My Quest to Conquer the EPPP & Secure a Jobby Job: accountability

Tuesday, August 9, 2011

Re-regrouping

Definitely had some bumps in the studying road in the past couple of weeks. Sickness, birthday amotivation, traveling/conferencing...these things are not helping my cause! But, I liaisoned (though this is not a word, I'm keeping it here) with my team (MH, EB) this week and I'm feeling better and ready to re-regroup.

Things I have surmised (with the help of others):
1. Time to cut my losses and focus on the most important areas. Translation: bye-bye I/O, hello Research/Stats and Test Construction. Agree with EB, this is where I can benefit the most from reviewing the written materials as I have learned it once (or a thousand times) already and it will be easier to relearn. Also, content is more intuitive than I/O so best capacity for improving in this area.

2. Time to get to those practice tests! I have been slacking on this, big-time. I've only been doing 50 questions here or there on different tests and need to chip away at one test at a time and complete it. Toying with the idea of doing 25 questions a day (at least) just to make sure I'm doing it this way.

3. There are areas where I will not learn anything else from reviewing content. EB and I had this discussion about Ethics. I feel like I know the content (i.e., ethics code), but am struggling more in the application. Best way to practice this seems to be the test questions, and just getting more and more exposure to the convoluted and complex ways in which I am supposed to be able to apply these ethical code tenets.

4. Fingerprints suck. I just got notified that my fingerprints have been rejected for the second time. There has to be a lesson in this. Oregon was dumbfounded when they learned that the police offices aren't doing these anymore and that they haven't done ink in CA for over 5 years. So, I'm putting myself in the hands of people who work at places like Postal Annex, to be able to discern if ink fingerprints are good. Plus, Oregon called me and chatted about it and we have a plan!

5. Mixed methods. Even though I am learning a lot through the review-written-materials-and-make-flashcards method, the amount of material I have to review by flashcards is growing. Some of it will need to be cut out due to sheer volume. I've decided to just write notes about Research/Stats and Test Construction as I go along because it is easier than some to remember without flashcard review, and I can rely on test questions, the Exchange flashcards, and the audio files for these content areas. Plus, less questions on the EPPP overall than Clinical, Dx, Development, and L&B, which are the flashcards I need to keep reviewing.

Re-regrouping, here I come!

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Monday, June 13, 2011

EPPP Study Log--My magnum opus for the day.

Today my friend MH, who is also studying for the EPPP, had a great suggestion. An accountability/reinforcing/self-efficacy building study log! There are three of us studying around the same time, in very different places, (me, MH, EB) and this is a way for us to all stay in touch and get a little accountability.

Because I was practicing the Ethics flashcards I made yesterday, I thought it would be the perfect distraction. HOURS later, I finally finished. I spent forever trying to find a way to embed a table or study log into this blog with little to show. I finally decided on using my spreadsheet prowess and create a log in google docs that we could all access. Here is a picture for all of you who are interested.

We will keep track of the minutes per day, minutes per week (auto-summed), and the practice tests scores (weekly average auto-calculated). If you are interested in this awesome piece of workwomanship, I have made it a public template in google docs. We're hoping this will help keep the mo' going. It will also be a perma-link on this blog.

This one is for my homies (you can't see it but I'm taking a drink for you MH & EB).

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