Follow our revision tips to make studying fun, productive, and memorable.
As the end of the school year approaches in the Northern Hemisphere, it’s time to start making use of Popplet’s visual thinking and mind mapping capabilities to help with your revision!
Three Types of Revision Templates with Popplet
We recommend organizing your revision popplets at three levels:
- Meta
- Macro
- Micro.
Meta: This is a subject or course-wide level of revision. You could look back over your subject notes from the start of the school year to review the key learning objectives for the course or subject and document these in a popplet.
Perhaps you already did this at the start of the year? Now is a good time to pull out this work to remind you of everything you have learnt.
You can see several examples of meta-revision Popplets here. This Epidemiology Course popplet has been organized as a timeline to show the learning progression across the 16 week course:
The following two popplets summarize the theory that is being explored in (what looks like) a design subject on product development:
Popplet is popular amongst design students. You can see how it is also being used to describe the meta-subject level for a UK GCSE course on resistant materials in product development. This meta-revision popplet is organized to help studying for the final subject exam:
Macro: Macro Popplets now delve into a little more specific information about a subject, but still maintain a fairly wide scan of the subject matter. For science or geography, your macro-revision popplet could summarize the main subject matter, or organize your notes from a text book chapter.
Stuart Kettle is using the post-Easter period to work with his students on summarizing the year’s Physics lessons. Here you can see some of his macro-popplets that summarize key concepts in study units on static electricity and on momentum:
For English subjects, your macro-revision popplet might summarize the plot of a play (perhaps in a timeline? or by using different colors to indicate key plot milestones and the emotions they evoke?), or perhaps your macro-revision popplet could map all of the characters in the story.
Here’s an English example from Freya Odell, Director of English at the Wellington Academy, who used Popplet to create a Macbeth revision, exploring some of the characters from that famous dark, Shakespearean play of revenge and conscience:
Micro: Micro revision popplets drill right down to the detailed nuances that you have come to understand in your given subject.
For example, you can see how this popplet from Orla Keane‘s interior design course students on ergonomic design concepts could just as easily be a micro-popplet revising a key subject within the broader product design course shown above in our meta-examples:
Here’s another example: These popplets show how one English class really dug deep into the role that connective words play in our speech and writing. You can see how the class has used a single popplet to detail the ways we use connective words in our language, and the slightly different functions that connective words play. At this level, there is even room to go into long lists of the different types of connective words (because, since, until, whereas) and give examples for each:
Additional Revision Tips
- You can use the ‘Copy Popplet’ feature to create a template for each of your subjects. Whether you are diving it into the timeline format like epidemiology or into a mind map format like with the product design course, after you have created one meta-revision popplet, you can copy it, take out all the text and then make another copy. Now you have a blank template you can fill in for any of your other subjects.
- After you have made a meta-level revision popplet, it may be worth making a comprehensive version. Again, make a copy of the completed map. Now, on this copy, start using Popplet linker feature to add links to your macro and even micro popplets. Can you create a web of popplets so that you can navigate from the course-wide summary (meta) level to any of your popplets revising aspects of the course? This can be quite a fun exercise and helps you see new insights into the overall context of the subject you have been studying. It also helps make sure your revision is comprehensive and aligned to the learning objectives: there should be at least one popplet linked for each learning goal in the course.
- Ideally, your revision timetable should be broken into 30 minute chunks: with a break every 25 minutes. Research shows that our memories, retention and concentration diminish quickly after 25 minutes so have a quick stretch, or make a cup of tea, or say hello to your family, or pat the dog.
- When you come back to a new half-hour block of revision, spend the first minute or so reviewing everything you have added to your Popplet so far. One of the beauties of Popplet is that the layout and design of your concept maps make it easy to pick up where you left off, but take a minute anyway to really consolidate all of your revision notes so far.
- At the end of each revision study session, spend a few minutes reviewing all of the popplets you have created and organized. This is an important technique to “lock in” all of the knowledge you are acquiring and helps you overnight to process and file all of this information while you sleep.
- Make use of the color palette in Popplet to order your notes. You could use red for high level concepts, blue for secondary notes, and green for examples.
- Popplets are great for study groups as well. You can use our collaboration and sharing features to share revision popplets amongst a study group. Perhaps you could all take on one revision popplet and then create a presentation for the rest of the study group to review everything you have learnt. Don’t forget to use the comments feature to ask questions or clarifications if you don’t understand someone’s notes.
Some notes on learning styles
- It can be useful to know what type of learning style you prefer. There are several online tests you can take to determine your primary leaning style. Knowing this means you can choose the study methods that match how you most like to learn new information and skills. No one method is better than another, but we all have an ingrained preference, so it helps to work with our natural instincts rather than against them.
- Popplet works extremely well with visual learners and kinesthetic learners. This is because you can order your notes in mind maps and with images, videos, and text (visual learners), and because there is a constant clicking and moving of poppies around (kinesthetic).
- If you are an auditory learner, make sure to use more video links in your popplets to help you review your revision notes with speech and sounds. We also recommend you make use of Popplet’s presentation modes. Plan your revisions as if you were presenting to a group, and at the end of each study period, present aloud your revision work, even if it is just to yourself, or see if you can get a family member or another student to hear you.
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