Marlys Baldwin FORS2355 Dr. Schalk Fall 2021
Vertebrate Natural History 3 Study Tips for Success
This class is full of a lot of material that you will not be familiar with and there will be many new terms that you will need to know. You may be freaking out in the beginning, but once you know your study strategies and consistently keeping up with the content, you will be okay. Personally, this was one of my favorite classes that I have taken in my forestry major.
1. Associate the terms with something else and made up a story to remember the definitions better. Make Quizlets for every single lecture exam and lab exam. When creating the Quizlets for lab exams, make one flashcard set with pictures and one without so that you can focus on ID and memorizing the taxonomy separately. Quiz yourself on the taxonomy first before moving on to the ID. Figure out what you know the best and focus on the ones that you know you are not familiar with. However, you should dedicate lots of time to everything. If you are a visual learner like me, printing out the lecture slides before class really helps. There are lots of charts and pictures you need to know for lecture exams. Redraw the phylogeny tree multiple times until you have it memorized. I recommend doing this twice every day so that it stays in your head until the exam. They will be on every lecture exam that you take and are worth a lot of points so do not slack off on that. Review and redraw the charts that are included in the lecture slides. Make sure you know how to explain them. I found it helpful when I drew it on a board and explained it to someone else.
2. Bring your field guide to EVERY lab session! You will lose points on your future lab exams every time you do not. They are also helpful in identifying specimens. When I was in lab, I saw a lot of people just taking pictures and leaving right away without taking the time to actually look at the details and what differentiates one species from another. There are so many characteristics that you can miss if you do not pay attention! Write down as many details as you can about each species and review them later, while looking at your field guide at the same time. Labeling my field guides was helpful to me as well. I put tabs on each species that I needed to know so I could flip to them right away without taking a lot of unnecessary time to look through the book.
3. Ask as many questions as you can if you do not understand something and go to Dr. Schalk's office hours. Something that I regret not doing is asking more questions. I think it's a lot better to get the information from Dr. Schalk rather than looking it up later on the