Achieve your best final exams yet—use backward planning and active learning strategies.
Backward planning means identifying your goal and choosing impactful learning strategies and actions that are most likely to help you to arrive efficiently at your goal. The hardest thing about backward planning is sitting down and getting started.
Backward planning strategy
- Identify your final exams, review sessions and paper deadlines and add these to your calendar.
- Moving backward from those dates, enter specific tasks for each class on your calendar that you need to complete to achieve your academic goals.
- Commit yourself and get started.
Study tips
- Use shorter study periods over multiple days for greater focus and information retention.
- Self-test often to practice and identify challenging topics.
- Try teaching content to your peers via video chat to test your understanding.
- Practice material in multiple ways without notes and study aides.
- Attend virtual office hours and review sessions.
- Keep a daily routine, which helps with consistency, prevents you from wasting precious time, and brings about higher productivity and better outcomes. Remember to incorporate self-care habits such as adequate sleep, healthy meals and exercise.
Believe in yourself! Tap into positive thinking and remember that effective learning takes time, practice and persistence. Learn from your failures. You’ve got this!
- Get information about academic coaching in the College of Arts and Sciences here, or contact asacademiccoaching@colorado.edu.
- Get information about academic coaching in the College of Engineering and Applied Science here, or contact alana.davis-delaria@colorado.edu.
