Education is a solution to poverty and a key to success. Yet, succeeding in one’s education can bring challenges. As course concepts get more complex, doing well in school will require more time, energy, and effort on your part. It is normal to struggle during middle or high school at some point. Here are some tips and resources for staying on track in classes.
General Tips:
- Use your teacher’s office hours: Sign up to see your teacher before or after school or during one of your free blocks. If s/he does not have office hours, email them and ask to set up a time to meet. Some teachers really want to help but are looking for you to take the initiative. Bring homework questions or test review packets you have struggled with to your meeting. Make sure to try problems on your own first before bringing them to your teacher.
- Use active, not passive methods of studying. Instead of just re-reading your notes, try writing them over without looking. Whiteboards are helpful tools for this because they allow you to erase or add things easily. If you are studying a language, making flashcards with vocabulary and grammar paradigms can be very helpful. Flashcards can also be very helpful for history classes. Each flashcard can be a supreme court case, battle, person, etc…
- Re-do class problems on your own. This allows you to check your work with the step-by-step solution written in your notes. (Remember to take notes during class! At least write down example problems your teacher has worked through on the board.) It’s one thing to follow a teacher’s or classmate’s work but quite another to be able to do it on your own!
- Take homework seriously, especially in STEM classes. If your teacher grades homework only on completion (and not on accuracy) it can be tempting to not put your best effort into your homework assignments. However, without practicing problems independently, you may struggle on a test.
- Don’t be afraid to ask your classmates for help. It can feel uncomfortable initially, but everyone is trying to learn the same things. If you are willing to help your peers when they are struggling with a certain subject, you can expect the same in return.
- If you are taking an AP class, keep in mind that AP classroom videos are very helpful. They are made by current AP teachers and exam graders. They explain content and go through practice MCQs and FRQs. You can find them when you log into your college board account and go to “My AP”. If you are studying for a test or the AP exam, you can find the FRQs and their solutions from the past eleven AP exams on the college board website. Just search “Past AP ______ FRQs.”. Example: Search online for “AP Physics 1 Fluids FRQs.”
Resources for Specific Subjects:
History:
Whether you are taking US, World, European History, or Geography, Heimer’s History channel on youtube will have the information you need. For each course, Heimler has a playlist for each time period with videos reviewing all key events, people, places, and dates. Unlike some history textbooks, Heimer excludes all extraneous details. Make sure to take notes. His videos contain helpful venn diagrams, timelines, and charts that easily organize information you’ll need to remember. (Bonus: sometimes Heimer is hilarious.)
Chemistry:
Jeremy Krug’s YouTube channel explores every topic typically covered in a first year chemistry class. He also has videos that review each AP Chemistry unit. Whenever a practice problem comes up in a video you can pause the video, try the problem yourself, and then play the video to see if you got it right.
Math:
Khan Academy is accessible to everyone online for free. Khan Academy has sequences of instructional videos, practice problems (with step-by-step solutions), and practice quizzes for all middle and high school math courses including Geometry, Algebra 1 and 2, and Calculus.
While technology can be a helpful tool to find helpful resources to support your learning, some technology can get in the way of working efficiently (for example: your phone.) Emily Bowman (now a NASA engineer) cut three hours off of her time spent doing homework when she put her phone in a different room while working.
So put the phone down and start your path to success!