A study tool to share

This is not everyone's style of course, but I've found it works really well for me. I've been using an electronic flashcard app (I used gflash but there are many out there) to translate every factoid from my nursing school powerpoints into a question and answer.

I make a table up of all these Q&A's in google docs, then import into gflash, use that as my drill tool and before long I've got the lecture memorized. It's easier for me than making up index card flashcards because I'm a fast typist. Usually by the time I've typed up all my flashcards from a lecture (about 60-100 questions per 2 hour lecture) I know at least 50% of the material.

Gflash presents you with all the questions to get your baseline, then reshuffles and focuses on the ones you missed the first time around, mixing in a few that you already knew. It keeps doing that until you get them all right.

For me, the repitition, and the in-my-head recitation of drilling these electronic flashcards does the trick. And in order to write a meaningful question on my flashcard, I have to have understood the material.

In my program they give us weekly "objectives" that basically summarize what we are supposed to get out of the content from that week. Sometimes all of the objectives are addressed in lecture, and others you really have to dive into the books to get the full picture. I sometimes translate the content from these objectives into flashcards too, if it is really information dense.

This all takes time but it seems to be a guaranteed "A" unless the teacher is intentionally writing nasty questions (we had one of those teachers last spring).

The other plus is, when midterms or finals come around, you've got a whole database of flashcards to run through rather than going back and trying to piece together concepts from the start again.

There are other tools of course. Published study guides that go with the textbooks we use, and online references and practice tests made by the publisher. I've found these things only moderately helpful in actually doing well in the class.

In anatomy class, I found that making powerpoint quiz files (structure on first slide, labels on second slide) was a really effective tool.

This all may be obvious and natural to some, but the last time I was an undergrad none of these tools were around! Now I can have thousands of flashcards on my ipod and organization is a breeze.

I've also found that it is very soothing for me, the morning of a test, to have the feedback of an app that's telling me I know 100% of the material, rather than flipping back and forth between notes and thinking, "gosh, I hope I remember this all, I have no idea how much has stuck."

First few days of RN program

Monday: Arrive at 8am, sit through 6 1/2 hours of mostly lecture. Ask lots of questions and feel little timid about asking them because I don't know my teachers and classmates yet, not really. Feel completely awed by the first two professors I meet. Go to work immediately after school until 10:30pm, leave about an hour before shift end with my med tech partner's agreement, and crash HARD.

Tuesday: Arrive at 9am having slept like a brick the night before. Everyone is sitting in the same seats as yesterday. There are about 20 chapters of reading I was supposed to have done just for the first week, out of 16 or so different books, and feeling pretty overwhelmed by the quantity of information coming our way and being behind on the reading, but yet also thankful that I'm able to follow everything the teacher is saying so far, and that my most recent job has given me a lot of valuable experience that will help me in this first semester. Almost start crying during the portion of a lecture on therapeutic communication because I've just had a somewhat traumatic experience (for both me and the resident) two nights ago at work that is still lingering in my mind). Even more awed by the teachers today than the ones from yesterday. Especially one of them. I contemplate the fact that I never really admired my science professors as much as I do these nurses I've just barely met. Knowledgeable, wise, and so very intelligent, both academically and emotionally/socially.

Get to go home early that afternoon, around 1:30. Need to tune my brain out for a bit, so put on some TV and end up watching it longer than intended just because it feels so good to let go of that brain overload feeling for a few hours.

Get myself back on track, do a review of some math that's going to be on a test tomorrow (already!) to make sure I remember how roman numerals work and can do all types of fraction math with speed, briefly consider watching the videos about basic bedside care that I'm supposed to watch for tomorrow's skills day, but decide sleep is more important. Then have a fitful night's sleep.

Wednesday: Arrive on campus at 7:30am to the skills lab for an all day basic care activity nicknamed "CNA in a day". Realize that although I have been working in an RCFE (residential care facility for the elderly) for the last 8 months, I don't have a lot of the skills that are considered basic in a long term care facility, like giving a bed bath, sitting a bed bound patient on a commode, taking blood pressures the old fashioned way, brushing a patient's teeth for them or shaving their face, etc.

Tomorrow, Thursday, I'll be going to my first clinical site for orientation with my clinical instructor. My clinical instructor just got hired two days ago, and I'm a little wary of that fact. She will be shadowing another more experienced instructor while teaching us. She seems nice enough so far though.

Fall 2011: school has begun.

Recap: I'm midway through the first week of Fall Semester, 2011. My nursing school application is in, but I won't know if I'm in until maybe March. I'm working almost full time as a receptionist at a retirement home, volunteering 6 hours per week at the hospital, and taking 4.5 units at the local community college.

New news: I decided to quit my tutoring job. I looked at how everything was shaping up, and I went to the first meeting of my phlebotomy class, and I put everything on the calendar. I wasn't going to have any days at all left when I wasn't working in some fashion. Maybe a Saturday here and there when I trade hospital shifts with another person, but no time for studying really, no time for social life, no time to keep up my garden, or lounge with kitties. So I'm giving myself one day back. Wednesday. I will still have class that night but the rest of the day I'm going to take a mid-week pause, to catch up on errands, studying, hang out around the house, and take a deep breath.

I have a carpool buddy to get to the other campus where my phlebotomy course is held, which is a huge relief. And she's very nice, outgoing, and talkative. She's had some crazy experiences...geez. At one point she was working for a dollar an hour in a nursing home about 20 minutes away, as an illegal Filipino immigrant. I have always thought of that kind of situation as something that happens in big cities, near the Mexico border maybe, but not here, not in my county. She's doing a lot better now and has a real (albeit low paying) job but now she's got a little girl and a semi-deadbeat husband to support. She's one tough cookie. Been working since she was 12.

Phlebotomy is good. The teacher is laying down some very hard and fast rules with serious consequences right off the bat, but I can also tell that she's friendly and has a sense of humor about stuff. We watched a video of all the things that can go wrong if you mess up in a lab drawing peoples' blood (and the consequences), and have been taking care of beginning-of-semester administrative stuff, and starting to go through book chapters. Today we went through that exercise where you rub fake germs all over your hands, then wash your hands like you normally would, and check under the UV lamp to see what you missed. I need to pay a little more attention to my wrists, but I was pleasantly surprised at how well I did, because I really did follow directions and wash my hands like I normally would after going to the bathroom or something (some students were doing an intense scrub down!).

I haven't been working through my TEAS studies like I planned. Things have felt so hectic, all day, every day. The test could be as early as next month so I need to get going again.

For now though, it's time for sleep.

Motivation Dip

It's Sunday night. Next week is the last instructional week of the semester and then there will be finals week. This Wednesday I'm scheduled to take my last lab exam, on the urinary and reproductive systems, and the following Wednesday night I'll be taking the final.

I haven't *really* started studying the urinary and reproductive systems yet. I need to put in some time on that tonight. For the last couple lab exams I have been trying a new technique: making myself some self-quizzing power points that go through step by step each structure/function/whatever I need to know. I've gotten really good grades on the last two exams this way but it is kind of tedious. Knowing it's a sure-fire method though, I want to stick with it, and I'd better get started.

So I'm trying to get myself re-motivated to buckle down and study.

I suppose there are the negative motivations:
-If I get a B rather than an A (both realistic options at this point), that might lessen my chances of being accepted into nursing school.
-It would be a bummer to not get the highest grade possible after all the other work I've put into this class this semester.
-Do first jobs in the nursing field ask for transcripts? Would they hire someone with more A's over someone with more B's?

Positive motivations to finish up with a bang this semester:
-picturing myself helping a patient down the road
-I am lucky to be capable of an A, so I should really do my best to get there
-bragging rights
-The more I can incorporate into my memory this semester during Anatomy, the easier Physiology should be next semester, right?
-If I do really well on this next lab exam, that material is only going to show up again on the final, so I might as well learn it well now.