[nabs-l] studying, skimming and reference material

[Antonio Guimaraes]

Hi Ashley,

I can not identify with not having notes on tometing that was talked about 
in class. Note-taking is a strength of mine, and this does mean not taking 
too many notes at times.

Here is the relevant tip or two I can share from a class I took on Urban 
Government.

The professor would walk in the class room and interrupt my listening of 
Morning Edition, how rude.

He'd write his notes on the board. They were the outline of the lecture, and 
any related key consepts.

I'd make sure a class mate would read me the notes. The teacher allowed some 
time for this, and the process would only take about 3 minutes.

He'd teach from his outline, and I'd fill in the information in the notes, 
editting on the braille lite at the time.

I'd go home, read some of the book and fill in more of the blanks in a 
separate file.

He gave study guides before exams, I'd scan it or have it dictated to me. 
They were not that long for me.

I pasted the study guide into the class notes file, and searched for study 
terms in the same file. Once I found the answers in my notes, I'd paste the 
response just below the study question.

Now I had access to the exam expectations right along with answers. I'd cram 
as hard as I could on the bus on the way to school, and my grades were okay 
for the class. I actually would ace the exams even thought i feared his 
method of testing us 4 times a semester with essay questions only, and that 
was that.

Each test was 25 percent of your grade, and no multiple choice.

His class was at 8:00, and he was what I'd call a hart *** professor. Just 
the setting I like the best. One of the best community college professors 
around.

Reader dirrections are not difficult as long as you have a good working 
rhythm with your reader.

I say things like

Next paragraph, skip, next heading, read the ittalics words, previous 
sentense, two sentenses ahead, repeat sentense, and the like.

the reader is your eyes. A cursor on the printed page, and you'll need to 
have them read as fast or as slow as you need. They may dictate text, or 
read text onto recording for you.

You can take dictation for later transcription into electronic notes you can 
search, but be careful not to forget to listen later. It's amazint how many 
notes I've recorder and meant to write down.

Electronic versions of your notes allow you to manipulate, search, and edit 
the text.

Hope this helps, and let me go see what other recent NABS messages I might 
read and enloy since my last post a while ago.

There's got to be something interesting out there.

Thanks for your question. There was a similar thread back when I last read 
the list. I think I opened the skimming can of worms back then.

Antonio Guimaraes


----- Original Message ----- 
From: <bookwormahb at earthlink.net>
To: "National Association of Blind Students mailing list" 
<nabs-l at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Monday, May 02, 2011 12:31 AM
Subject: [nabs-l] studying, skimming and reference material


> Hi all,
>
> College texts are full of words and examples.  Frustrating when you cannot 
> skim through especially when you need the highlights for a test.
> I take notes when reading.  But my notes don’t always amount to what the 
> professor tells us to study for the test, if they tell us.
>
> So what do you do when the professor has a study guide?
> Some students take it and jot down the coresponding pages to the study 
> topics and study those pages.
> How do you use it?
> Sometimes professors give a list of terms/concepts to study or a list of 
> questions to guide your preparation.  My communication professor outlined 
> on the board what concepts we needed to know for our final.
> But here’s the thing.  I cannot skim the text or look up words.  My notes 
> may or may not have them.  Even if they do, its still looking for a needle 
> in a haystack when reviewing for finals!  So I’ve usually had to ask a 
> reader; they act as my eyes and look in the index for the key words or 
> skim for the key words or headings in the chapter.
>
> For me, I usually use audio whenever possible. But even with e-texts, I 
> cannot skim because I don’t know the exact phrase and without that the 
> computer does Not know what to look for; also
> it is divided in to chapters and I cannot search across chapters.
> Another thing, how do you work with open book exams?
> Do you have a reader there and they look up any info from the book? That 
> is what I’ve done.
> Again, openbook  tests let you use it as a reference tool, but that is 
> hard for us.
>
> So any tips for studying or “skimming” would be good.  How can you direct 
> a reader to actually skim?  Usually they will read too much to me rather 
> than just the main paragraph of the topic; generally under the main 
> headings I find the introduction to the concept and smaller headings tell 
> you details/examples.
>
>
> Ashley
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