Another week bites the dust.
I know at one point, I said electronics was going to be my downfall. I'm feeling like that's not the case anymore. I did a couple of the online quizzes and got 90% with little to no references to my notes. Granted I still feel that electronics is Greek compared to the other classes, it's starting to come together for me.
This week we had the Monday off for Family day. Only a little reading needed to be done to make up for the lost classes. It certainly made the week move faster.
Tuesday's Monitoring & Communications class had use wiring up Nurse call stations. As my Mum is a nurse, this was an interesting topic for me. I know she was certainly excited that I get to learn about components she used when she worked in the hospital setting. There were bedside push buttons for the patients, emergency pull stations, patient room controllers, nurse lounge room controllers, indicating lights and telephones at each station.
I had a study session with the student from last week (let's call him Dave). As I mentioned, I had a feeling Dave probably knows his stuff okay, but was just second guessing himself. I tried to aide him in explaining some of the topics we're covering that he wouldn't be exposed to working in a residential environment. I found pictures of work I'd done, drew diagrams and gave explanations. Anything that might help it make sense, and more importantly, memorable. We focused mostly on Code related review for the test Friday. I recreated some of the questions we'd done in class just with new numbers, and watched him work through the steps.
I tried to only step in if he was getting off track or missed something. There are a lot of components that we are learning about, and to look at it all once can be overwhelming. I think this is what was happening to Dave. I reminded him to take it one step at a time, and make sure to thoroughly read through the questions. I also passed along a good test tip that was given to me: go through the test, and answer the questions you know off hand first. As you do this, make notes about the other questions. These can be making note of what section of the code book you might find the answer in, questions that are related, or just different variations of the same math.
When you go back through the test the second time, do all those questions that involve the same math. That way you only have to think about how to do it once, and you can knock those off. Then try to answer all the questions that might be found in the same section of the code book. Often when looking for one answer, you'll find the thing that will answer another. This results in an easier process and much less page flipping.
Helping Dave review is good practice for me, as you don't know how well you actually know something until you have to teach it to someone else. A couple times, he'd ask a question and I'd have to look up the code and we would figure it out together. A long term goal for me with this career path could include teaching, so this isn't a bad place to get a feel for it.
Besides the Code test was one for Prints, our weekly Theory quiz and of course another project for Install. With only 3 weeks left (already?) we'll all be studying for the final tests soon. Some fellow students have been watching me take notes in class and wonder how I do it. I explain that besides writing the equations and examples of doing the math, I make notes to my future self, for a time when I might have to review the notes and can't remember what the heck they mean anymore.
I know at one point, I said electronics was going to be my downfall. I'm feeling like that's not the case anymore. I did a couple of the online quizzes and got 90% with little to no references to my notes. Granted I still feel that electronics is Greek compared to the other classes, it's starting to come together for me.
This week we had the Monday off for Family day. Only a little reading needed to be done to make up for the lost classes. It certainly made the week move faster.
Tuesday's Monitoring & Communications class had use wiring up Nurse call stations. As my Mum is a nurse, this was an interesting topic for me. I know she was certainly excited that I get to learn about components she used when she worked in the hospital setting. There were bedside push buttons for the patients, emergency pull stations, patient room controllers, nurse lounge room controllers, indicating lights and telephones at each station.
I had a study session with the student from last week (let's call him Dave). As I mentioned, I had a feeling Dave probably knows his stuff okay, but was just second guessing himself. I tried to aide him in explaining some of the topics we're covering that he wouldn't be exposed to working in a residential environment. I found pictures of work I'd done, drew diagrams and gave explanations. Anything that might help it make sense, and more importantly, memorable. We focused mostly on Code related review for the test Friday. I recreated some of the questions we'd done in class just with new numbers, and watched him work through the steps.
I tried to only step in if he was getting off track or missed something. There are a lot of components that we are learning about, and to look at it all once can be overwhelming. I think this is what was happening to Dave. I reminded him to take it one step at a time, and make sure to thoroughly read through the questions. I also passed along a good test tip that was given to me: go through the test, and answer the questions you know off hand first. As you do this, make notes about the other questions. These can be making note of what section of the code book you might find the answer in, questions that are related, or just different variations of the same math.
When you go back through the test the second time, do all those questions that involve the same math. That way you only have to think about how to do it once, and you can knock those off. Then try to answer all the questions that might be found in the same section of the code book. Often when looking for one answer, you'll find the thing that will answer another. This results in an easier process and much less page flipping.
Helping Dave review is good practice for me, as you don't know how well you actually know something until you have to teach it to someone else. A couple times, he'd ask a question and I'd have to look up the code and we would figure it out together. A long term goal for me with this career path could include teaching, so this isn't a bad place to get a feel for it.
Besides the Code test was one for Prints, our weekly Theory quiz and of course another project for Install. With only 3 weeks left (already?) we'll all be studying for the final tests soon. Some fellow students have been watching me take notes in class and wonder how I do it. I explain that besides writing the equations and examples of doing the math, I make notes to my future self, for a time when I might have to review the notes and can't remember what the heck they mean anymore.
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