Tips For Successful Meetings:
Set a regular meeting date - either weekly or twice a month. You may want to start out meeting twice a month and then work up to meeting more often as the test date becomes closer.
Have one person in charge - That person should make sure the meetings happen (send reminders if needed). At the meeting, the person in charge makes sure you stay on track. Or, the person in charge could assign study group members each a time to be the one in charge.
Don't treat the study group like social hour - do that on the weekends! If you really don't want to be at the study group, then don't go and ruin it for everyone else.
Ideal number of studiers - You should have 3-6 members in your group.
Meet for at least 1 hour - As you meet more, you'll get a better feel for how long it takes before people start getting off-task. 3 hours would probably be way too long.
Meet in a quiet area - where you have room to write and spread out your books and papers. Try to find a place free distractions.
Name your group - Don't spend more than 5-10 minutes coming up with a name, or else it becomes a distraction. However, there is great power in having a positive name for your group - like "The Masterminds" or something. As you encourage each other to study, you create synergy!
Ideas For What To Do in a Study Group:
Plan Ahead. At your study group, plan to review certain chapters. For example, plan to review chapters 3 & 4 at the next study group, so everyone should have studied for those chapters. That helps you stay accountable to each other and makes your study group more effective. Focus only on those chapters during your review session.
Understand Concepts. Begin your study session by asking if there are any concepts anyone doesn't understand. Someone else should explain the concept. If no one understands the concept, then read about it and try to figure it out together. This site might help. If you still can't figure it out, email your teacher.
Review Free Response. Choose a free response question that everyone should answer before the next meeting. Do the free response question at home between meetings (with the time limit). Then bring it next time. Swap papers and grade them (make sure you assign a question with grading guidelines.) Then discuss your answers - why they were or weren't correct. Find AP free response questions here.
Practice vocabulary using flashcards. Or you can use your vocabulary lists. Pair up and do 20 flashcards to each other. The person who gets the most correct wins.
Play Jeopardy. Everyone makes up questions from their study notes (with answers.) One person is the game-show host. He says the answer and everyone tries to give the question first. You may want to have people slap the table or raise their hand rather than yelling the answer. Take turns being the host.
Play Dictionary. Set a timer for 10 minutes. During this time, everyone chooses 10 definitions or descriptions of concepts from their study notes. Write it down on a blank sheet of paper and then give three multiple choice options (either 3 terms or 3 definitions, but only one is correct.) For example, you could write "What is mitosis?" and then your three definitions might be for osmosis, mitosis and some random definition. Then swap papers and see how well you do.
Eat food! Have someone bring snacks or treats each time. You can even use them as rewards http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif(as soon as you get ten points, you get to eat; or if the food is small like pretzels or m&m's, you get to eat one when you get the question right.)
Explain the Concept - Take turns explaining difficult concepts to each other. Pretend the other person is 6 years old and see how well you do.
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Play Pictionary - try to draw a concept or a vocabulary word and see if the other people can guess what it is.
Create Mind maps - come up with them together to figure out how parts relate to the whole in difficult concepts. See HERE for an example on mindmapping cell respiration.
Create analogies or metaphors - relate difficult concepts to things you already know. For example, you can relate a cell to a city. See HERE for an example.
Create memory mnemonics - If you have a list of things to remember, create a mnemonic. For example, everyone knows the notes on the lines in music as Every Good Boy Does Fine - or E,G,B,D,F. This is a great list of AP Biology mnemonics.
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