. The bread, cheese and meat hasn't gone mouldy. There are so many chemicals in it making it look good and taste good, and it doesn't have nutritional value for the brain and learning. Do this experiment in your home with your children - they will be amazed. . Another food group that is good for your brain is fruit and vegetables. Essentially, what your brain needs from fruit and vegetables is vitamin B and vitamin C. If you're not getting enough vitamins B or C, you may find it a little harder to remember things. In fact, research shows that when elderly people supplemented their diets with vitamins B and C, their memory recall went up 100%. . There is one other food that is absolutely fantastic for the brain, and you can eat as much of this as you like — popcorn. Popcorn is a complex carbohydrate giving you lots of energy without the sugar rush. It is best eaten plain and unsalted. Many teachers through NZ and Australia have popcorn machines in their classrooms, allowing students to eat throughout the day. Teachers and students are finding it easier to concentrate, comprehension is going up and behaviour challenges are lessening.
 * What is brain food?** To begin with, one the best food groups for your brain is protein. The best sources of protein are unsalted nuts, chicken and fish. Fish, for many years, has been called brain food. Fish contains essential oils and amino acids that your brain uses directly. I'm not talking about the processed "fish and chips" fish, or takeaway chicken, but fresh good quality fish and chicken..

Sugar creates an addiction cycle in your body that makes the brain work overtime. When you eat something sweet, your body starts to pump adrenaline and you feel good - the sugar high. However, while your body is using the sugar, your pancreas produces insulin to bring your body back into balance. This makes you feel worse than you did before eating the sugar. Then you think you need something else sweet to eat, and suddenly you've set up an addiction cycle. It's particularly detrimental for students around homework, exam time and when they are studying because the brain focuses on the need for more sugar, rather than devoting energy to memory and learning. . Caffeine is found in tea, coffee, coke, pepsi and other manufactured drinks, cigarettes and chocolate. Smart drinks also have contain caffeine. Dr Batmanghelid, in his book "Your Bodies Many Cries For Water" states "It's an elementary but catastrophic mistake to think caffeine drinks are a substitute for water." He continues to say" It's true they contain water, but they also contain dehydration agents and use the water they are dissolved in as well as the reserves from the body." Caffeine is a diuretic and this means each cup or glass of caffeine that you drink dehydrates your body of up to three glasses of water. You may have a cup of coffee and then feel quite thirsty. You have another cup of coffee, become even more thirsty and have another cup of coffee. .
 * What should my children avoid?**

No 17**Draw pictures and diagrams** Pictures are located in the same part of the brain as the long term memory. When you're studying, turn your key concepts into pictures. The first picture you draw or think of is usually the most memorable. The sillier the picture, the better it is for remembering as it stands out. Colourful pictures are often easier to remember. Your visuals can be imagined, drawn or made. If you can't draw a picture such as with dates or words in a foreign language, write them large and in colour. Your brain will process this as a picture not a word. Remember to put key information up high so your fast visual recall memory processes it.
 * Water is Important...** Approximately 70% of our bodies are made up of water and over 80% of our brains are water. Not enough water can lead to dehydration which causes headaches, lack of concentration and focus and tiredness. Drinking at least six to eight glasses of water a day is important for health and success. Younger children should consume about 4 glasses of water a day. provide your child with a water bottle at school. They do not need to be sucking on a drink bottle continuously in class. However at any time of stress the body also dehydrates. Have you ever stood up in front of a group to speak and your month suddenly goes dry? According to Dr Batmanghelid, the ‘dry mouth' signal is the last outward sigh of extreme dehydration. Dr Carla Hannaford suggests under any stress the body needs two to three times the normal daily amount of water.

The first thing I recommend you do when you are allowed to start, is to quickly read through the entire exam paper. Scan it quickly, looking at the questions to see what will be required to pass this exam. Once you have an overview of what you are dealing with, start with the easy questions first. This will help calm you and give you some confidence. Allow your subconscious to work on the harder questions while you are doing the easier ones. By the time you get to the harder questions your subconscious mind will have come up with some ideas and answers. Plus some of the easy questions and answers may have triggered info for the harder questions.
 * No 18. Quickly read through the entire exam paper, go back, do the easy questions first, then the hard ones.**

No. 19 **Put all my important information up high** Your visual memory is the fastest and most powerful memory that you have. When you look up you are accessing this part of your brain. For Example: How many windows are there in your house? Take a moment to remember... to answer that question. 90% of people will look up, as they are recalling a visual image of their house. Summarise your notes and important facts onto a sheet or two of paper and place this in your learning environment just above eye level. Look up at your notes, and blink several times. This is to take a snap shot of the information will be transferred to your visual memory. To recall during an exam look up. This strategy comes from the science NLP or Neuro Linguistic Programming. We have had literally hundreds of students use this technique with fantastic results.

No. 20 **Read key words** When reading through notes and books, pick out and search for the key words and ideas, rather than reading every word on the page. In fact your brain doesn't read everything on the page anyway...read these: Paris in the the rain Wellington is the the capital of NZ People don't often read read every word Many people don't see the repeated words the first time...did you? Summarise key words and ideas as much as possible. Use a highlighter to pick out key concepts so they stand out. No.21 S**ay affirmations daily** "What the mind can conceive and believe it will achieve" said Napoleon Hill... Whatever we think about ourselves becomes the truth for us. Our subconscious mind cannot distinguish between fact and fiction. It accepts whatever we tell it. How many times have you said to yourself "I have a forgetful memory..." or "I'm not good at that..." And what is the truth for you? You have a bad memory and you are good at it. One way to change this patterning is by using affirmations. These are positive phrases you repeat to yourself over and over. These are four guidelines to using affirmations: An affirmation must start with the word I, my or your name. This is so your brain knows it's you who you are talking about and not someone else. Often people talk from the positive of "you" which means they are separating themselves from the event. "You know when you do something silly and everyone looks at you?" what they mean is... "I did something silly and everyone looked at me." Affirmations work best when they are positive. This means that you avoid the words not, don't, when...etc. Affirmations also work best if they are in the present tense, as though they are true already. Telling the truth in advance. Use phrases such as " I am..." "I have..." "I enjoy..." Phrases such as "I will..." are in the future tense. These tell your brain that it will happen in the future. Interesting concept... tomorrow is the future and tomorrow never comes! It's always today. I hear people in their lives saying phrases such as "I will be happy when I leave school...I will be happy when I get a job,...I will be happy when I get married...I will be happy when I have children... I will be happy when children leave home..." and these people forget to be happy right now. Positive thinking on its own dosen't work. It must be combined with ACTION. Make sure you do something positive towards your affirmation. I pass my exams easily and effortlessly I like myself I am energetic I am an organised person I am a super netball player I speak clearly and precisely I have a fantastic memory I am great at maths I draw/sing well My life is perfect and all my needs are met I deserve good things I remember easily I am calm and relaxed Research shows that you need to say an affirmation 20 times a day for 20 days for them to re-pattern your mind. The way it works is that brain is a part called the Reticular Activating System (RAS). Its purpose is to wake up the brain for incoming stimulus. Have you ever been in a room full of people and heard your name mentioned over the other side of the room? Or you have just bought a new car and suddenly you notice all the other cars on the road are the same as yours? This is your RAS working. When you use affirmations it wakes up the RAS to look for all the reasons you do have a fantastic memory rather than what it may have been doing- searching for all the reasons why your memory is bad. No. 22 If I said to you a very depressed person is about to walk into your home, how would this person look, move breathe and speak? What about a highly successful person. How would they move, walk, talk and look? Both states are very different. What you do with your body or physiology is important to how you feel. Sit in a chair and slouch. Now without moving a muscle-feel happy. Now sit up straight, eyes wide and put the silliest smile on your face. Now try and feel sad-without moving. Paying attention to how you move your body and how you feel means that you can use this information at a conscious level. Notice how you move your hands, how quickly you speak and where you look (eye contact or not) when you are speaking about something you love, perhaps a hobby or recreational activity. Notice how you use your body when speaking about a boring topic. Check your physiology before studying. Sit up, breathe deeply and smile. Study will be easier and much less effort. You'll even get it done faster so you can go out and do what you want... No.23 Research shows that when learning new information if you link it to previous knowledge, recall is greatly improved. Thinking of "concrete" or "real life" examples about your topic is useful. For example, when learning the 3 parts to an essay you can link it to hamburger. The top bun is the introduction, the meat is the body of the essay. The more filling the better the hamburger (and essay) and the bottom bun is the conclusion or summary. If you miss out one part, you don't have a hamburger or an essay...
 * Sample affirmations**
 * Check my physiology**
 * Create real life examples**

Don't think of yellow... don't think of a blue tree and don't think of ice cream... chances are that when you read those things you did think of them even though it said not to... Why?? Your brain does not recognise the word DON'T. When we have a thought we create a picture, a sound or a feeling of it in our mind... then think not to do it... For example if you say to a child who is climbing a tree - "don't fall" then the child has to create a picture, the sound or the feeling of themselves falling then think not to... and what nearly always happens - they fall out of the tree!!! What should we say??? Instead of saying what you don't want, tell the child what you do want - For example "Climb carefully" or "Check the branch is strong before standing on it." Sounds easy?? With so much of our conditioning around language it is a constant challenge to remember not to use that word... especially with so much advertising that says "Don't Drink and Drive" and the most common... Don't forget... Another word to avoid using. If I asked you to try and pick up the pen I've dropped on the floor... and you pick it up, then you haven't tried, rather you've done it... If you left the pen on the floor then you haven't picked it u. As yoda, the jedi Master from Star Wars says... "Try? There is no try. Do or do not." How many of us remember saying I can't as a child to be told by our parents "there is no such word as can't." Well we know there is such a word - it's just not a useful one. When you use the words "I can't they simply shut the mind down to any other possibilities. Another way to think about those challenging situations is " How can I?" "I can't spell changes to "how can I learn to spell" " I can't dance" to "What can I do on order to dance?" "I can't afford it?" becomes "What can I do to be able to purchase this?"
 * 3 words to avoid...**
 * DON'T**
 * TRY**
 * CAN'T**

No. 25 Many studies have proven the power of visualisation. A Stanford University researcher took the 3 top basketball teams and asked them to throw basketballs from the free throw line. On average players scored 8 out of 10 successful baskets. The teams then had a different task for the duration of the study. Team one were asked to go to the courts each day and practice throwing balls into the hoop from the free throw line. Team two were told not to go to the courts and not to practice. Team three's requirement for the study was to go to the courts each day and sit on the benches and visualise throwing balls into the hoop. At the end of the study when players were asked to shoot 10 baskets - team one averaged 8 out of 10, team two averaged 8 out of 10 and team three scored ten out of ten! Why? One reason is that each time they practised they were successful. That is every time they visualised practising they got the ball in. A 100% success rate. As part of your study see yourself sitting in the exam with lots of confidence and relaxed. Imagine being in the exam and the answers flowing out the end of your pen. Imagine that you have already passed. What does it feel like? What would you say to yourself?
 * Visualisation...**

No.26 Remember that your body and brain works best when you are full of energy and alert. Get lots of sleep. At least 6 - 8 hours before an exams is to exercise each day for 20 minutes and avoid eating anything heavy at least two hours before you sleep.
 * Get lots of sleep**

No.27
 * Developing Life Long Learners**

All information copied from: PO Box 40 912 Upper Hutt NZ Freephone 0800 37 33 77 Fax 64 (0)4 5280 969 Phone 64 (0)4 5289 969 info@spectrumeducation.com [|www.spectrumeducation.com]
 * Spectrum Education Ltd**