Creative Studying Techniques Increase Grades and Interest: 3 - Using the Arts to Enhance Learning

If you think school, or a particular class is boring, then I challenge you to make it more interesting. Certainly if you were more interested you would pay more attention, spend more time studying and improve your performance. You would also be more interested if studying was not always the same routine and involved other ways of thinking and behaving than simply sitting and reading, or falling asleep over, a textbook. A creative studying technique that can help you increase grades and interest is to use the arts in class and in studying.

I'm sure you've heard that there are different types of learners. Some people are visual, some auditory and some kinesthetic learners. The arts offer many opportunities to explore these different modalities and to combine them into effective ways to learn.

For so-called 'creative' people, it is somewhat second nature to take an artistic approach to learning, but anyone can experiment with these ideas and through practice adapt these methods into regular studying and learning. Remember that the goal here is to improve your learning and increase your interest, NOT to create a masterpiece. To benefit from the following ideas you will have to move beyond thoughts like, "I can't draw / sing / write, etc." Again, this is not about becoming an artist, simply about engaging more of your brain, yourself and your interest in your studies.

Try the following techniques for using the arts to enhance learning. The common ground between the ideas is that they all require you to think a little differently about the material. Pretend that it is interesting enough to invest some thought in and it will become interesting.

I) Writing

A) Write stories about what you are learning.
1) Use actual people you are learning about as characters in a story.
2) Employ vocabulary words to describe the characters or as the characters.
3) Change things or parts of processes you are learning about into characters.

B) Use all of the above ideas but write an actual script and then act it out with classmates. Videotape your performance for further studying or perhaps extra credit.

C) Write limericks. Here is an example to remind you of the rhyme scheme.
Independence began in 1776
Concord farmers using fire sticks
They fought British oppression
With uncommon aggression
And occasional tea and tax tricks

Limericks often begin with:
There once was a man/woman from (some place).....

D) Give names to the elements, parts, or vocabulary of what you are learning.
1) Use rhymes.
2) Try to make the names funny, as humor makes them more memorable.

II) Visual arts

A) Draw pictures of what you are learning.
B) Watercolor over pictures you download from the internet.
C) Label pictures you find using different colors to signify different categories or functions.
D) Find what you are studying in paintings. Find paintings that represent what you are learning about.

III) Music

A) Find background music you think appropriate to certain pathways, processes, or events you've learned about.

B) Write music to accompany what is being studied.
1) Write songs to familiar tunes like the 12 Days of Christmas or some favorite pop tune.
2) Write original songs that assist with memorization or comprehension.
3) Along with a group of classmates, make music videos of your songs.

IV) Dance

A) Invent dances that mimic a process or pathway.

B) Invent dances that go with your songs making sure to think about how the movements you choose reflect on or teach the topic.

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Creative Studying Techniques Increase Grades and Interest: 4 - Playing Games to Enhance Learning

I) Play games to enhance learning.

A) Create games that assist memorization or comprehension.

1) Play concentration with special flash cards.
Make a set of flash cards that have word and definition or further information on separate cards. Then mix up all of the pairs of cards, turn them upside down in a neat pattern on a table or floor. Take turns turning over the cards 2 at a time trying to find 2 cards that go together. When you find a pair, you keep them. Try discussing with a partner why something is or isn't a match as you turn over cards.

2) Substitute new questions or cards in old games like Sorry or Monopoly.
a) Make a set of cards that uses questions from a handout or your textbook in a game where you turn over a card every turn.

b) Make a set of cards that simply has numbers on it that can correspond to questions on a handout or in the book. It is okay to repeat the numbers so the same question can be answered multiple times to assist retention. This set of cards could be used over and over with different chapters and games.

c) Substitute the number cards (see above) for rolling a dice. Answer the questions and you get to go forward a certain number of spaces.

d) Re-name the properties on Monopoly making sure to group similar things into a monopoly. You could also consider the relative value or cost of the things in the groups as to which Monopoly to name. In other words, choose a low value category for Mediterranean and Baltic (the cheapest properties) and a high value category for Boardwalk and Park Place (the most expensive properties).

3) Search the internet for relevant games and activities.
There are many games available to assist learning a topic. If you find games aimed at younger students than yourself, give them a try anyway. You'll soon see if it has any value.

4) Play Categories.
This is a game I made up when I was a teacher. The game works with 2 people, but is better with 3 or 4 people to play.

a) The first person writes down 2 things that are related to each other. 1 of the items should be from within the field / class / vocabulary list you are studying. State the category the 2 create, i.e. what they have in common.

b) The next player must either add another item to that list that fits the same category, or think of a new category that encompasses all or all but one of the items from the previous list. That player will then state the new category.

c) Repeat step b.

d) Make sure that some of the time (you can set rules around this if you like) you are including words from within the field / class / vocabulary list you are studying. You don't really want all of the words to be relevant to your class because making connections between disparate items will help you learn with interest, remember the connections, and be more interested.

e) If you want to keep score, you can assign one point for successfully adding to an existing category and two points for starting a new category.

5) Play a brainstorming game.
With a study partner or alone, consider a topic and as fast as you can, write down all of the things that come to mind when you think of the topic. Set a timer for 1 minute and see how large a list you create. It doesn't matter if what you think of is scholarly or relevant. Just write it down. Then discuss the connections. This may sound simple or even silly, but again, making connections between ideas or objects within a field of learning, between fields of learning or even between totally unrelated ideas or objects makes you consider your field of study differently, more creatively and more powerfully.

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Creative Studying Techniques Increase Grades and Interest: 2 - Making Connections

Okay, so you're not doing as well in a class as you'd like. You have classmates, possibly friends, who get better grades and seem to put in less time studying. What's the deal? Are they smarter than you? Or is it possible that they study differently. Maybe they even utilize different behaviors and techniques in class. Not everyone is born a good student, but like anything else, practice and experimenting with creative studying techniques can improve your performance.

While taking a human anatomy & physiology class in nursing school I offered to help a few struggling students study for a test. I arrived at the appointed time to about 12 people waiting for me to help them do better on the next test. Unprepared for that many people, I began talking to them about the way I study. In the process I learned some very interesting things. There are indeed techniques used by good students that my struggling colleagues were neither aware of nor using.

This article explores the technique of making connections. More explicitly, when you think about something in your mind and relate it to something else in your mind you are more likely to remember both things. You are making a connection between the things or ideas or visions or processes. Making connections is basically comparing things. When you learn something new do you liken it to something you already know? Do you allow that information or idea to spur the memory of something else or to remind you of something (whether related by topic or not) else? When you do, you make a new connection.

For good students, this is a fairly subconscious process. In order to begin to do it, you will have to practice. So think about these ways of making connections and then practice.

1) Comparison of Dissimilar things, ideas or processes: Find the common ground. Find something - ANYTHING - that links two seemingly different items or processes. It is easy to make a game out of this. For example, if someone says peanut butter sandwich and motor oil, you might come up with:

- Both stick to the roof of your mouth.
- You can get them (or the elements of them) at the grocery store.
- Most people are familiar with both of these items.
- Both originate with plant matter.
- Both are more than one word.
- Both help something operate.

Get the idea? Anything goes.

You will find that the items and ideas you compare will be in your mind a lot and you will find more comparisons. So I'm going to be thinking about peanut butter and motor oil all day! What do you choose to think about all day?

2) Compare new pieces of information and new ideas to something you already know from that class. How are they alike? How are they unlike?

3) Compare new pieces of information and new ideas to something you've learned in another class. How are they alike? How are they unlike?

4) Anthropomorphize things, ideas and processes, i.e. pretend they are human. For example: If you were a liver that has too much alcohol flowing through it, what would you say? How would you feel? What would you look like?

5) Use the Rorschach method. Rorschach spots are the ink blotches that therapists show people to see what comes to that person's mind. So look at pictures or graphs in your textbook and ask yourself what they remind you of. You'll be automatically making a new connection.

6) Think of real life examples of what you are learning whenever possible.

7) If you use flash cards, pull 2 flash cards out and do idea #1 with those 2 flash cards.

8) Use graphic organizers to organize and connect the information you are learning. Graphic organizers are a great way to make connections between information in a visual way. They help you understand the relationships between information and ideas and help you place things in a hierarchy. If you've never used a graphic organizer, google 'graphic organizer'. There are many out there along with ideas for using them.

9) Use humor in making connections. If you can think of funny connections or relationships or circumstances around your comparisons you will remember them longer and probably enjoy studying more as well.

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