Knowing When You Don’t Know

59 CHAPTER 8 K NOWING W HEN Y OU D ON ’ T K NOW You can only find an answer when you have a question. Once you’ve identified what you already know in your study material, you can find out what you don’t know. Then you can create questions, and then look for the answers. And then, you’ll have learned something! H ow often have you heard someone say, “I don’t know”? That phrase is the key to studying. What separates experienced students from inexperienced ones is awareness of what they know and what they don’t know. Those with academic experience know enough to ask the specific questions that will help them find the answers. Once they’ve found those answers, they’ve learned something new. Separating Known From Unknown George was studying geometry. “I know the answer!” he exclaimed when Abe asked him to work on a problem with him. “How do you know it?” Abe asked. “Well, I know what an equi- lateral triangle is because I see the word equal in it. That clues me to the fact that an equilateral triangle is a triangle with three equal sides.” “I know that, too,” Abe said, “but I still don’t know how to find the area of the equilateral triangle.” “Oh, you’re right; I don’t either,” George said, looking at the problem again. “I jumped ahead too quickly; I only recognized what I knew about the problem, not what I didn’t know. Let’s look at this together. Maybe we can find something else we know that will help solve the problem.” HOW TO STUDY 60 FINDING OUT WHAT YOU DON’T KNOW After each study session, and after each class or lecture you attend, your final step must be to reflect on what you learned in that session or class. Thinking about the session lets you check what you know for sure and what you don’t know. The writer of your textbook, or the lecturer in your class, is taking you on a trip to some place you’ve never been before, and that “place” is a new piece of knowledge or a new set of facts. When the trip is over— when you’ve read the chapter or heard the lecture—you need to ask your- self the following questions: • Where was the writer or teacher trying to take me? That is, what was the main idea of this reading or lecture? • How did I get there? What were the steps that led to this main idea? • Have I arrived? Do I understand this main idea and all the steps that led up to it? Chapter 7, “Knowing What You Know” showed you how to know when you know for sure. You know that you know the material when you have: KNOWING WHEN YOU DON ’ T KNOW 61 • A clear picture in your mind • A clear sense of order • No remaining questions in your mind The problem is that sometimes you can think you know more than you do. That is why it’s important to actually draw your picture and write down the order. When you come to the point that you can’t proceed with your drawing or list, you’ve hit the point where you should start asking questions. Another way to find out what you know and what you don’t is to role play. Pretend you are the writer of your textbook, or your teacher. If you have a study buddy (see Chapter 16, “Working with a Study Buddy”), one of you can be the writer or teacher and the other the student. Explain to your study buddy what you just read or heard. If you don’t have a study buddy, explain it to yourself. Make sure you don’t leave out any steps! When you come to any point where your explanation is unclear, when it might not make sense to another person, you’ve found out what you don’t know. That’s when it’s time to start asking questions. Once you have questions, you can find the answers, and then you will know something that you didn’t know before. THE QUEST IS ON! Finding what you know and then finding what you don’t know is some- thing you already know how to do. If you were in an unfamiliar town and wanted to get to Adams Street, you would know that you don’t know how to get there, and you would ask directions. Those directions would be based on what you already know— your location at the time. You’re in the park, and you’ve been told Adams Street is near the park, but you don’t know which direction to go. So you ask. And someone tells you to walk north till you get to the end of the park and then turn left and walk one block to Adams Street. You might have one more question: Which way is north? And if you get an answer, you’d follow those directions, walking to the end of the park and turning left. So then you get to a street, but it doesn’t have a street sign. How do you know if you’ve arrived? You stop someone passing by and ask again. 1. 2. 3. HOW TO STUDY 62 A SKING Q UESTIONS , G ETTING A NSWERS The process of asking questions to find out, first, what you already know, and second, what you still need to learn, is similar. You might have to ask more than one question as you find your way to the knowledge the writer is trying to give you. Here’s a sequence you can go through to find out what you don’t know and then ask questions and get answers. If you have been reading a book, the text you’ll go back to for answers is the book; if you listened to a lecture, your “text” is your notes or audiotape of the lecture. 1. Draw a picture and write down the order. 2. Is this perfectly clear? Where are the gaps? 3. Ask yourself a question that will help fill in the gap. 4. Go back to your text to find the answer. Use the parts of your picture or outline that are clear to help you see where in the text you should look for the answer. Look in the sections of your text that come right after the last clear piece of your picture or outline. 5. Read the relevant part of the text. Don’t try to re-read the whole chapter or go over the whole lecture; you’re just looking for one little piece of information, the answer to your question. Take it in small chunks. 6. If you don’t have an answer, re-read the same section to try again. 7. If you still don’t have an answer, read the parts that come just before and just after what you were reading. Repeat this process until you find the answer to your question. 8. Put this new piece of information into your picture and order. Is the picture clear now? Is the order clear? 9. Keep going back and forth between your study aids and the text until your picture and order are perfectly clear, and you have no questions left. Now you’ve really learned something! You have a clear picture of the main idea, and you know all the steps it takes to get there. But notice that this clear picture and order don’t come out all at once. You have to take it one step at a time, just as if you were following the directions to Adams Street. And you’re always using what you know to help you find the answers to what you don’t know. KNOWING WHEN YOU DON ’ T KNOW 63 Here’s an example of how you use what you know to help you create questions: Suppose you had to fill in the blank in the following sentence: When you don’t know something, your brain rushes to _____e it has stored ideas on a similar topic. In order to figure out what word should go in the blank, you should go through the following process: First ask yourself, “What do I know for sure about the sentence? “ Your responses might be: • I know that the sentence is about recognizing when I don’t know something. • I know that it’s about the brain moving in some way. • I know that there’s a storing place in my brain. • I know that the missing word connects the brain moving to the storage place. • I know that the missing word ends with e. Then ask yourself, “What kind of word would connect the brain rushing and the storage place?” The word must have something to do with direction. You make up more questions by connecting the words you know that have to do with direction to the sentence: • Is the word over? Over doesn’t end with the letter e. • Is it here? That’s a direction word that ends in e,but here doesn’t make sense in this sentence. Filling in that word doesn’t give you a clear picture and a clear sense of order. • You reject there for the same reason. The only word that really works in the sentence—that gives a clear picture and order—is where. This was a simple example, but it shows you how to use what you already know to arrive at the answers to the questions about what you don’t know. HOW TO STUDY 64 Choose one paragraph from a book you are studying now. Write down the following in your notebook, or record it onto your audiotape: • Identify what you know for sure by drawing a picture and writing down the order. • Find what you don’t know. • Ask questions. • Go through the steps listed above to find the answers. • Write or record additional questions as they come to mind. I T ’ S A LL Y OURS The questions that count most are your questions. You get more out of studying; you become more involved, enjoy it more, it “sticks” more, when you make: • Your own observations of what you know • Your own connections of new material to old • Your own questions and then find your own answers! Often, the search for answers leads to more questions. And the more questions you ask, the clearer you’re making your answers. Y OU ’ RE IN C OMMAND ! You’re taking control of your own learning when you: • Recognize what you know • Recognize what you don’t know • Create questions to make the pictures in your head and the order of events clear • Discover answers to your questions • Realize when and how to question what you’ve studied H OW TO A SK Q UESTIONS , D EPENDING ON Y OUR L EARNING S TYLE The most effective ways to ask questions are different for people with dif- ferent learning styles. KNOWING WHEN YOU DON ’ T KNOW 65 • If you learn best by seeing: Write or draw what you know, and what questions you have. • If you learn best by hearing: Read aloud as you write, and/or use a tape recorder. • If you learn best by images: Draw or describe the pictures and/or maps in your head. Focus on when the pictures are unclear. Ask questions to clear your pictures. • If you learn best by order: Make a list and/or timeline—focus on when that’s unclear; ask questions to develop a clearer order. • If you learn best by doing: Imagine yourself experiencing what you’re studying. Focus on when the experience feels unclear; ask questions to make the experience clearer, more real. I N S HORT You need to know what you do know in order to find what you don’t know. Reflect on what you’ve studied. Thinking about what you’ve read or listened to lets you find what you know for sure, and what you don’t. Ask yourself questions so the picture in your head is clear, and the events are in an order that makes sense to you. 1. 2. 3. HOW TO STUDY 66 Practice Tips In the text you’re studying, or in a newspaper, find a word you don’t know. Cover that word. Look at the rest of the sentence and decide what the sentence could mean without the word you covered. If the sentence isn’t clear on its own, write what you know for sure about the meaning of the sentence. Try to draw a picture of the sentence, or to make sense of it in any way that suits your learning style. Now, ask yourself what you need to know to make the sentence clearer. Write down your questions or record them into an audiotape. Then go back to the original sentence and choose a word or phrase that could replace the unfamiliar word. Check to see that your word or phrase makes your picture clearer. You made a definition based on what you knew—the words around the unknown word—to find out what you didn’t know. Now look in the dictionary and see how close you came! . 7, Knowing What You Know showed you how to know when you know for sure. You know that you know the material when you have: KNOWING WHEN YOU DON ’ T KNOW. you were following the directions to Adams Street. And you re always using what you know to help you find the answers to what you don’t know. KNOWING WHEN