Speaker 1: Hey everybody, this is Dr. Maples. Today I want to talk about finals. Finals are an important part of the university's system. They're a chance for us to reflect on what we have learned across the semester and the many things that we... No, finals are horrible. Seriously, no one enjoys them, but they are an important part of the university function and you're going to have to take them. So we need to understand how we can tackle them and get good grades on them. Thing is, I've looked through YouTube and there's not a lot of good content out there on how to take a final. Lots of students talking about how they studied for finals, but not professors telling you how we construct finals and how you can readjust your study habits so that your studying overlaps with the way we build finals. In fact, that's what I want to talk about today. I want to tell you how finals are constructed so that you can change your study habits to not cram, but to study efficiently and effectively and get a C or better on your final. We got a lot to talk about today, so let's get started. All right, class, today we are talking about preparing for finals and the first thing that I need you to do is figure out what's on the final. Your professor has sent out an email or put something up on your course document site for your class. Maybe it's in your syllabus, but something will say exactly what's going to be on the final. It may be very broad, such as anything after a certain date is fair game, or it may be very specific, like my study guides often are in saying, you're going to be asked about this, this, this, this, and this. Whatever that may be, we need that information. Go through your materials and get that information because that's the first step in preparing for our final. What we need to know is everything that's going to be on there as best as we can so that we don't study things that aren't relevant to this final. That's step one. When you got that one ready, let's head over to step two. Now for step two, I'm going to start changing how you study for finals. What we want to do is focus on the chapters in your textbook that are going to be applicable to the final, see step one, and we're going to study the very first paragraphs of the chapter, maybe an introduction or a summary to that chapter, and then we're going to look at the final pages of that chapter, such as the executive summary. These two things, the first and last of the chapter, are going to tell you basically all the big ideas that are in that chapter. Now what we need to do is isolate those big ideas and get them onto a list. Get a Word document, get a piece of paper, whatever it is that you want to work with, but let's start writing down the big ideas. It could be terms, it could be ideas, it could be people, whatever it may be, we want to start making a list of these because we're going to use this list later on to help us prepare for this final so that we can knock it right out of the park. When you've got that step done, let's move on to step three. Now with step three, I want to start talking a little bit about how professors generally build finals. We don't focus on very detailed ideas, we really focus on the big ideas, and this big ideas thing is what you just did in step two. You've written down some of the big ideas. So now what I want you to do is go through the process of defining those. Go to the glossary of your textbook, and for each of these terms that you've noted, put one sentence, maybe two, explaining what the term means. Likewise, if you know you're preparing for a written final, go ahead and practice writing about that term in a sentence. I'll tell you, for written papers, if a student can apply terminology, they generally are at a C or better automatically, and if you can apply it well, that's B and even A territory. Now I will say that a lot of finals are just going to be multiple choice because we're at the end of the semester and we just want to get things done, and all these terms are easy fodder for a multiple choice exam. So if you can go through and define all these big ideas that you identified in step two, then we're going to be prepared to really knock this final out of the park. And we got all those terms identified and defined, let's move on to step four. Hey, before we go to step four, can I ask a quick question? Are you enjoying these videos? Are you finding this channel helpful? Well, if you are, if you'd go ahead and subscribe to it, that would be a huge help to me. Likewise, if you can like this video and share it on social media, that'll go a long way towards supporting me getting word out about making education more accessible to everyone. That's my goal. I want to make college easier for everybody, you included. So if you could share this video, that sure would help that. All right, let's move on to our regularly scheduled program. So for step four, we're now going to start rethinking how we study. First off, I want you to take this list that you've put together in steps two and three, and we're going to focus on that for step four. Now for step four, we're going to need a timer of some kind. Cell phone timer works great. A kitchen timer also works really well. But something that's easily accessible for you, what we're going to do is we're going to set that timer for 15 minutes. And what I want you to do is spend 15 minutes reading through these terms slowly, read them aloud if that helps you, but read through these ideas and take your time. Really try to kind of build in these ideas as you go. Now when your 15 minute timer goes off, I want you to take a five minute break. Don't look at this piece of paper, flip it over, step away. You can go get a drink of water. Don't drink a bunch of caffeine, by the way, you can go to use the bathroom, you can play like fishing on Stardew Valley for a few minutes, that would actually be great. But whatever you need to do to relax for five minutes, do that. When your five minutes is up, then let's start again, set another 15 minute timer, and let's study for 15 more minutes and continue where you left off. Over the course of an hour, this is going to give you three bursts of being able to read ideas and think about them. This is far better than just sitting in front of a book for an hour trying to cram. By taking those short breaks in between, you're giving your brain a moment to just absorb what it has learned. And you may find that you need to do even more than five minutes. Maybe you need to do 10 or even 15. That's fine. Whatever your schedule will allow is great, but stick to your timers and make sure that you get back to work. Now, this approach is going to let you focus in on these ideas and learn them. But in step five, we're going to really, really take care of things and knock them out of the park. So are you ready for step five? It's my favorite. For step five, I want you to do something I've been doing since I was an undergrad, and that is this. Take this study guide that you built in step two and three and that you worked on in step four and record yourself reading it aloud. There are apps all over the internet, on your phone, probably already, that you can record a sound file. Likewise, there's just plenty of hardware out there that you can use to do this. But I want you to record yourself reading this study guide aloud. And now, when you're walking to classes, when you're at work, when you're on a break, when you're commuting, listen to that file. By hearing yourself talk about it, it's going to keep these ideas fresh in your memory and you're going to know them. And on top of that, because you've studied it some and you've also now read it aloud, you've effectively memorized portions of this study guide. As such, this is going to give you everything that you need to go into that final, feel confident, and feel strong. See, I told you it was worth listening to the end. This is an amazing thing that I've been doing, and I know it helped me a lot, and I know it's helped many of my students before. So now I'm happy to share this little piece of information to you. And don't keep it a secret. Just tell everybody. Finals aren't going away, folks. They're part of the university system, and I don't think they're ever going to leave. But if you take this five-step approach, I promise that you're going to be able to study for finals at a whole new level, and often far better than the other people around you. So take my advice and put it to use. I'd love to hear in the comments below what you think about it. And likewise, don't keep it a secret. Share it with your friends. I want to make education easier for everyone. That's all we got today. I will see you next time. Take care.