This I fear, will not be the most interesting of blog posts. I hope though that documenting my current study practices, ideally with a follow up further down the line, will hope me to refine my method and maybe someone else to gain some ideas for designing their own.
Currently, I am studying for two separate exams, The CompTIA Network+ and the RSGB Advanced Amateur Radio exam. One for professional reasons, the other is purely personal. Although the two exams will be very different and the content had very little over lap I will be using roughly the same method to study for both. There is nothing particularly ground breaking about the method I will be using but I do believe firmly in the KISS principal.
I will be employing 3 tools:e
- A video course.
- Mock exam papers
- A course/text book
- Flashcards
- The Fienmann Technique (sort of)
My plan is to first get an overview of the course material and gain a general understanding of the subjects by working my way through a video course which covers all the main exam topics. I think this is a good method for two main reasons. The first is that it has all the information ready curated and presented in an easily digestible format. The second is that videos are easy to watch while doing other low focus activities (like the washing up for example)
Secondly, I intend to work my way through some past exam papers, this I believe will be a good way to assess how much of the course I have actually understood/remembered. From there I will then use the the textbook and revisiting my notes to generate flashcards to help memorise the materials. CompTIA exams in particular require the memorisation of specific facts, such as protocols and ports numbers and I believe that this will be the most effective method of remembering these things.
Finally, when I m feeling confident in the materials, I will deploy a variation of the Fienmann Technique. Rather than writing things out on paper though I intend to draw on my previous career and create several videos in the from of lessons. I think this will lead to potential benefits. In order to ensure that I can adequately teach the subject, I will need to ensure that I have a good understanding of it. And if I then post the videos on the internet, I am sure that any mistakes will be picked up very rapidly.
I have tried to keep this post as simple and concise as possible, thanks for reading. I hope this post provides some interest or insight.
