As a college student, you’ll realise that studying on your own is not as productive as you expect. You should find a group of like-minded students and study together. This does not mean that you should never touch your books on your own. Study groups are intended to help you memorise information.
I bet you’ve ever entered an exam room confident, only to forget most of the things you thought you knew. Once you go through your notes, you should make sure that you can remember everything you learnt.
Most of the time, the information you learn is stored in your short-term memory. This means you will remember for a short while, after which you’ll completely forget you learned it. Unless of course, you work towards memorising the concepts.
When you’re in a study group, the interactive learning puts you in a better position to memorise information.
The issue with study groups is that most students don’t know how to coordinate properly. Students have different routines and finding time to meet for as a group is likely to be a problem.
It’s recommended that you create a study group with students who share the same coure. This way you can easily decide when to meet for the discussion. Also, make a habit of meeting after classes to see if you can refresh each other’s memories about what you just learned.
Instead of always wondering “Who’ll write my paper for me? You should work with fellow students to ensure you’re on top of things. When you have friends who are hardworking and discipline, you’ll realize that studying becomes easy and fun.
1. Everyone should Contribute to the Group’s Study Guidelines
The first and most important thing you should do as a group is to establish guidelines that favours everyone. As college students, you’ll appreciate the structure that comes with having a guideline to follow.
To come up with guidelines that favour everyone, you should take your time to know everyone in your group. Everyone has their strengths and weaknesses, so coming up with a one-fits-all list of guidelines will take a lot of considerations.
You should not force your opinion down people’s throats because this will only lead to the group breaking up. The truth is you need the group as much as all the other students, and you should do whatever it takes to make it work.
The best way to go about this is to hold a group meeting and discuss all the guidelines you have in mind. Instead of taking the leader position, make sure every member has a say in how the group should operate.
Every student is a leader in their own way, and this kind of flexibility is what a group discussion needs to thrive. Each one of you should not shy away from sharing their ideas because when many heads come together, great things happen.
2. Decide the Subjects you’ll be Tackling
Of course, the group is for studying, but the members need to establish the core purposes of being in it. A study group created by engineering students cannot function the same way as that of medical students.
The group members should decide on the topics to be handled for a seamless and smooth studying experience. It wold also be nice if students volunteered to guide the rest on topics they’re well conversant in.
For instance, if you’re good at math, you could help people through different problems. This will not only help others better understand concepts, but it will also reinforce your knowledge. When you use your strengths to uplift other student, you enjoy study sessions more.
3. Plan for your Sessions
Since all college students have mobile phones, planning for studying sessions will be easy. You need excellent time management skills to keep the study group going. You can create a WhatsApp group where all of you can communicate easily.
Planning as a group is great because it ensures that every member’s voice is heard. Begin by figuring how many weeks you have in that semester. You also need to factor in lesson hours and determine the times that are most convenient for all of you to meet.
Since you’ve created a study group with your course mates, you’ll have an easier time finding time when everyone is available. Since you’ll be sharing classes, you can easily meet after a lecture, or over the weekend.
You need to arrange for regular meetings; to keep the study momentum steamy throughout the semester. All of you need to be dedicated to creating time because interactive learning not only expedites the learning process, but it’s also the perfect opportunity to spend time with each other.
4. Work in Sub-groups
You must be wondering why you need sub-groups within the study groups. Well, since everyone in the group has areas where they thrive, it would be ideal to categorise tasks. You need to allocate tasks to the right sub-groups to avoid submitting assignments late.
If a sub-group is good at arithmetic, then it would be suitable for the whole group if they tackled an arithmetic problem. Not to say that everyone else in the group would know nothing about the arithmetic assignment. The sub-group, in this case, would act as student-teachers to help everyone else understand how the problem needed to be solved.
5. Keep each other Accountable
College life is challenging for everyone that is why having a group of friends you can turn to is great. You can do more than just studying together since you spend a lot of time with each other. Ensure that you hold each other accountable so that no one is left behind when it’s time to graduate.
All of you should be willing to take up different responsibilities to make the group stronger. You could even wake each other up in the morning for morning runs so that you establish extra time to bond with one another. As you know, it takes a lot of investment to create the kind of friendship you can depend on even after you graduate.
Conclusion
Study groups are excellent for memorising information. Working as a unit gives you the will power to achieve academic excellence. Everyone in the group should bring their A game so that you can finish your tasks on time. Each member should voice their ideas so that you can keep on improving the group.
