I recently got this question from a student:
“How much time would you recommend I should be spending on my study each evening or overall each week?”
Now, before I tell you my answer, you might be thinking,
“Well it depends. I mean, what year group are they in, what sorts of subjects are they doing?”
And you’d be right.
There is more to this than just plucking a number out of the air.
BUT although yes, students will be spending more time on homework, revision and study as they move up through high school, these details are really NOT important.
Find out why (and what IS important!) in this video (or scroll down for the written version!) 🙂
Wouldn’t it be great if there were some magic formula that stated:
X hours + Y pages of notes = Grade
Unfortunately,
(Because you KNOW I love specifics.)
this Q is (sadly) reeeeally *not* about the numbers.
Yes, students will be spending more time on homework, revision and study as they move up through high school, BUT…
We could spend hours on ‘study-type-activities’ that are keeping us ‘busy’ but aren’t actually productive in terms of
- the learning of content,
- retention in revision, or
- preparing awesome essays or assessment pieces.
For example, I’ve seen so many students spend waaayyyy more hours than they needed doing research for an investigation.
I’ve seen way too many students revising in ways that are not anywhere near as effective as they could be, and I’ve seen students waste days and days, not just hours, diligently drafting, editing and re-writing reports and assignments that could’ve been cut down massively if they’d had a clear and proven strategy to start on the right path and be able to craft their response more effectively.
In other words, it’s quality over quantity.
It’s about students gaining and honing the techniques, knowledge and strategies to work efficiently and effectively.
To minimise wasted time and stop doing any unnecessary tasks, and *still* gain the same (or better!) grades along the way.
This is why there are some students who work all hours of the day and night, yet still struggle to get the results they really want, and perhaps are capable of, and others just seem to breeze through getting A’s effortlessly.
Now, that might be a bit of an exaggeration of extremes, but it’s definitely the case that it’s more about efficient and effective study techniques and revision strategies than it is about the number of hours slaving away over textbooks.
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>> Oh, and leave me a comment below to let me know your thoughts on this ⬇
