Looking toward 2017: ask your HHD questions here

[Joseph41]

Hello.

I completed HHD in 2012 with a study score of 50. If you're studying HHD next year (or plan to at some point in the future) and are confused about any of the content, feel free to ask questions here. If all goes well (no 100% guarantees, I guess hahaha), I plan to respond to each and every question - and hopefully others will be able to chime in, too!

So if you fancy getting a head-start for HHD 2017, this is the place!

[One Step at a Time]

Thanks so much for taking time to create this, have a feeling I'll be asking heaps of questions 

Did you do Units 1/2 before doing Units 3/4? Am I at a disadvantage going into 3/4, without learning the content from 1/2?

[Aaron]

Thanks so much for taking time to create this, have a feeling I'll be asking heaps of questions 

Did you do Units 1/2 before doing Units 3/4? Am I at a disadvantage going into 3/4, without learning the content from 1/2?

I can provide my personal insight regarding this question. I did HHD in 2012 and I felt that Units 1 and 2 helped me with definitions and basic HHD concepts in preparation for Units 3 and 4. Without doing 1+2, you have to learn everything from scratch pretty much which means extra work. However, in saying that, it is definitely doable and you re-learn the key concepts again anyway Good luck

[Joseph41]

Thanks so much for taking time to create this, have a feeling I'll be asking heaps of questions 

Did you do Units 1/2 before doing Units 3/4? Am I at a disadvantage going into 3/4, without learning the content from 1/2?

No problem!

Unlike Aaron (as above), I did not complete Units 1 & 2, and honestly felt at no disadvantage whatsoever. Over the break (so these holidays), I tried to learn some basic definitions (namely the health status indicators), but that's about it.

I think you'll be fine!

[heids]

It is now my life goal to beat Joseph41 to answering your questions, people.

[One Step at a Time]

I can provide my personal insight regarding this question. I did HHD in 2012 and I felt that Units 1 and 2 helped me with definitions and basic HHD concepts in preparation for Units 3 and 4. Without doing 1+2, you have to learn everything from scratch pretty much which means extra work. However, in saying that, it is definitely doable and you re-learn the key concepts again anyway Good luck

Thanks so much Aaron What exactly are the key concepts you're talking about? I feel like there's a lot of overlap between Units 1/2 and 3/4!

No problem!

Unlike Aaron (as above), I did not complete Units 1 & 2, and honestly felt at no disadvantage whatsoever. Over the break (so these holidays), I tried to learn some basic definitions (namely the health status indicators), but that's about it.

I think you'll be fine!

Ah that's comforting to hear, thank you.  Sounds like a good plan- I'll get straight onto learning them.

Throughout the year, how exactly did you study for HHD? I understand that it's a content-heavy subject, so I feel as though reading the textbook won't cut it. To be honest, it's my only "content-heavy" subject (my others are Eng, Chem, Methods), so I have no idea how to approach it. 

[Joseph41]

Throughout the year, how exactly did you study for HHD? I understand that it's a content-heavy subject, so I feel as though reading the textbook won't cut it. To be honest, it's my only "content-heavy" subject (my others are Eng, Chem, Methods), so I have no idea how to approach it. 

Good question - and a difficult question to answer, considering the individual preferences that come with studying. What I did was pretty boring: I listened in class; I took notes; I later summarised those notes, and then summarised those summaries; I worked closely off the study design; later in the year, I did a whole heap of practice exams (several multiple times). I don't think subjects like this require anything hugely groundbreaking. I guess one other thing I did do a lot was get tested verbally. So like, I'd give my notes or summaries to a friend or family member, and get them to ask me questions based off those notes. Sometimes, I'd worked on the notes so hard that they didn't even need to ask me questions; I just sort of rattled off the content. The point is, if you can explain it verbally (at least in my experience), you probably know the content well enough.

It's worth experimenting, though. At the start of the year, just do whatever intuitively feels right. Make sure your notebook system (if you have one haha - maybe I'm a little weird in that regard) is organised if possible. And work closely with your teacher, because I'm sure they'll have some great ideas.

[heids]

I have quite a few tips in this thread, I'm not sure how relevant they all are haha.

To summarise, I see HHD as having two elements.

a) Stuff you have to 'learn', 'content': For instance, definitions of health status, or the areas of the social model of health. With this, it's just... learning it.  Methods: rote learning (writing or saying aloud repeatedly), flashcards, mnemonics, repetition, testing yourself on the content without notes (e.g. practising writing out definitions without anything to help you, or getting someone else to test you verbally)

b)  Bullshittery (LOL): The rest of it, to me, is making stuff up... learning how to answer the questions appropriately by pulling out buzzwords and follow appropriate formulae.You'll get the hang of it; you just learn how to explain how factors improve health or human development. You'll learn that by practising questions and looking at VCAA's model answers!

For the content you need to learn, get VCAA's study design and the dot points tell you what you need to know. :]  Also the Engage wiki (especially check out the 'cheat sheets' because they're tight summaries) and asking questions here can clarify what you need to know!

Note: I wrote a quick summary of HHD to give you a kick start here!*

*fun fact, this was the first thing I ever posted on AN LOL

[One Step at a Time]

Thanks so much!  Love the tips and I bookmarked this hehe

Feeling a lot less overwhelmed 

Is HHD a subject which it's necessary or even beneficial to take notes? I'd love to start the year, knowing that it'd be a good idea to take notes, before half a year passes and I realise that I should've taken notes lol. True horror story 

Joseph41- What was your notebook system like?
Heidiii- As for the buzzwords and formulae, will I pick them up along the way by reading VCAA's model answers? Also, the Engage Wiki videos look great. Do they cover everything we need to know? Feel like videos went send me to sleep as easily as reading the textbook (which, by the way, seems to have heaps of content) 

[Joseph41]

Thanks so much!  Love the tips and I bookmarked this hehe

Feeling a lot less overwhelmed 

That's great to hear!

Is HHD a subject which it's necessary or even beneficial to take notes? I'd love to start the year, knowing that it'd be a good idea to take notes, before half a year passes and I realise that I should've taken notes lol. True horror story 

Personal preference, of course, but my thoughts are as follows.

Yes, it is beneficial to take notes in HHD. I took a lot of notes, but I'm also a religious note-taker in general (you should see my uni notebooks hahaha). I personally find note-taking an effective study technique on the assumption that they are good notes: well organised, clear and concise. HHD has a lot of content, so I think you'd be doing yourself a disservice should you not take notes (but again, that's just what worked well for me).

Joseph41- What was your notebook system like?

Hekktik.* Nah, it wasn't that complicated, but basically:

Notebook #1: Class notes - so when the teacher was speaking or I was reading out of the textbook, I'd chuck my notes in here. They weren't particularly neat but they were well organised (in terms of headings and sub-headings and whatever else (which reminds me, I'd recommend having a consistent technique for headings: so maybe always red and underlined, or something like that)).

Notebook #2: SAC revision. In the lead-up to each SAC, I tended to resort to summaries quite often (due to the amount of content), and I put these in here. This was neater than notebook #1, and I ended up using it a lot for end-of-year revision (because it was nicely presented, concise, and covered everything I needed to know). It was really easy to give notebook #2 to somebody and be like "yo, could you test me on these points here?" So that was a thing.

Notebook #3: Practice questions, which I took from previous exams or the textbook or online or Checkpoints or wherever else. I also made up a lot of my own. This notebook also doubled as a place to (rote (whoops)) learn definitions, of which there are many.

*Is that what the cool kids say these days?

[heids]

Is HHD a subject which it's necessary or even beneficial to take notes? I'd love to start the year, knowing that it'd be a good idea to take notes, before half a year passes and I realise that I should've taken notes lol. True horror story 

Personally writing and editing and summarising notes was the key way I studied.  I wrote a summary of my textbook, then added bits from all sorts of different sources, then summarised that, then changed up the formatting, then summarised that, then tweaked that, then summarised that...

(Unlike Joseph41, my notes were always on the computer; I never took notes about what the teacher said but always from the textbook or other people's notes.  I only wrote by hand as a rote learning method.)

Heidiii- As for the buzzwords and formulae, will I pick them up along the way by reading VCAA's model answers? Also, the Engage Wiki videos look great. Do they cover everything we need to know? Feel like videos went send me to sleep as easily as reading the textbook (which, by the way, seems to have heaps of content) 

You will!  Over time, I'd recommend compiling a list of 'common question types' (e.g. explain how ___ determinants of health lead to ___ difference in health status between X and Y) and gradually fine-tuning a formula that perfectly answers that, based on sample answers from VCAA and your intuition.

Engage videos are great, but not necessarily presented in the most engag-ing way.   I actually edited/rewrote a fair chunk of the wiki written content but for the life of me I can't remember whether it covers everything or not.  All the key required topics are there, at least.

The textbook does have lots of content, and large slabs of it aren't necessary.  I guess figuring out what matters takes trial-and-error; remember to check that each piece of content in your notes is relevant to a study design dot point, get familiar with all the sorts of questions VCAA asks, and ask on here if you're not sure if you need to know something or not!

[Joseph41]

(Unlike Joseph41, my notes were always on the computer; I never took notes about what the teacher said but always from the textbook or other people's notes.  I only wrote by hand as a rote learning method.)

Which is super interesting in itself, as we both 50ed HHD; it really shows that there is no objective best way to study as such.

[Maya24]

Is it worth studying the content ahead of your class, so going a couple of chapters ahead?

[Aaron]

Is it worth studying the content ahead of your class, so going a couple of chapters ahead?

It really depends on you as an individual to be honest. I found that when I did HHD, I didn't need to study ahead because I felt I could keep up. My suggestion would be to start learning definitions (by creating a glossary of terms) if you want to get ahead in any sort of way. There are plenty of them to remember. Most questions you get in HHD are applied, meaning that you have to often weave in content you've learnt to answer a question. Some are purely definition based.

[hodang]

Hey guys, for the determinants, i was wondering if we need to know like for example, biological determinant- we need to know glucose regulation, high blood pressure, hypertension, birthweight, body weight etc.. or just the definitions?