Top 10 Tips
to Thrive in Your Anatomy & Physiology Course
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Preview
Preview assigned material before lecture. Lecture will make much more sense if you’ve previewed what will be discussed.
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Look
Look at the images to be covered in lecture. Anatomy and Physiology is a very visual course.
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Review
Review the prior lecture’s material by re-writing your notes or making summary tables/flow charts.
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Visuals and Notes
Always study your notes along with related visuals. You need to be able to combine visual images with black and white text.
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Avoid Cramming
Study anatomy and physiology every day or at least every other day. More frequent studying is preferable to studying only two or three days per week. Set a schedule where you spend some time every day either previewing or reviewing anatomy and physiology information.
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Organize
Organize the course material in a manner that makes the most sense to you. Perhaps, you create notecards that summarize similar information, design a flow chart, draw simple line diagrams, create mnemonics, or create a table or chart of information.
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Quiz Yourself
Make your own exam questions. This is a great technique to utilize once you have done a fair amount of studying. Ensure you don’t shy away from quizzing yourself on topics you’re not confident about.
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Explain
You master a concept best when you are able to explain it. Practice explaining what you’ve learned–a process or concept–to someone who knows nothing about anatomy and physiology, or to a fellow classmate.
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Study Group
Meet weekly or before every exam with several other students to learn the material. Assign each member different challenging topics and have that person teach it to the others in the group. You could also create a few questions on certain topics and then meet and share them with your group. Through the process of creating the questions you will become an "expert" in those topics and could better explain/clarify this information to each other.
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Office Hours
Make appointments to meet with your instructor to clarify information.