The importance of reviewing what you learn…
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Tag Archives: learning
6 Ways to Stay Motivated With Online Learning
By Tess Pajaron
During the last few years, online learning has become a viable alternative to traditional learning environments. This modality of studying helps students to save both time and money on commuting, but prospective learners should remember that its specific nature radically differs from regular classroom learning styles. In order to make the most from their online courses, students must boast excellent time management skills, have clear study goals and stay organized throughout their period of study.
Since online learners bear much more responsibility over their learning process, they require a high level of motivation for completing their coursework. Here are 6 practical tips on how to stay motivated and enthusiastic when attending an online course.
1. Choose your field well
There is nothing more important for staying motivated than following your passion, which you also consider significant to your life and career. When choosing an online course, consider your options carefully and go for those learning opportunities that will help you achieve the career you want. This awareness will help keep you on track – you will see your activities as a meaningful part of a larger whole.
2. Establish realistic goals
This is another important point that can significantly affect your attitude towards your studies. If you’ve always struggled with writing, don’t expect to create a great essay in a couple of hours. This way you’re just setting yourself up for failure, and it’s safe to assume that every failure will also negatively affect your motivation.
Be realistic, set reasonable goals for yourself in appropriate time frames. Once you accomplish them, you’ll immediately feel a sense of achievement. This feeling will keep you going, helping you realize your full potential over time.
3. Track your progress
Keep a journal or a calendar filled with small weekly and monthly goals. Make sure to closely track your progress by ticking off every accomplished task – seeing so many little goals achieved will boost your self-esteem and help you stay motivated, even when the amount of work starts to stress you out.
4. Talk about your learning materials
Don’t shy away from commenting on your study process. If this is a challenge, make sure to keep in touch with your instructor through a designated e-learning platform or simply by e-mail – you can share your insights and ask for additional resources.
It’s important to stay connected with your trainers and assessors as well as other students who are studying your course, or within your course area. Many online education providers now have specialized learning platforms that are designed to connect students with each other. Often, there are dedicated social media groups such as Facebook groups, Pinterest share boards and even blogs that are included as part of your online course. Make sure to keep in touch with your trainers through a designated e-learning platform or simply by e-mail – you can share your insights and ask for additional resources.
5. Think positively
Positive thinking is an important part of the whole motivational process. Feeling fatigue or stress can affect your perception of the class and the subject itself, making you miserable and unproductive. Try to think positively and talk with your instructor or other students. Their advice might help you through hard times. Remember to reserve some time for yourself once in a while – no one can be expected to manage all their daily tasks and education without a break.
6. Reward yourself
Consider all the work you’re doing – objectively speaking, you absolutely deserve to have your success acknowledged. When you accomplish one of your goals, be it a minor or major one, make sure to reward yourself with something that will make you happy. Each and every one of these rewards will help you stay motivated in the long run.
It’s safe to say that online education demands just as much self-discipline on the part of learners as traditional education settings. It does, however, bring immense benefits to both your personal and professional life – so choose your path, believe in yourself and stay on track. With enough self-conviction and motivation you’ll be able to reach your goals.
Tess Pajaron is a Community Manager at Open Colleges, an online learning provider based in Sydney, Australia. She has a background in Business Administration and Management.
For more tips on motivation and much more, order your copy of The Secrets of Top Students today!
Update on The Secrets of Top Students: First Translation!
I’m excited to announce that my book, The Secrets of Top Students: Tips, Tools, and Techniques for Acing High School and College, is now available in Chinese! It’s being sold in Taiwan and you can find it here. According to Google Translate, the title is “Gifted students do not stay up late! To get into elite precision Learning: time management, note and sit secret.” I’m sure in Chinese it sounds a little more elegant.
The Secrets of Top Students in Chinese!
In other news, my book is now available on the Staples website.
I’d also like to thank The Study Dude for highlighting my book in The Voice Magazine.
A Brief History of Education
What kind of education would you have received if you had lived in a different time? Interesting to think about.
Source: BestDegreePrograms.org
Give your child the gift of great grades. Order a copy of The Secrets of Top Students today!
What Is CBE (Competency-Based Education) And Is It Right For You?
By Monica Wells of http://www.bizdb.co.uk/
Competency-based Education (CBE) is the talk of the town in the American education sector – CBE programs are increasingly popular and academic institutions respond to this growing need for affordable and skill-oriented education by creating online programs and courses that follow the pragmatic approach to learning fostered by CBE.
Before deciding whether you’d like to try this relatively novel learning methodology, you should know what CBE actually is, how it differs from traditional high school or college learning programs, and what are its main advantages in the learning process. Here are some essential things everyone interested in their education should know about CBE.
Is CBE right for you?
An Overview of the Common Core (Infographic)
What do you think about the Common Core?
Source: BestMastersinEducation.com
Give your child the gift of great grades. Order a copy of The Secrets of Top Students today!
Can a Learning Disability Make You a Better Student?
In his new book David and Goliath, Malcolm Gladwell argues that having a learning disability can actually be beneficial. I couldn’t agree more! I wanted to share an article I wrote a while back about how my struggles with learning helped me become a top student.
I was never officially diagnosed with a learning disability, but I often suspect I have one. I struggled with listening comprehension throughout my academic career. More often than not, I walked out of class having no idea what the teacher was talking about. In science labs, I would stare blankly at the equipment in front of me because I couldn’t process verbal instructions. In Spanish class, my ability to read the language far exceeded my listening skills. Sometimes I hated going to school because I felt like I learned nothing there. And yet, I managed to become valedictorian of Stuyvesant High School, one of the most competitive public schools in the country, and graduate first in my class from Columbia University.
How did I do this? By using techniques familiar to many learning disabled students: hard work, perseverance, and playing to my strengths. Ironically, my learning weakness may have contributed to my academic success.
I learned at an early age that my reading ability was far better than my listening comprehension. Since I didn’t absorb much during class, I took extremely detailed notes so I could review them at my own pace. I became a speed-writer by using my own brand of shorthand to record every tidbit of information, while most of my classmates were satisfied with a skimpy outline. I think this really worked to my advantage. According to a 1968 study by John McLeish, students remember only 42% of the information in a lecture by the time it ends, and only 20% a week later. My classmates may have understood the lesson while it was being given, but when test-time rolled around, most of that understanding had evaporated. I, on the other hand, knew the lecture better than ever because I had reviewed it several times.
I also relied on textbooks and other written material to explain what I had failed to grasp in class. Books were my primary teachers, especially in high school. I read complex passages over and over again until they were permanently etched in my brain. I also took extensive notes on reading assignments to reinforce what I read. These notes became invaluable for things like participating in class discussions and writing papers. Whenever I wanted to support an argument, I could quickly look at my notes instead of desperately flipping through books to find some half-remembered fact or quotation. All of this reading and note-taking was time-consuming, of course, but it forced me to develop a strong work ethic.
I also turned down offers to join study groups, since I knew I wouldn’t absorb information in such an environment. I believe that this made me a more independent learner. While many of my classmates asked one another for explanations and clarifications (and were often given faulty information), I would examine my books and go to the teacher’s office hours for help. In college, I often took courses that complemented my learning ability. For example, I took Latin classes to fulfill my language requirement because they focused on reading instead of oral comprehension; and I majored in history in part because it emphasized the analysis of written texts.
I believe that by compensating for a weakness, I became a stronger student overall. I sincerely doubt I would have been at the top of my class if my listening comprehension had been better. There are two things I hope you take away from this: (1) everyone’s needs are different, and you must find the method of learning that works best for you; and (2) learning disability comes in all shapes and sizes, and may be found in those you least expect.
Stefanie Weisman is the author of The Secrets of Top Students: Tips, Tools, and Techniques for Acing High School and College.
A book review that warmed an author’s heart
Every once in a while, someone says something about my book that makes all the hard work I put into it worthwhile, and makes me feel like I truly accomplished something. I received such a review today, from someone called Stew Mulligan. I was so excited about it, I had to reprint it on my blog. The original review can be found here. Thank you Stew Mulligan, wherever you are!
The author and her book
“The Secrets of Top Students, by Stefanie Weisman, is a great book!
As a Stuyvesant High School alumnus, I know what it means to be that school’s valedictorian. Stuyvesant is not just any high school. It is a school that if you become a doctor you are considered an underachiever. They expect you to at least become head of a department in a major hospital or medical school. Stuyvesant graduate David Axelrod, is ONLY an advisor to the President; Stuyvesantian Eric Holder, is US Attorney General: not bad, but not a Supreme Court Justice. It’s where if you get 800 on your math SAT nobody lifts an eye. But in all seriousness, this is a school of really, really smart kids and, as such, I am awed by Stefanie’s academic accomplishments — not only the Stuyvesant valedictorian but she also graduated with the highest GPA from Columbia College. That’s like being the baseball Rookie of the Year and then following up by winning the MVP and Triple Crown. Stefanie knows how to hit academia’s fast ball, curve and knuckleball, and all for homeruns.
As a rule, if you want to learn something well, it is a good idea to learn from the best, and Stefanie Weisman’s Secrets of Top Students is now THE SOURCE on how to maneuver through the obstacle course of higher education. I guarantee that this book will not disappoint.
If school, in general, and tests, term papers and the like, in particular, give you anxiety attacks, then this book is definitely the relaxant. By all rights, Stefanie should never have become valedictorian. In fact, she probably should have been mediocre at best, since she has a certain learning disability. But by putting excuses aside, she learned how to use her strengths to overcome her weaknesses, by developing a relatively simple system of studying. In Secrets of Top Students she conveys her system, no longer secrets, in a clear and concise manner. And, I might add, with a particularly droll and somewhat self-effacing sense of humor. In other words, she explains how to walk the walk, how to traverse through the killing fields of the classrooms with the least possible pain and suffering. She explains how to avoid being an academic casualty or also-ran and to get through it all, knowing you did the best you can, while actualizing your potential.
This is not a textbook. But it tells how to penetrate the textbooks. This is not a lecture, but it tells how to absorb and retain what the lecturer is “trying” to expound. Being smart is not enough. You have to know how to learn. This book shows how to do it in an efficient and intelligent manner. Stefanie’s prose is concise and easy to follow and the book develops in a logical manner. (It ends with a chapter on “How to Take a Test”, by the way, since test taking is where the rubber meets the road.) The use of well placed bullet points and bold font help to highlight the most important concepts. At the same time, the book makes clear that there are individual differences, and that students have to make adjustments in their own studying methods that work best for them. Nevertheless, these basic concepts are still applicable, to different degrees and with different emphasis, to all types of learners.
Nor does the book sugar-coat the reality. It tells it like it is, which is to say that the most important thing in becoming a good, or a great student, is commitment and a willingness to work hard, damn hard. There is no easy way. There is only a EASIER WAY, a SMARTER WAY. This book is the roadmap.
I guess my only complaint, after reading this book, is that it was published 40 odd years too late. If only there had been a Stefanie Weisman to write such a book for us baby boomers, to help us get through the morass known as education, like a machete in a rain forest, who knows what grades I would have gotten. But today, 2013, if you are a young person wanting to maximize your potential in school, or if you are a parent of a student and would like to see your child rise to the top, take my advice and go out and purchase this book ASAP.”
Stefanie Weisman 