How to Succeed in Science Courses
Steven Arnold
The information on these pages comes from
my personal experience and from many other sources.
Everyone learns in their own way, and these tips should not be
expected to suit everyone. There are no tricks which will
instantly make it easy to learn science. There is no
substitute for study and hard work. The purpose of this
page is to make that time and effort that you spend more
effective.
The most important factor in your success or failure in a
science class is your attitude. Students come into a
science course with many thoughts and apprehensions:
"I'm worried that the course will be hard
for me." - That's okay. Following the suggestions
and guidance here should help. Science courses are
harder than many other courses. They may require a
different approach to study. Most worthwhile things
require work and effort.
"I shouldn't have to take a course in
science because I'm not a science major." -
Especially in the modern world, everyone needs a basic idea of
how science works and about scientific concepts. You need
to understand something about how things work to function in and
appreciate the world around you. Our society needs people
like you who will be educated in scientific concepts when the
time comes to vote on measures affecting scientific issues such
as pollution, global warming, the ozone hole, and so on.
We cannot afford to have a society in which only a handful of
citizens know anything about motion, energy, heat, light, and
electricity.
"I shouldn't have to take this course
because I'm not going to be a chemist, physicist, etc." -
If you are required to take a particular course, it is likely
that you will need that material in order to be competent in
your field. The curriculum has been designed by
professionals in that field based on their experience. In
order to really understand biology, you need to know basic
chemistry, for example. Biochemistry is at the cutting
edge of modern biology research. Contrary to what most
students think, your university education is NOT just job
training for your chosen field. You need a broad
education, particularly because most people don't keep the same
job their whole career anymore, and a great many change their
field entirely.
"All I want is to pass and get out of
this course" - This is a common attitude, but a poor
one. As shown above, it is important that you learn at
least the basics of science. Your goal should be to learn
as much as you can. Do not let any grade become your goal.
A grade is poor motivation. Let the knowledge gained be
your motivation.
"I'm worried about the math" - This is a
concern for many. First, have you met the math
prerequisites for the course? If so, you should have some
familiarity with the required concepts. If you had
difficulty in those courses, you may need to go back and pick up
some of the skills you missed. Is the course the proper
one for your needs? There may be different levels of
course, differing largely in the level of math complexity, and
you should be sure you are in the proper one for your major.
Talk to the instructor for the course, and ask what level of
math skills are required. They can help you assess your
personal situation.
"Why should I go to class?" - Going
to class and being on time is extremely important. Your
instructor is there to help you to learn the material.
There will likely be portions of the material that you will find
difficult to understand on your own. That is where your
instructor comes in, to explain those areas to you.
Probably, many examples will be presented to show you how to go
about the process of solving scientific problems. Thus,
going to class is extremely important. However, just going
to class is not enough. While in class, you will see your
instructor work problems. He or she already knows how to
work them, and it will probably look easy. However, until
you have worked them and many others, it will likely be
difficult for you. Sitting in the classroom is like
watching professional sports on TV. You can see how the
pros play baseball, basketball, football, or golf. When
you try a sport for the first time, you don't expect to do it
just like the pros just from watching them. Likewise, you
can't expect to be able to answer scientific questions after
just listening to the lectures.
Learning is something you do, not
something that is done to you.
Anonymous
You cannot teach anyone anything.
You can only help them find it within themselves.
Galileo Galilei
If after reading the above, you have the
attitude that while science may not be easy, it is worth your
effort to learn as much as you can, read on!
Spending too little time studying is probably the leading cause
of poor performance in science courses. At a minimum, most
students should study 2-3 hours outside of class for every hour
they spend in lecture. This does not count time spent in
the laboratory, or time spent preparing for lab, lab reports,
etc. In most courses, you will spend approximately three
hours in lecture a week so you should study at least 6-9 hours a
week. By far the easiest and best way to do this is to
spend some time every day studying. Unfortunately, a large
percentage of students will wait until just before a test and
try to "cram" it all in for the exam. Most of them are
doomed to fail or not to achieve the results they could if they
studied properly. This is particularly true in science,
because scientific concepts take longer to learn and fully
understand than many of those in your other courses. You
cannot simply memorize them. You must be able to
understand them so that you can apply them to new situations
which you have not seen before. If you are unable or
unwilling to spend this much time studying for a science course,
then perhaps you should attempt to change your schedule to allow
it or you should seriously reconsider taking the course at this
time.
Almost as important as how long to study is how to study.
First, set the proper goal. Your goal should be to LEARN
the material the best you can. The following is written
with the physical sciences in mind, because that's what I teach.
Many of the principles can be applied in any field, of course.
There are several steps to learning science, which I suggest
should be followed more or less in this order for a particular
chapter or section of a chapter.
1. Learn the language. Your
first task as you read a chapter is to learn the terms. In
science, there will be very many of these for you to learn.
By its nature, science is about discovery and as new concepts
and ideas are discovered, they have been given names which you
will need to learn. Many of the terms to learn will be
printed in bold in your textbook. They may be defined in
the chapter and/or in a glossary at the end of the chapter or
the book. Learn the definitions as best you can
immediately on your first reading. Begin to memorize the
definition as soon as you come to it, and continue to learn it
as you go along. It may be helpful to write out your own
list of definitions, or to put them onto note cards for later
study. If you do not learn the meanings of the terms, what
you read and what you hear in lecture will be useless.
Example: Density is
a measure of the amount of mass per unit volume in a substance.
It is determined by how much matter is packed into a given
volume.
2. Learn the important concepts.
By the concepts, what I mean is the important ideas. There
will be broad, general ideas which you will need to understand
in order to get the "big picture" of the subject and to solve
problems. Another common mistake made by students is to
ignore the general concepts and focus solely on specific
problems. The difficulty this causes is that if you don't
understand the general concepts, you won't be able to see how to
approach solving a specific problem.
Example: The law of
conservation of energy states that energy can be neither created
nor destroyed, but only changes form. The kinetic energy
(energy of motion) of a body may be converted into heat energy
when the body skids to a stop due to friction, for example.
3. Learn the equations /
formulas. This is essentially the same as number one above.
Mathematics is the language of science. Mathematical
equations are just like sentences. Equations can express
ideas in a very compact, powerful way. In most physical
science courses you will need to learn equations and how to use
them to solve problems. The first step is to learn what
the variables in the equations stand for and what their units
are. A very common mistake is to learn the equation but
not know what the letters stand for, making the equation
useless. Once you know what the variables are, learn one
form of the equation. Learn the form of the equation that
looks the easiest to you. You only need to learn one form
because then all you need to do is to use the rules of algebra
to solve for whatever variable you need.
Example:
d = density in g/mL
m = mass in g V
= volume in mL
The above equation states that density
equals mass divided by volume. (Compare this mathematical
sentence with the English sentence for the definition of density
given above. See how they are the same?) Knowing
this, we can easily find the mass of an object if we know its
density and volume by multiplying both sides of the equation by
V:
m = d V
4. Study the example problems.
Going over the example problems done in class or in your
textbook will illustrate how to go about working specific
problems. As you study them, think about each step and do
not go on until you understand why each step was taken and how
it was accomplished. Pay attention to how the general
concepts lead to an approach to solving the problem.
5. Work problems yourself. In
my opinion, most students should do all of the above before
attempting to work problems on their own. Many students
jump right to trying a problem, get frustrated, and conclude
that they will never be able to do it. Once you have done
the above steps for a particular section of material, you are
ready to attempt some problems for that section. You
should be prepared to get stuck at first. The purpose at
this stage is to work out the kinks, and to practice the
manipulations and problem-solving techniques. When you get
stuck, go back to a similar example problem for guidance.
Review the text material for that section. Try not to get
discouraged. As a last resort, look to the solutions
manual or the back of the book, etc. However, if you do
look up the answer, BE SURE YOU UNDERSTAND why and how the
problem was solved, and make sure that you could do a similar
problem YOURSELF the next time. Work as many problems as
you can. Go over the problems several times, until you can
do them quickly and easily. You should view this stage of
your study just as you would practice for a sport.
Athletes practice skills until they can do them automatically,
without having to stop and think. You can achieve nearly
the same kind of ability to solve scientific problems.
Practice, practice, practice!
6. Think while you are working in
the laboratory. Of course this sounds obvious, but I have
observed that many, if not most, students fail to actually think
while in the lab. Do not focus on just taking the data and
following the directions, but think about what you are doing and
why. Remember that the things you are doing in the lab are
designed to help you to see and understand what you are studying
in the lecture course. Think about what happens in the
experiment and why it happened. Does it agree with what
was described in the lecture? If you are having difficulty
with a topic in the lecture, is there a laboratory experiment
containing that topic that might help? If you are having
difficulty with an experiment, look to your textbook or your
lecture notes for help. In short, let the laboratory and
lecture classes work together to help you to learn the subject,
which is what they have been designed to do.
7. Assess your progress. How
will you know when you are ready for the test? When you
can answer questions and work problems from the chapter (that
you haven't tried before), without having to peek at the
solutions or search the chapter for help, you are getting ready.
When preparing for a test, you can pick a few problems and
questions and work them under a time limit, simulating the test
conditions. When you can do the problems in the allowed
time, you know you are ready. When you no longer have to
struggle to remember the equations, you will know you are ready.
This will come with working a large number of problems.
Source: http://sciences.aum.edu/phs/sci1.htm
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