Love you!

Is today’s postal truck stuck in a snowbank? Did you forget to send a card or gift to your favorite Valentine? Not to worry, middle schoolers. Poetry by Heart to the rescue! This poetry promoting group thinks if you can memorize TV jingles without breaking a sweat, why not poetry? Mizz C. couldn’t agree more. Yes, she could agree more. She officially agrees more.

Why memorize a poem by heart when you should be running to the drugstore to get a Valentine's or anytime card? Here’s why:

. . . if you learn by heart it means you take the poem right into yourself, it becomes part of you. And it remains with you, probably for the rest of your life. 

--Poet Jeanne Sprackland, Poetry by Heart

Mizz C. hopes there’s someone special you can share a memorized poem with on Valentine’s Day. You can find all kinds of kiss kiss poetry right here. 

As for Mizz C. she likes this one—short and sweet:

If raindrops were kisses,

I'd send you showers.

If hugs were minutes,

I'd send you hours.

If smiles were waves,

I'd send you the sea.

And if love was a person,

I'd send you me!

            --Emily Bronte

Happy Valentine's Day!

LOTS OF TEACHERS, LOTS OF BOOKS, OH YES!

Hey, Middle Schoolers. Was this you just a month ago?

Is this you today?

 

Mizz C. to the rescue with a study skill tip you can try out TONIGHT, yes TONIGHT-- and every night for the rest of the school year. This amazing study tip will do more than index cards, nagging voices, or class notes to help you prepare for tests, memorize information, stay focused in class, and get your work done. 

Can you guess what it is? 

Not!

                                                          
Mizz C. knows the energy you need for school doesn't come from a can. It comes from two things you can see in the picture below. You probably have both of them right in your room. 

pillow and alarm clock

Mizz C. has been accused of repeating herself. Now she's going to do just that. The best study skill you can master this year can be found in one of Mizz C's first blog postings, Sleep, the Super Study Skill. 

Now go catch some zzzs (unless you're in class right now or you haven't finished tomorrow's homework yet).  

The Mix-It-Up-Study Drill

Mizz C. learns something new every century. This century she learned that students can boost their test results by copying successful musicians and athletes. They mix it up before performances and games. Musicians run through scales, rhythms, and different exercises. Athletes do strength and speed drills. 

Mizz C’s bottom line:

Practice different skills at the same time when you prep for tests. For example, when you study for your next language arts test, memorize a few spelling words. Throw in some vocabulary examples, then mix in grammar rules. In math, smoosh together word problems, computation, and other skills when you work out problems before math tests. Mix it up so you won't be mixed up at test time.

You may be excused now, Middle Schoolers. 


If you want to stick around, here’s the long version of what brain scientists have learned about why this "mixed up" way of studying works:

In a study recently posted online by the journal Applied Cognitive Psychology, Doug Rohrer and Kelli Taylor of the University of South Florida taught a group of fourth graders four equations, each to calculate a different dimension of a prism. Half of the children learned by studying repeated examples of one equation, say, calculating the number of prism faces when given the number of sides at the base, then moving on to the next type of calculation, studying repeated examples of that. The other half studied mixed problem sets, which included examples of all four types of calculations grouped together. Both groups solved sample problems along the way, as they studied.

A day later, the researchers gave all of the students a test on the material, presenting new problems of the same type. The children who had studied mixed sets did twice as well as the others, outscoring them 77 percent to 38 percent. The researchers have found the same in experiments involving adults and younger children.

“When students see a list of problems, all of the same kind, they know the strategy to use before they even read the problem,” said Dr. Rohrer. “That’s like riding a bike with training wheels.” With mixed practice, he added, “each problem is different from the last one, which means kids must learn how to choose the appropriate procedure — just like they had to do on the test.”

Go to Your Room! Never Mind.

Pop quiz, Middle Schoolers. Is it better to do all your studying in a special study space:

Or mix it up?

Mix it up is the A+ answer! Some people--that would include Mizz C--used to think that disappearing into a tomb-like study space was the best way to memorize and prepare for tests. 


Not so according to this New York Times article which says:

. . . many study skills courses insist that students find a specific place, a study room or a quiet corner of the library, to take their work. The research finds just the opposite. In one classic 1978 experiment, psychologists found that college students who studied a list of 40 vocabulary words in two different rooms — one windowless and cluttered, the other modern, with a view on a courtyard — did far better on a test than students who studied the words twice, in the same room.

It turns out that when students need to memorize information—spelling or vocabulary words, math, science terms, and the number of body sections ants have—they do better changing up scenery.

Got a test? Go to your room! Or the kitchen counter. Or the backyard.

Please excuse Mizz C. She's bringing her laptop to a park bench.