TART and Charlie Reads SmarT

Hi, all!
I decided to use Charlie Reads SmarT for ECN302 and TART for my HOA105 this week.
For Charlie Reads SmarT, I chose the macroeconomic class because usually it takes me a lot of time to read the textbook and I feel sleepy everytime when I read the book so I feel that I need to chunk the task.
First, I counted the pages I need to read for the next lecture (which is 10 pages) and I found that I lost my attention after two pages so I divided it into five small tasks. I took only 5 minute break in order to finish the 10-page task as soon as possible. [Chunk]
After that, I browsed the 10 pages and had a idea what the authors talk about in the 10 pages because I found in the syllabus the pattern for this course is cause and effect so I knew I had to make it clear on the relationship between some concepts. [Read]
According to the strategy was presented, I should summarize it after I finish reading, but I was afraid that I forget important information because I have bad memory and the relationships between concepts are complex so I did it when I was reading and I used the colors to highlight the main relationships. Here is my summary and graphs: [Summarize]

After reading, I created some questions in order to finish my preparation for the next lecture and I used pencil to write question and black pen to answer it and it shows as below: [Test]
After trying , I feel that it made me more comfortable during class when the professor introduce
new concepts and it is extremely helpful for this course because most of the time, the professor will talk beyond the textbook in the lecture.

I tried TART with my art history course because there are a lots of terms and explanation in this course and I am not good at memorizing things so previewing terms is supposed to be a good solution.
First
I read the terms in the art history book but I did not read the every term and definition as the strategy is explained in Dr. Blumin's book because this chapter we have almost 30 pages and I did not have enough time for this many pages, so instead, because we believe that every piece of work reflects the idea of that times so I read the most important information- the ideas for this period, which is active life, contemplative life and tradition and innovation, which I found the three ideas in the student manual for this chapter. By that method, I only have to read 5 pages before lecture. So I made notes on the computer for the five pages in order to edit them when the professor add something new to explain them and I used some colors, bold and question marks to remind myself. I did this because I am a visual and kinesthetic learner. Here is what I did:
Second
I attended the lecture and took notes on the computer.

After that
as Dr. Blumin said about this strategy, I should read the whole chapter but I do not have time for that and the major source of this course is lecture so I just need skeleton reading for this course so I checked the ideas with every slide she discussed with us and think how does the idea relate to the work specifically. Fortunately, I figured out how the work reflects any of them this time. But if it is not clear to me, I would browse book for more information.

Finally
I created question on the most important idea, which is contemplative life in this case and type down how does it relate to architecture, paintings and sculptures in order to review in the future and anticipate exam questions.

This strategy is really helpful for this course because it combines with anticipating questions and I do not have to read comprehensively so it gives me a good and time-saving method to review and prepare for the essay questions in the exam, which usually incorporate the relationship between ideas and works.

TART and Charlie Reads SmarT Strategies

Hey everyone!

So for this week, I decided to use both the TART and Charlie Reads SmarT reading strategies for my PSY 205 class. I chose these two strategies because I thought that they would help me effectively read and learn how to prepare test questions.

PSY 205 is my only lecture course where reading the textbook is suggested in order to understand the material better. Although reading is not required in this course, I thought it be best if I read the textbook before lectures for clarification and review. Our professor provides us with outlines on Blackboard before the lectures so I took the time to quickly scan them to see what would be most important to read. We don't need to read everything within the textbook, so that is why I skimmed through the lecture outlines beforehand.

For this week's reading, I read parts of Chapter 7, which was about intelligence. For the TART strategy, the first step was to read the terms and definitions in the chapter's glossary. I skimmed through the chapter and highlighted the terms with their definitions; abbreviating the most important ones. Since I am a visual learner, highlighting key terms was really effective.
Here are two pages from my textbook where I abbreviated and highlighted key terms:





The second step was to attend the lecture. I listened for the terminology used by my professor that I found in the textbook. During class, I highlighted the terms in the lecture outlines that were also mentioned in the textbook. Here are two examples from my notes:



The next step was to read the chapter to review what was covered in class. I highlighted anything else that seemed important to know.

The last step was to create test questions that I thought my professor might ask on future exams. I used the same questions from Charlie Reads SmarT strategy.

For the Charlie Reads SmarT strategy, I had to do the following:

1. Chunk the reading assignment
2. Read with a purpose
3. Summarize
4. Test

For the first step, I had to determine my attention span. I started to read until I felt to lose focus. I determined that I could read 5 pages, so for every section I read 5 pages then took a break before continuing to read. I had to read 20 pages in all and there were also certain sections that I did not need to read because they were parts that my professor would not go over. This really helped me keep focus and understand the reading better.

According to my syllabus, we would spend two days going over the intelligence chapter. For this week, I only had to read half of Chapter 7. While reading, I took note of the topic and turned the headings into questions. There were already questions concerning the topics at the head of each section, so I used them because my professor would most likely use them as questions on tests. Upon reading, I wrote down the answer to each question. I also took note of key terms within each section.

After reading, I combined the summarize and test steps by creating an outline organized by section and topic with questions and key terms. Since I am a visual learner, I highlighted the answers and key terms. I wanted my outline to be visually appealing.

Here is the outline I created:





I thought that the Charlie Reads SmarT strategy was more effective for me compared to TART because it helped me clarify and review important definitions within the textbook. TART helped me get an understanding of what the reading was going to be about.

TART and Charlie Reads SmarT on ECN 203

Hey girls! Do you enjoy the time spend with your parents?

For this week, I tried TART and CHARLIE READS SMART on my ECN 203. The reason why I choose to use both the strategy on my ECN 2O3 is not for the textbook is hard to read and understand, but for I treat it as one of the information resources for my class notes. Since in my ECN203 classes, my professor pay all the attention on his powerpoint but not mention the textbook; and all my exams are all about his lecture information and powerpoint, not have business with my textbook also. So even now it's mid-term time, I didn't read my textbook much. However, for this week, I decide to read my textbook for Chapter 11, which is the beginning of Macroeconomy. I found there were a lot information in the textbook, even the professor didn't mention them and the exams wouldn't cover them, but understanding them will help me understand other important terms much better.

Now, let me talk about TART first.

Amazingly, I am the combination of four types of learner! But I still prefer Visual learner. So when I read the terms in my textbook at the first time, I highlighted those terms in blue and create their abbreviations at the marginal of each page. It will help me to remember the full and abbreviations of terms at the same time and I will know where can I find them just by checking the margin. Here are two pages of textbook shows what I did as an example.

After I read all the terms and definitions, I had the basic idea of what will my professor talk about during his lecture. Then, I went to his lecture on Wednesday and Friday.( On Monday, we took the second exam so we didn't have a lecture) I made notes during the two lectures. When the professor come across the terms, I will draw line under those terms! Since I am an international student, right now I cannot take notes and listen to my professor at the same time. So I did bring my recorder to class, and listen to the recording after each class. ( As a result, the blue part on left side are notes I took during the classes and black part on right side are notes I took when I listened the recordings) Again, I draw lines under each terms or use capitalize them or circle them. ( I didn't have enough time for changing different colors when I took notes) Here are some pictures of my notes.

At the end of the whole week, which was at Friday night, I read all pages of Chapter 11. Since I had learned those terms for at least twice, I felt it's easier and faster for me to read, understand.

The time when I finished reading, I created a quiz for myself. On the left column, I wrote down questions in blue and then answered them in black on the right column. Here is my DIY-QUIZ:

As those questions were based on the information from textbook and my notes, they all about definitions and functions. I can find out the answer directly from my textbook or from my notes.

I am suitable for visual and kinesthetic learning methods, as a result, I found that TART provided me a good way to read my textbook efficiently. Especially for the past half of the semester, I ignored the importance of reading textbook. Even though my professor will not pick up exams questions from textbook, but it's still worthy for reading it. For more complete information materials and for better understanding principles.

At the same time, I also tried CHARLIE READS SMART on the same ECN203 classes.

The first step, I chunked my reading assignment.

According to my real situation, I made some changes. First of all, since my perfect time for my attention span is 20-25 minutes. The time I read textbooks, I also love to making notes or drawing graphs to help me understand them, so I decided to chunk time period based on the number of pages I can finish read with 15 minutes. That means the total time for each of my chunk is 25 minutes ( 15 minutes for merely reading and 10 minutes for taking notes or drawing graphs).

Second, based on the contents, I divided the whole chapter into 4 parts. They are: Intro. Macro& Micro; GDP; Labor and Price Line. According to their difficulty, Micro& Macro is the most simple part. So I decided to read pp 157- 161 in a chunk. For the most hard part, GDP, I read pp162-163, pp 168-169 ( total 2.5 pages) in a chunk. The easier the content, the more pages in a chunk. Otherwise, the harder, the fewer pages in a chunk.

So, finally, here is my chunk plan.

pp 157-161 Intro. Macro& Micro

pp 162-163, pp 168-169 GDP

pp 163-166 Labor

pp 166-167, pp 170-172 Price Line

For reading, because my professor's syllabus didn't mention reading materials for each class, so what I did was turning the heading into a question and read for the answer. And marked the parts which related to my powerpoint. As a result, I knew we will focus on GDP, LABOR AND PRICE LINE, but not for INTRO. MACRO& MICRO.

The third step is Summarize. I made graph for words and definitions. For this chapter, what we do is merely generally introduce terms but not research on examples. So I just listed important terms and their definitions. For definitions, I highlighted the notation part.

And also, I created an outline of key words for Chapter 11.

For the last step, I didn't want to just copy those questions which I created for TART ( they are basic questions and I can find answers directly). So even though I only created 2 questions for TEST part, but they are both questions need to be analyzed and discussed with my professor. After I got the accurate answers, I wrote them down.

Comparing to TART, Charlie Reads SmarT is more helpful for me to summarize and review after I had already known the whole chapter and took all the lecture about the chapter. TART helps me to get to know the chapter, Charlie helps me to review.