Studying in Groups. How does it work?

[Quiet-Storm.]

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Hi.

I wanted some advice from you guys about group studying. Every library you go to you will see students huddle around a table, scarfing down junkfood, giggling and chatting while they "group study"

Obviously those guys are kidding themselves because they are wasting their time.

But the concept of group studying has to have some real merit to it because it comes up again and again when people are discussing how they study.

Could someone who feels group studying is crucial to their success please explain how you make it work?

-How do you deal with slacking group members.

-How do you deal with distruptive group members? It can be quite rude to tell a chatterbox to shut up if they are not a close friend.

-How do you deal with group members who simply want to leech off you? It takes a lot of effort to synthesize and grasp concepts. All those mini "eureka" moments are what make studying payoff. Leeches make you feel like your being used.

What kind of blueprint or approach do you suggest? Ask each other questions? Work on problems together? (whats the point when the prof can more readily explain the question you dont understand)

Im sorry if I sound a bit snappy. My laptop got stolen this morning and im still in physical pain.

 

[Benoit]

I don't study with them if they don't help me. Sitting there talking about your day or leeching information from me is much different than studying and getting clarification. I use it to enhance my retention of the information, not for the initial encoding.

 

[bigdan]

1) Theft sucks; I hope you get your computer back.

2) Studying in groups is hard to do. Forced projects suck - when you HAVE to do something together. I always ended up doing as much of the work as possible so I didn't have to worry about slackers. If you are studying in a group 'cause you want to, then just dump (or avoid) those losers that bring you down. I prefer to use very short bursts of group study AFTER I have learned the info, to see if we can stump one another. Gets me 3 or 4 questions that I absolutely would not have gotten without someone having grilled me on it.

dc

 

[xucardsfan08]

Studying in groups depends on the people. A lot of people who "study" in groups just end up socializing for 80% of the time.

If you study with say, 5 other people, for organic or physics it can be beneficial, especially if everybody is committed to studying. The best group studying can be considered mostly independant reading with 5 potential helpers.
Another big benefit of studying in groups is the psychological benefit that teaching a subject has. When you explain something to someone else, you learn it more effectively.


My sophomore year, a group of friends and I would head to our chemistry lounge the night before tests (room has a dry-erase board) and work through problems on the board, talk through them, and teach each other.

 

[FemalesCANTDriv]

studying in groups is only beneficial if two things happen: 1) if all the people in the group know there **** for the most part and 2) if the ppl who meet to study in a group have already studied the material before the group studying session on their own. group studying is a way for ppl to go over the material to see where to holes are in their own studying... there is no way to group study without having already studied yourself. but socializing a bit while group studying is good too cuz it relieves a bit of stress

 

[szhao]

lol i am a total leech, like i just try to get to know all the material i can before the group and use them as my test subjects, ie try to explain to them all the material as before i can understand it

 

[45408]

yeah, I socialize when I study in groups, but it enables me to stay on track for MUCH longer periods of time. I've gone 16 hours straight in undergrad (during which we watched Terminator 2), but proceeded to get only one wrong on the biochem exam, so it worked out pretty well.

More than 2-3 people studying together quickly deteriorates though, because it's hard for everyone to keep a similar pace.

 

[CardiacIntensivist]

When I study in groups I usually have two options of people. There are those that want to study and those that are hoping that listening to me will help them get the information. When I gauge that they are the type to want to study I have us bounce questions off of each other and test the material. If I gauge they are a leech I make the most of the situation by making them question me or having me spit information back at them. In all situations I just make due and make sure I am talking out loud as that is how I learn more. I used to hate leeches but I've noticed that usually people who just loaf around in study groups tend to not do well anyway, so I just learned to take advantage of the situation (use them more than they want to use me).

And, before I enter any group study, I always make sure I know around 90% of the material already so I don't just sit there trying to connect the dots. I use studying in a group more as a method to enforce the information I know.

 

[solitude]

it doesn't.

 

[hp540]

Group study works when you're with people are who are similarly capable.

I've never studied with more than 2 or 3 people. It hardly qualifies as group study because 90% of the time, we're staring at our own notes. The "group" aspect comes in handy when you run into items you don't understand/aren't clear about. That's when you can raise the issue and hopefully it gets resolved.

The other advantage of group study is that other people might bring up points that you *thought* you had down cold or thought was irrelevant...but then you realize that it's actually important.

Bla bla bla. You get the idea.

 

[DropkickMurphy]

I never study in a group, unless forced to do so. The reason for this is simple: I can't stand most of my classmates.

 

[xpinchx]

I have a nice chem study group. It can be a bit unproductive at times, but as TheProwler said, you can go a lot longer with occasional breaks. My only tip would be to meet somewhere productive like a library or on campus. Meeting at someone's house usually ends up with eating, talking, TV, drinking, and other things than studying. But if you're somewhere where there's nothing but books all around you, it helps keep everyone on task.

 

[kevster2001]

i study with my friends in groups of maybe 3-4. Whenever any of us has a question, we ask "the group" and we all talk about it. This way we cover a lot of things and every now and then we'll start chatting about something so its a good way to take microbreaks

 

[gary5]

Group study has never worked for me. I've found it to be really inefficient. The problem for me is that I need to focus on what I need to learn, instead of spending time talking about what someone else hasn't learned yet. I guess if you're really verbal (like to talk), it might work for you, but only with the right people.

 

[DrZeke]

Hi.

I wanted some advice from you guys about group studying. Every library you go to you will see students huddle around a table, scarfing down junkfood, giggling and chatting while they "group study"

Obviously those guys are kidding themselves because they are wasting their time.

But the concept of group studying has to have some real merit to it because it comes up again and again when people are discussing how they study.

Could someone who feels group studying is crucial to their success please explain how you make it work?

-How do you deal with slacking group members.

-How do you deal with distruptive group members? It can be quite rude to tell a chatterbox to shut up if they are not a close friend.

-How do you deal with group members who simply want to leech off you? It takes a lot of effort to synthesize and grasp concepts. All those mini "eureka" moments are what make studying payoff. Leeches make you feel like your being used.

What kind of blueprint or approach do you suggest? Ask each other questions? Work on problems together? (whats the point when the prof can more readily explain the question you dont understand)

Im sorry if I sound a bit snappy. My laptop got stolen this morning and im still in physical pain.

Just wanted to point that so far in this thread, we're brought up 2 different activities:

1) learning in a group

is where, like some of you described, you either read on your own, or you depend on the other people to explain stuff to you. This can kind of be like PBL if done really well, and can sometimes be a good idea. It really depends on who you are. Like many of you here mentioned, before you go into "group mode", you try and know 90% of the material so that you aren't really LEARNING that much, rather you are reviewing. I think that if you didn't know the material 90% before you came in on that session, you would flip out. I know I did when 'friends' told me they were just 'going' over the material and that I should join. When I saw that they were reciting back entire pages of notes without looking, I decided I needed to leave before I had a panic attack - and this was 2 weeks before our test!!

2) studying in a group

is where you usually go in konwing 90% of the material or something to that effect like I described above. In this situation, you are not usually silent, but bouncing the already familiar material off of each other and sharing ways to know it better (STUDY). Lots of people choose to do this either by quizzing their friends or reciting stuff or sharing the way they memorized it best with a cool acronym.

I can say by far that "studying" in a group is way less nerve-wracking than "learning" in a group, at least for myself.

What you probably witnessed, my friend, were people goofing off at the library during finals, telling themselves they were studying.