Breaking down a Journal to encourage active reading

 Hello, in this post I am going to be going through a journal that I have read called The journal of reading by Ernest Balajthy. The journal was published in 1984 by the International Literacy Association and Wiley. First I will be going through that is given in the journal and after I will give my opinion on the research.

When reading this journal you can see that the target audience is aimed at students. The reason why I think this is because multiple times in this journal he makes examples using students in classroom scenarios, for example in the second paragraph Ernest (page 408 February 1984) says " As a skill, self-questioning can be taught to students of all ages. Research and experience have demonstrated its classroom usefulness and its place in models of learning by reading.

When discussing active reading, Ernest does not just give his own opinions he also mentions the thoughts of other researchers. An example of this is in the third and fourth paragraph (page 408 February 1984), he show the two opposing views of learning activity with Kintsch and van Dijk believing " retention is automatic with comprehension and can be predicted by analysing the text structure" (Kintsch and van Dijk, 1978; Rumelhart, 1977). Other researchers believe that retention is influenced by their four factors which are: "the nature of the material, the characteristics of the learner, the learning activities applied (cognitive learning strategies and study skills), and the task by which learning is measured"  (Kintsch and van Dijk, 1978; Rumelhart, 1977) (page 408 February 1984).

From reading this journal I think that Ernest Balajthy is in agreement with with the active research that he has done on previous studies by other researchers. What makes me believe this is in the second paragraph (page 409 February 1984), Ernest mentions: self-questioning allows the reader to read actively for meaning independent of teacher supplied learning aids (Singer and Donlan, 1982). Ernest gives his own opinion on this research talking about what other advantages these techniques might give to a reader.

After reading this journal I obtained useful information that I think that I will be able to use to my advantage. I would like to train how to self question myself better so that I can stay focused on my task at hand and not loose interest in what I am doing. More information that I found useful was the student led discussions and the group competition in the third and fourth bullet points (page 409 February 1984). I think these techniques will help in a group project situation to get everyone in the group to know how to work together and how to do it more efficiently.

Sources:

- Journal of Reading, Feb., 1984, Vol. 27, No. 5 (Feb., 1984), pp. 408-411, 

- Author: Ernest Balajthy

Learning new study skills and how to think critically through media literacy

 Hello, today I will be discussing how the study methods and skills that I have used during my junior certificate and leaving certificate differ from the study skills that I have learned through watching informative videos about science based study tips and active reading strategies for textbook assignments. After discussing these videos I will then talk about a video about creating critical thinkers through media literacy. 

The first video that I watched was a video called the 3 best science-based study tips by a YouTube channel called Mike and Matty, 2 brothers that are both doctors. In this video Mike talks about 3 study tips that are backed by science evidence that he cites from 2 books the first being called Make it stick by Peter C Brown, Mark A McDaniel and Henry L Roediger III, and the second book called How to become a straight A student by Cal Newport. The 3 tips that he uses are quizzing, spacing and mixing.

 The Quizzing technique is putting your mind into the scenario of an exam where you are put under pressure and your mind to the test to see if you retained the information that you learned. From testing yourself you can see whether or not that the information that you learned has actually stuck. Personally I would cover a topic in a subject and then quiz myself to see weather or not I am ready to move onto the next topic.

The second technique is spacing. Spacing is to spread your study over time which has been studied by Yale as an affective way of studying. Spacing allows someone to retain information over a longer period of time by having a little bit every day to retain more information. For me I would study around 3 different subjects a day over a few hours but after seeing this technique having positive results I may consider using it in the future.

The last technique is mixing. Mixing is to study multiple topics in one day. Mixing is a technique I have used before and is useful in getting more topics learned in quicker time which can be useful when an exam is not far away. 

The second video is from a Youtuber called Thomas Frank. The video is called  5 active reading strategies for textbook assignments. The video discusses strategies for active reading. Active reading is to read information from for example a book or a newspaper and to pull specific information that is useful to you. This is also called Pseudo skimming. 

Thomas also gives a tip to give yourself questions while reading to see if you managed to retain the information while you were reading. He also suggests marking the book with notes that you can look back on after you finished reading. I personally used this a lot in secondary school for novel reading. You can also use sticky notes to flag certain pages if you dont want to write on the book. Another useful tip he gives is to bracket paragraphs that contain important information that you need.

The third video I watched was a TED talk from Andrea Quijada who is a media literacy educator. She educates children on deconstructing media so they can have a better understanding of media like ads, sitcoms and newspaper articles. I found this video helpful in getting a better understanding of what the reality is behind certain companies or advertising. I think that everyone can benefit from learning about deconstructing media so that they can formulate their own opinions about different medias.

Sources

- Mike and Matty - The 3 BEST science-based study tips - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UEJmgaFQUH8

- Thomas Frank -  Active Reading Strategies for Textbook Assignments - College Info Geek https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JL0pqJeE4_w

- TEDx Talks - Creating critical thinkers through media literacy: Andrea Quijada at TEDxABQED -https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHAApvHZ6XE

- Photo by Pixabay - Creative commons zero license - https://www.pexels.com/photo/adult-blur-books-close-up-261909/