Profile of a Successful Student

Part 3

… owns or has easy access to a computer with Internet access and e-mail

You don’t have to be a computer expert to be successful in online learning–but you must have access to a personal computer with reliable Internet access, as well as a basic level of competency in using them. Owning a computer with Internet access from your home is ideal but many students use the computer labs on a campus or at their offices to complete their work.

… has basic computer skills and is willing and open to learning new ones

We said you don’t have to be a computer expert to be successful in online learning. However, there are some basic technical skills you should have mastered prior to enrolling in an online course.

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Successful Students

Part 2

Work Together. There are a number of ways that you can ensure you get the most out of your educational experience. First, participate fully. Engage regularly in the discussions and be willing to share your personal, professional and educational experiences. You can get to know your classmates through dialogue that is created in a course environment—sometimes even better than in a face-to-face class. And the same goes for your instructor. Be sure to contact your professor—especially if you are having problems. He/she is still your instructor and will be there to guide and assist you as needed.

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Profile of a Successful Student

Part 1

http://www.plymouth.edu/office/online-education/online-learning/profile-of-a-successful-student/

A successful student…

… takes responsibility for his/her own learning

Online learning can be a powerful, stimulating, engaging experience for the student who can work and think in dependently. However, since most –if not all–of the learning takes place on your own time, you will not have the kind of direct supervision you would in a classroom. Online learning therefore requires a significant commitment from you. All education comes down to what you’re willing to invest in the experience–this is particularly true in the online environment. Commitment, self-discipline and self-motivation are all key qualities to ensuring success in an online course!

… is comfortable and confident with written communication

Reading and writing are the basis of most online, so it’s critical that you feel comfortable with this form of communication. While some courses contain modules that include videos or other activities, all of them require significant amounts of reading. And nearly all of your communication with your classmates and your instructor will be in writing. If these are weak areas for you, you will want to address those issues prior to enrolling or while enrolled in an online course. The PSU Writing Center is available to assist you.

... is willing to be a member of a learning community.

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Successful Students

10

10. Successful students are good time managers. Successful students do not procrastinate. They have learned that time control is life control and have consciously chosen to be in of their life.

An elemental truth: you will either control time or be controlled by it! It’s your choice: You can lead or be led, establish control or relinquish control, steer you own course or follow others. Failure to take control of their own time is probably the no. I study skills problem for college students. It ultimately causes many students to become non-students! Procrastinators are good excuse-makers. Don’t make academics harder on yourself than it has to be. Stop procrastinating. And don’t wait until tomorrow to do it!

The 10 items listed above are paraphrased from an article by Larry M Ludewing called Ten Commandments for Effective Study Skills which appeared in The Teaching Professor, December, 1992.

“Learning Technologies and Online Education”

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Successful Students

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7… Understand that actions affect learning. Successful students know their personal behavior affect their feelings and emotions which in turn can affect learning.

If you act in a certain way that normally produces particular feelings, you will begin to experience those feelings. Act like you’re bored, and you’ll become bored. Act like you’re disinterested, and you’ll become disinterested. So the next time you have trouble concentrating in the classroom, “act” like an interested person: learn forward, place your flat on the floor, maintain eye contact with the professor, nod occasionally from your actions, your classmates and professor may also get more excited and enthusiastic.

8… Talk about what they’re learning. Successful students get to know something well enough that they can put it into words.

Talking about something, with friends or classmates, is not only good for checking whether or not you know something, it’s a proven learning tool. Transferring ideas into words provides the most direct path for moving knowledge from short-term to long-term memory. You really don’t “know” material until you can put into words. So, next time you study, don’t do it silently. Talk about notes problems, reading, etc. with friends, recite to a chair, organize an oral study group, pretend you’re teaching your peers. “Talk-learning” produces a whole host of memory traces that result in more learning

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Successful Students

5-6

5. Don’t sit in the back of the room. Successful students minimize classroom distractions that interfere with learning.

Students want the best seat available for their entertainment dollars, but willingly seek the worst seat for their educational dollars. Students who sit in the back cannot possibly be their professor’s teammate (see no. 4). Why do they expose themselves to the temptations of inactive classroom experiences and distractions of all the people between them and their instructor? Of course, we know they chose the back classroom because the seek invisibility or anonymity, both of which are antithetical to efficient and effective learning. If you are trying not to be part of the class, why, then, are you wasting your time?

Push your hot buttons, is there something else you should be doing with your time?

6. Take good notes. Successful students take notes that are understandable and organized, and review them often.

Why put something into your notes you don’t understand? Ask the questions now that are necessary to make your notes meaningful at some later time. A short review of your notes while the material is still fresh on your mind helps you to learn more. The more you learned then, the less you’ll  have to learn later and the less time it will take because you won’t have to include some deciphering time, also. The whole purpose of taking notes is to use them, and use them often. The more you use them, the more they improve.

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Successful Students

3-4

3… Ask questions. Successful students ask questions to provide the quickest route between ignorance and knowledge. In addition to securing knowledge you seek, asking questions has at least two other extremely important benefits. The process help you pay attention to you! Think about it. If you want something, go after it. Get the answer now, or fail question later. There are no foolish questions, only foolish silence. It’s your choice.

4… Learn that a student and professor make a team. Most instructors want exactly what you want: they would like for you to learn the material in their respective classes and earn a good grade.

Successful students reflect well on the efforts of any teacher; if you have learned you material the instructor takes some justifiable pride in teaching. Join forces with your instructor, they are not an enemy, you share the same interests, the same goals - in short, you teammates. Get to know your professor. You’re the most valuable players on the same team. Your jobs are to work together for mutual success. Neither wishes to chalk up a losing season. Be a team player!

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Successful Students

1-2

Successful students exhibit a combination of successful attitudes and behaviors as well as intellectual capacity. Successful student…

1 … are responsible and active. Successful students get involved in their studies, accept responsibility for their own education, and are active participants in it! Responsibility means control. It’s the difference between leading and being led. Your own efforts control your grade, you earn the glory or deserve the blame, you make the choice. Active classroom participation improves grades without increasing study time. You can sit there, act bored, daydream, or sleep. Or, you can actively listen, think, question, and take notes like someone in charge of their learning the latter provides at one sitting. The choice is yours.

2 … Have educational goals. Successful students have legitimate goals and are motivated by what they represent in terms of career aspirations and life’s desires.

Ask yourself these questions: What am I doing here? Why have I chosen to be sitting here now? Is there some better place I could be? What does my presence here mean to me? Answers to these questions represent your “Hot Buttons” and are, without a doubt, the most important factors in your success as a college student. If your educational goals are truly yours, not someone else’s they will motivate a vital and positive academic attitude. If you are familiar with what these hot buttons represent and refer to them often, especially when you tire of being a student, nothing can stop you: if you aren't and don't, everything can and will.

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Study for Multiple Exams

Part 3

English, math, foreign language tips: Practice –especially foreign languages class if you are just showing and doing the work. But if you are in your room and look at objects and try to say them in the language you are learning it actually helps. Or if you send a simple text to a friend think about it, can you translate that to German or Spanish? These are the little things that will help.

Here are my final words of wisdom for students who want to get better grades in college: Time management and organization are critical key factors to success in collage. And never be afraid to go ask your teacher for help. They have office hours for a reason-use them!

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Study for Multiple Exams

Part 2

My strategies for written assignments: Everyone has their own writing styles. I generally come up with an idea and do massive amounts of research before I ever think about writing. I then organize my research then sometimes prepare an outline before actually writing. I always print out the paper and come back to it the next day and reread it. That is the easiest way for me to catch my own mistakes. I have to give my eyes a break from it, and if I just wrote it I thinking it looks perfect. But if I look at it a day later I almost always find grammatical errors or phases and sentences I just want to reword.

How I succeed in team projects: Never assume someone is doing what they are supposed to be doing. Have regular meeting and have each member show their work, not just give you or the group their word for it.

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Study for Multiple Exams

Part 1

How I study for multiple exams, deal with multiple projects: Really it is my time management that I explained above. If I see I have multiple things due or to study for all at the same time I spread out my time beforehand. For example, if I have a test Monday, and 2 test Tuesday then I will study for my Monday test Thursday and part of Friday. Start Studying for my next test on the second half of Friday and part of Saturday, then my second Tuesday test on Saturday as well and part of Sunday. Then Sunday night I can review for my Monday test because I already studied for it. When that test is over I can begin reviewing for the others tests.

My overall study method: I try to break it up over several days or at least two. I get bogged down if I try to pull an all nighter.

How I’ve overcome an initial bad grade: if I received a low grade I probably knew it was coming because I didn’t prepare properly or I didn’t use the right study habit for that class. I usually try to go over what I did wrong and sometimes discuss with the teacher what I can do differently on the next exam or what they suggest I do for studying for the next exam.

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Sarah’s Academic Success Story

Part 2

My test study method: I have different strategies for different types of test or subjects. For me, any type of math is exceptionally difficult so I had to spend extra time on that. I would go back through the homework problems focusing on the problems that I had extra difficulty on. Many times I would ask the teacher for any additional study materials they could provide, if it was a class that required memorization or applying concepts on what were key focal points in the class. If I knew there were going to be essays I would try to take the terms and apply them to an example or create different questions on the concepts focused on throughout the semester.

My time management secret: I always, always, always carry a planner with me. I even use different color highlighters to show what each event on my calendar is for. For example, Pink is personal, yellow is school, orange is work, blue is for appointments, and green is for my sorority. Although I use white-out frequently, I can see in bright yellow that if I have that project for finance due on Tuesday, I need to start working on it on (the previous) Wednesday so I can early I get things accomplished but that is a really all I do.

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Work Together

Part 3

Here are my final words of wisdom for students who want to get better grades in collage: a big thing that not many will say is to ask for help if you needed it. It’s not bad thing to not understand, it’s a bad thing if you do not anything about it. Plan your time out so you are completing everything that needs to get done and leave time to double check. Write things down and have good time management skills. Ask for help is probably the biggest thing I can say thought. If you don’t understand, go to office hours or find a classmate that does understand and is willing to help you. If you try hard it will come to you. I find myself thinking that I would have to try harder to fail than I try to succeed. It is something that is within me to done can show you that success is something that is amazing to find!

Good luck!

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Work Together

Part 2

English, math, foreign language tips: For math, all I can Say is do the problems assigned. It is the only way to practice and that’s really all it is for math. It’s the same for chemistry; if you do the practice problems you will understand the material so much better because those subjects are not just memorization like history, you need to be able to apply what you have learned in practical situations. As for English, I am no longer taking it, but I would say to leave yourself plenty of time to write essays and papers. They take time to get all the information out of your head and onto the page, do don’t leave them until the last second.

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WORK TOGETHER

I can and will work as part of team as long as everyone in the team is willing to do his work. I don’t like having to pick up the slack, but I will if I know that my grade will be harmed otherwise. My greatest academic success was my first semester when I had to write a 10-12 page research paper. It was the longest paper I had ever been assigned and I was a little scared. Also, it was the first paper where they were like, here you go, just write about something. I had to argue in favor of or against something, but it could be anything from the sky is blue to hypnotism. I wrote mine on hypnotism. I worked on this paper for weeks and weeks. Every night I would be doing research or writing. I put so much effort into this paper. It ended up being just under 12 pages but it was full on information. I turned it in and when I got it back a week or so later, I had received the first A+ of my college career. All my hard work paid off because I got the grade I deserved. I was really happy and proud of myself.

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:)

You Can Succeed Every Day

Part 1

My overall study method: I break up studying over several days and over the course of the evening and day. Cramming never works for me I try not to do it. I will have longer sessions on nights before big tests, but I never stay up much later than normal before tests. I know that if I take the test tired the next day I will not do as well as if I was rested.

How I’ve overcome an initial bad grade: I usually look over test or paper to see what I did that the teacher did not want. Basically, I do not stress out about grades that much because for me they are not worth getting really upset about. I do well because I know that I know the material. However, if I do get a bad grade, or one lower than I expected, I make sure that the next time a test is coming I study even more so that I won’t be surprised by the questions.

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