Math and science courses tend to be very time consuming, especially when you think about the additional homework sets that your teacher or professor assigns daily. So how can busy students fit these courses into their lives and still have enough time and attention to excel? Here are some strategies to make time for homework.
How To Make Time For Your Homework
Start Your Homework Early
This is the most important advice I can give. Start by just reading through your homework problems to yourself without trying to solve them. Doing this alone can help you get an early start and get the gears moving to make your job easier.
Knowing the best time to review notes is vital to success as well. Ideally, the best time to go back over your work is later on the same day as when you had your class. The material you were presented with will still be fresh and much easier to make permanent connections. If that's not possible, don't wait more than a day or two to begin reviewing for an exam or tackling a tough homework assignment. If you come back to it a week later, a lot of the progress made during class will be lost and you'll feel like you're starting over from scratch.
Create Smaller Tasks
Split your work up into smaller tasks instead of trying to do the entire thing in one session. Homework sets in math and science courses can be very long and tedious. In a way, this is good because practice is the best way to learn most problem-solving techniques. However, if you get stuck on something early it’s easy to begin feeling frustrated and overwhelmed. Breaking up a long homework assignment into shorter chunks gives you room to breathe and makes it easier to digest. Some students like to split up assignments into many parts and tackle one day by day, while others may find that simply splitting it in half works better for them. The most important thing is that you begin working on the first part early and keep up that pace.
Don’t Be Afraid To Move On
If you get stuck on something, move on. This cannot be stressed enough. If you have 20 problems to do and get stuck on the third one, skip it for the time being and come back to it later. Save your work to remind yourself of what you were trying to do that wasn't working before. Moving ahead to other problems can help you get hints or clues about whatever it was that you didn't understand in the previous problems. You'll find yourself gaining a better understanding of the topics you are learning that will help make more sense of the problems you skipped earlier. Or, at the very least, you will have a much better idea of what exactly it is that you don't understand in order to look it up or ask for help.
As a private tutor, I always encourage my students to work on their assignments by themselves as much as they can before we meet. This gives you time to figure out what you can do on your own and what you cannot. When you come to a tutoring session, you’ll be prepared with specific questions that you need answered. This is an incredibly effective learning strategy and an almost guaranteed path to success for any math and science students.
Ready to Get Started?
Whether you prefer groups or one-on-one tutoring, I offer both private and group tutoring sessions for all learning styles throughout Brooklyn, Queens, and NYC. I will meet you on campus, at your home, in a coffee shop, or wherever you feel comfortable. Call (619) 880-0133 to learn more or schedule your first session.