Wow Dale! This is so cool!
What a great thing to do. I love the way you did the color-coding and then the underlines. Very very nice.
I bet just organizing this and *making* it probably REALLY helped you with remember them, too. I think if everyone who is studying took the time to take something tricky that they're having trouble with and tried to prepare a study aid for OTHERS to use, the act of building that study aid would help the person creating it really nail it!
There's actually a book about this very idea (I think the name is "Minds at Play"), but the idea goes something like this...
* Take a group of kids who have to learn a subject like fractions
* Divide the group into three sub-groups:
1) Those who take normal formal lessons by the teacher on fractions
2) Those who don't have any lessons on fractions
3) Those who don't have any lessons on fractions BUT are asked to figure out how to make study aids and multimedia lessons for OTHER kids to learn fractions.
Guess you scored the best on their fractions tests? Yes, of course. The kids who never were actually *taught* fractions in a formal way, but instead had to create lessons for other kids. They did better than the kids who had the formal training.
Now... the kids creating the training lessons still had to LEARN about fractions, obviously, but they did it by trying to self-study, figuring out what they needed to learn, and then in the course of making the lessons for others, they were able to really discover parts that they did not understand. When in the context of creating study aids they found things they didn't understand enough to explain it to others, they would then ask a teacher/mentor for help with that topic.
In many ways, trying to answer a question on javaranch, EVEN WHEN YOU ARE NOT SURE OF YOUR ANSWER, is one of the best things you can do. Every time you try to explain something to someone else, you get two very important benefits:
* It becomes reinforced in your own mind (so, better memory)
* You find out if there are holes or places you don't really understand
(Plus, you help others)
OK, Dale, you pushed a fun button for me.
I would strongly encourage everyone who is actively preparing to do something like what Dale did. If you choose to share it here with others, that's even better. But if not, it's still a great thing for you to do. I bet Dale outscores us all on the listener questions
cheers,
Kathy