What can we advise chemistry students about studying?

I’ve started a new blog over on University of Edinburgh’s new blog website – these are posts specifically focussed on chemistry education, looking at important and I hope interesting things from staff/student perspectives. The first one is: What can we advise chemistry students about studying? I’ve pasted the opening paragraph below.

The importance of actively considering study

A quick glance at the specifications for any university lecture course will show that while lectures, labs, and tutorials will make up the formal part of how we interact with students, usually more than half of the time allocated to courses is given over to independent study. This time is crucial for students to be able to work with the materials of the course, both for the purpose of understanding the material as part of their overall journey to becoming a professional chemist, as well as needing to demonstrate their knowledge and understanding in an assessment. Indeed, while study often has negative connotations – a chore, or something negative because of its association with grading – it is ultimately a pleasant experience. We choose to study because we enjoy indulging in a topic and finding out more about it.

How do students study? How should students study? While there is universal agreement on the need for study, we are perhaps less clear in higher education about what students do, and indeed what we should recommend to them. In this post I will review some of the literature on studying, and draw together some recommendations based on theories of learning, and research done in chemistry education and elsewhere… [continue reading on the ChemDoT blog]