Larbi Ben M’Hidi University

Study Skills/ 1st Year LMD

S.AROUF

Managing yourself for study

The C·R·E·A·M strategy for learning
C·R·E·A·M
C·R·E·A·M stands for:
C – Creative
Have the confidence to apply imagination to your learning and problem-solving.
Creativity is especially important for generating ideas in the early stages of new
assignments.
Attitudes that prevent creativity
- ‘It’s a waste of time.’
- ‘It’s childish.’
- ‘There’s a time for work and a time for play.’
- ‘There’s a right way of doing things.’
- ‘It’s not logical.’
- ‘I’m not creative.’
- ‘I can’t.’
Approaches that foster creativity
‘Play’ and lateral thinking
Select any two random objects, such as a cup and a plant. Find as many
connections between them as you can (e.g. by size, colour, owner, the way they
break, how they spin, when they were bought). How could you apply this type of
‘play’ to your coursework?
Combine things
Take the front half of one animal and the rear of another. What new animal have
you invented? The essence of invention is mixing two different ideas or contexts
to create a new variety. This helps in academic thinking too – such as comparing
viewpoints.
Metaphor
Let one thing stand for, or represent, another: that is, use metaphor or analogy.
Look at objects, or study problems from different perspectives, making these
visual or concrete in playful ways. Take an issue out of the academic context and

1
see what it looks like in the world of oranges and apples, or knives, forks, salt
and pepper. If an issue doesn’t make sense to you, map it out with objects on a
table – just as generals mapped out military strategies using ‘toy’ soldiers.

‘Suppose this apple is the earth, this orange is the sun, and these other fruit are
the rest of the solar system …’
R – Reflective
Be able to sit with your experience, analyse and evaluate your own performance,
and draw lessons from it.
As a student in Higher Education, you are responsible for your own progress –
for your development as an autonomous learner. Although you will receive formal
assessment (marks, grades and comments) from lecturers, it is important not to
be dependent upon the assessment and views of other people. You benefit from
being able to work out for yourself, through a process of analysis and reflection,
what you do well, what you need to improve, and your priorities.
Methods of developing reflection
- Use the self-evaluation questionnaires.
- Make constructive use of feedback from tutors:
‘What if I get bad marks for my work …?’
Although ‘marks’ can be an indicator of how well you are doing, the comments you
receive are more important. You may feel discouraged and feel inclined to throw
your work in the bin if it is returned covered with your tutor’s handwriting, but
do read the comments – they are likely to be your passport to better marks.

It can be distressing if tutors seem insensitive in their comments. Sometimes

this is due to bad tutoring on their part, but try not to be oversensitive to their
remarks. It is best not to take any harsh comments personally. Focus instead on
the issues behind the words.

It is also quite usual to have strong feelings about your marks – especially if the
amount of effort you put in does not seem to be reflected in the mark. You may
feel angry or disappointed, or want to give up altogether.
Don’t give up. Wait a day or two, then start an action plan.
Action plan for using tutor feedback
Read through your work and the tutor’s comments. Be constructive. Keep asking
yourself, ‘How can this help me to improve my work?’

2
1 After each comment, check whether you understand what it was that made the
tutor write it. Highlight any comments that you feel are useful to you for your
next piece of work.
2 Create a table or divide a page into sections to show:
- major issues: areas which lose a lot of marks, such as not answering the
question, lack of evidence, poor argument, weak structure
- minor errors: spelling, punctuation, grammar.
3 Go through your tutors’ comments, listing them under ‘Major issues’ or ‘Minor
errors’.
4 Compare this with lists you completed for any previous work. Which comments
appear more than once?
5 Number the items in order of priority (with ‘1’ for the most urgent matter to
work on).
Table1: Using feedback from tutors (Cottrell, 2013, p.324)
Action plan
Major issues Minor errors
2 paragraphing 1 spelling authors’ names
3 referencing 3 commas
1 structure 2 ‘-ed’ endings for past tense

- Fill in progress sheets regularly.

Table2: A sample progress sheet (Cottrell, 2013, p.97)
How well am I doing?
Course, unit or module: Date:
Level: Year of study:
1a Generally, how well am I doing in 1b On what am I basing this self-
this unit? evaluation?
(My marks? Feedback from tutors?
Selfmonitoring?Other ways?)

2a In this unit, I am best at: 2b On what am I basing this self-

evaluation?

What makes me better at these

aspects?

3
3a To do better in this unit, I need to 3b How will I bring about this
improve: improvement?

What prevents me from doing as well My timescale for this improvement is:
at present?

4a What have I already learnt, or 4b How do I know this? How do I

improved, since starting this unit? measure or monitor what I have
learnt? (How long it takes? My level of
confidence? My understanding? My
level of enjoyment?)

E – Effective
Organise your time, space, priorities, state of mind, resources, and use of
technology to maximum benefit.
Virtue versus effectiveness
Studying hard is not the same as working efficiently or effectively. Consider the
table below, which shows the study strategies of one student, Leila. Leila feels
she should get good marks because she works very hard. She studies 50 hours a
week, and gets all her work done by the deadlines.
Leila’s study strategies
Leila feels virtuous because … … Yet her study strategy is weak
because …
1 Leila reads every book on the reading  The same information is repeated in
list, and searches the internet several books. She does notselect
constantly. from one book to another.
2 She reads every book from cover to  Not all of the book is equally
cover. relevant. She does not use smart
reading techniques
3 She writes very detailed notes.  She has more information than she
needs.
 Her notes are repetitive and take a
long time to read.

4
  She doesn’t think much about what
she is noting down.
 It takes her a long time to find
things in her notes.
 She has to rewrite her notes to
revise from them.
 She copies out large sections – and
then copies these into her own work –
which loses her marks.
4 She writes her notes neatly, and in  Using abbreviations would save
full sentences. time.
 As long as she can read her notes
and find information easily,
they do not need to be neat.
5 She works long hours with few  She gets tired and cannot think
breaks. as clearly.
 She gets bored and loses
interest easily.
 Her mind wanders and she
forgets what she has read.
 Sometimes she takes notes
without realising she has done so –
with no idea what they say.
6 She locks herself away to work  She misses out on other people’s
solidly. opinions, suggestions and
perspectives.
7 She never asks for help or attends  She would benefit from guidance on
support workshops. how to use her study time, and the
experience of being a student, more
effectively.

A – Active
Be personally engaged physically and mentally, in making sense of what you learn.
Consider the characteristics of both passive and active learning, summarised in
table 3.
Table3: Passive and active learning characteristics (Cottrell, 2013, p.107)
Characteristics of passive learning Characteristics of active learning
1 You wait for directions and 1 You look for ways of being more
information to be fed to you. involved in what you are learning.
Information is delivered to you – you 2 You are engaged in the whole

5
just follow what is said or written, and learning process (and in a position to
do as you are told. see why information has been
selected).
3 Different pieces of information are 3 You look for links between different
treated as separate units. things that you discover.
4 You repeat information without 4 You make a conscious effort to make
understanding it. sense of, and find meaning in, what you
learn. Understanding is usually deeper.
5 You don’t reflect upon what you have 5 You are involved in reflection and
learnt. self-evaluation.
6 You may become bored and tired 6 Your attention span is longer
easily. because your mind is more fully
engaged.
7 You use surface processing, in which 7 Long-term memory is assisted. If
case you are less likely to understand you understand what you learn, and
or remember. keep relating what you learn to what
you already know, you are more likely
to remember what you have learnt.
8 You are less likely to be able to use 8 Linking information helps you to see
what you learn. how you can apply it to different
situations.
9 What you study may seem irrelevant. 9 Learning is personalised and
interesting.
10 You expect others to prompt you or 10 You take charge of your learning
to remind you of steps, stages and and manage it like a project, so you
deadlines, so you often feel uncertain feel confident that you know what to
about what to do next. do, when, and why.

M – Motivated
Be clear about the outcomes you want to achieve, the steps you need to take to
achieve these, and what you will do to build and maintain your engagement and
enthusiasm.
Your level of motivation will affect your success. No matter how much you love
your subject or want to gain a good degree, there may be times when you don’t
feel like studying or wonder whether you would be better off doing something
else. You need strong motivation to keep yourself going at such times.
What affects motivation?
Motivation can be affected by all kinds of things, from changing your mind about
the career you want and the qualifications you need, through to your friends

6
leaving the course. Most students experience periods of lower motivation at
times, though they usually work through these.
Key influences on motivation
Motivation to study is affected by such things as:
 clarity of purpose
 being on the right course
 managing the ‘boring bits’
 confidence of the outcome
 using time well.
Reasons for weak motivation
1 loss of direction
2 boredom, resulting from poor study strategies
3 too much or too little challenge
4 crises of confidence.
Signs of weak motivation
5 finding excuses not to study
6 not being able to settle down to study
7 losing interest in the subject
8 becoming easily distracted
9 giving up quickly.

Table4: How strong is your motivation? (Cottrell, 2013, p.111)

Make a frank evaluation of your own motivation. Rating
Rating: 1 = low; 5 = high.
1 I have a strong sense of purpose 12345
2 I know my reasons for study 12345
3 I am clear how my study will benefit my life 12345
4 I set myself clear targets for completing tasks 12345
5 I am driven to achieve well 12345
6 I can get going quickly when I sit down to study 12345
7 I have strategies for getting myself down to work 12345
8 I stay focused once I sit down to study 12345
9 I always complete work by the deadline 12345
10 I create the time I need to complete tasks well 12345
11 I set personal challenges that inspire me 12345
12 I take pleasure in achieving milestones/goals 12345
13 I study well even when I don’t feel like it 12345
14 I keep going even when things get tough 12345

7
15 I give thought to how to keep myself inspired 12345
16 I find ways of making study sessions enjoyable 12345
17 I make the subjects I study interesting to me 12345
18 I avoid actions that might sabotage my study 12345
19 I use criticism as a spur to doing better 12345
20 I manage anxieties and crises of confidence 12345
Total score out of 100
What do you think that your overall score and your rating
of individual items tell you about your motivation?

This lesson encourages you to develop attitudes and approaches that make
learning, simultaneously, more interesting as well as more efficient and
effective. You are more likely to maintain the high level of application needed
for success as a student if you are:
 creative, finding ways to make study enjoyable, varied, imaginative and
dynamic
 reflective, pausing at frequent intervals to reflect on your performance,
checking whether your studies are working out as you would wish, and
adapting your study strategies accordingly
 effective, making good use of the time and effort you put into study, so
that you see positive outcomes from these as well as being able to fit
other things into your life
 active, designing personalised strategies in self-reliant, imaginative and
energetic ways, rather than awaiting direction from others or attempting
to absorb information in passive ways
 motivated, being clear about your purpose and goals, and organising your
study in such a way that you gain a sense of progress and achievement.
This means planning not just what you study and when, but also how you will
study.