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alright uh...
today's workshop
is a very uh... important one for me to teach
uh... it has to do with habits of successful college students next week we're going to
talk to and the week after we're going to talk about time management how organize yourself so you get
everything done
today it's habits of successful college students and one of the things i want to say just to
kind of introduce this topic
i've been teaching at this college for along time i won't tell you how long cuz you get
scared but a long long time
and i have watched students
be very successful
and i've watched other students not be successful and and end up sort of dropping out not reaching
their goals
the two main reasons
why a student would not be successful
is first their skills their basic skills like reading and writing and all that are so low
that they can't handle college level work
that person could be successful
but they have a lot of work to do to build those skills up until they can handle what
college asks them to do so that's one
the second is uh...
this
and that is some students have good or even very good
academic skills you know they're they're strong that way
but they're habits as a student are very
weak or very poor
and that always drags a student down and causes them not to do as well as they could do
and probably as they should do
so uh... i'm gonna say this just to kind of uh... start this and that is
uh... i ask students all the time cuz i think it's very interesting
uh... what do you think makes a successful college student
why would somebody be successful
and i don't know if you have thoughts that come to mind but the two most common things that
people tell me
one
somebody says oh i know why people are successful they're really smart
i say to em
uh... it's nice to be smart
that's not it
i say what else and they say well they study
like fifteen hours a day
and i say it's good to study and to take that seriously
that's not it either
and so what is it that's kind of like the it's not a mystery but it's something that
i've observed over the years
so what we're going to do for today to sort of have me teach this and work through with you
is i'm gonna give you a handout and work through all of that and then ask you to do something
for me near the end of the workshop i'm gonna put you to
work on something that's pretty simple but it requires a little bit of thought on your parts
so let me go ahead and uh... pass these out if you'd pass one behind please
oh and by the way i forgot to mention earlier
um... when you show up for workshops this semester uh... a lot of them are going to
be uh... videotaped pass behind you uh that's for people who aren't able to attend and all
that so uh...
no need to feel nervous or anything about a camera in the room it's not on you
it's on me
so if anybody's gonna be nervous it would be me
an i'm ok cuz i'm sorta used to it so just ignore the camera
and you'll be fine okay
when it comes to habits of successful college students i want to start by reading the little
section at the top and then we're gonna go through these one at a time spend a couple
of minutes on each one
at the very top it says one main characteristic
of successful college students is that they act in a professional way
in other words they treat school as seriously as they would a high-paying career job
this is demonstrated in their attitude and day-to-day actions and habits
everything they do shows that school is a very high priority in their lives
now uh... some of you in here may have had a job before maybe you even are working now
while you go to school
even if you've never worked
you know
that if you get a job especially a good one that you don't want to lose there are certain
things you do certain ways that you act and approach your job
that are important and if you don't do those you may end up getting fired
and everybody knows those things but then when they become students a lot of people
don't do any of those same things they kind of get lazy or their habits sort of decline
and that's something again that we want to work on so uh... again if i if you were
being paid a hundred thousand dollars a year
to go to school
would be nice right you'd you'd show up every morning at like six o'clock in the morning
well you're not getting paid but all of you i hope
are going to school so that you can get a good education and then get a job that it makes
a lot more than you could've if you didn't go to college so it's kind of going to get to
you eventually
but the very first one of these is always a kind of a fascinating one to me so
i'm going to ask a few questions in a minute and one thing that i want you to understand
about the way that i teach my workshops is that i ask questions sometimes
and i want
answers from anybody and even if you get the wrong answer
that's ok at least you're trying and so
i'm hoping to get some involvement no pressure be relaxed about it ok
number one it says on this is again the the description of a successful college student
they take care of themselves physically and emotionally eating a well-balanced diet
exercising
getting in appropriate amounts of sleep
dealing with stresses and difficulties in positive healthy ways etcetera
so they could have the concentration needed to make it through each class session
and the stamina needed to make it through the ups and downs of a long semester successfully
okay
so um... most people when they read the first uh...
portion of this
about taking care of yourself everybody says well sure of course that's what you're supposed
to do
but my question for you is
a lot of people read that and say i know you're supposed to do that but what does that have
to do with being a good student
it almost doesn't seem like it has anything to do with it
can you see a connection there
between those two
why would it be important to do that in order to be successful
you want to be successful at both
what happ yeah go ahead
yeah
that's a good example of it
um... anybody here have a class this semester that meets for three hours
straight
a couple of you
ok that's fun huh
uh... trying to stay awake even if you like the class what a lot of
students do that is not good is that they don't take care of themselves so they
eat
all junk food and fast food
they stay up late at night to... watch t_v_ or play video games or do whatever
and the end up getting very little sleep they don't ever exercise
and then they walk into classes
and while the teachers taking role
they're already looking like this they're already fading out before class even starts
uh... is there anybody here who is in college for the very first semester this semester
the a couple people
ok um... those who have been around for awhile know this and even if you just raised your hand
you know
it's really hard
for you to concentrate well
on a teacher
for even an hour
let alone two or three it takes a lot of energy it's hard
if you're tired or if you're hungry
or if you're stressed out
it makes it almost impossible and so i know that some people
uh... don't sleep well because they have
problem sleeping
other times people don't sleep enough because they have a child for example whose up half
the night and so they have to be up with them so sometimes things are outside of your
control but other times you can control these things and so what a lot of students do
is that they end up not taking care of themselves and then their work suffers as a student not
just concentrating in class
but everything that they do
and also um... those who have been around the college a little bit know
that a semester here at this college is eighteen weeks
is long
is really long and is very tiring it's like a long marathon run to get through and one thing i see all
the time every semester is that some of my students start out
great
they got this great energy and then about halfway through the semester
i see them start dying out
like they're running to the finish line and just you know staggering and they can't make
it
in order for you to have the same amount of energy in the seventeenth and eighteenth
week
that you do at the beginning
that requires you to take care of yourself
and that's something that pretty much anybody can do i know some things are outside your
control but that's the idea with number one
now as we go through these what i want you to do is i want you to think
about how
you do in each one of these now you know this is this is a strong area for you is it a weak
area is it's somewhere in the middle and i'm going to have you kind of evaluate yourself
at the end of the workshop i'll explain that in a little bit
ok number two
they're never absent from a class meeting unless a true emergency arises even on those days
when they don't feel like showing up
or it's not convenient to do so they push themselves and attend any way
true emergency absences might include personal illness
such as being contagious under doctor's orders to stay home etcetera
family emergencies like serious illnesses or a funeral etcetera
legal requirements jury duty court appearances
or unexpected transportation issues like the car won't start or dies on the way to school
now what i well the point i wanna make here is that every one of those things that i just
listed here those are all really good reasons
for not showing up to class
every one of these is under the description for me of life interrupting school
you know it's just those things happen
but the question that i want you to answer for yourself you don't have to answer it for
me is
when you don't have an emergency like this do you always faithfully show up to every
one of your classes even when it's a hassle or even when you don't feel like it
some people are really good
with that and they always show up faithfully unless they have an emergency other people
have a hard time with that and sometimes they just you know i've had a long week
i'm just taking the day off
or they have a morning class at eight in the morning and they hit the snooze button for the fourth
time and then they just uh... forget it and then they go back to sleep
usually students who have very very good attendance
almost always on average end up with higher grades than people who miss class a lot and
that should make sense to you
but again there are certain students every semester
of mine
who want to do well want to try hard and so they have all the ability to do well
but they just have a really bad semester where they have a death in the family
and then they're sick for three weeks or whatever and it's just hard for them and there's nothing
they can do about it
but i'm gonna write one thing up here on the board and this is just for your information
last semester in my class
uh... i teach a class that is pass no pass so there are no letter grades but a c or above
you know or below
those students in my classes who ended this semester with anywhere from zero to three
absences
so they were good you know almost always there
uh... ninety two percent of them passed my class
very high number right
those who were uh... and so that's like eight percent who didn't and then for those who
were absent a lot like four to six times
they dropped all the way down to fifty percent
who uh...passed
and so it's not just showing up cuz you have work to do you have tests to take and all that
but when you show up you always know everything that's going on you hear everything the teacher
teaches and it helps a lot
so sometimes students don't do well in college because
they just aren't very disciplined and showing up when ever they possibly can unless they
have an emergency
so again the question is how do you do personally on that one
now number three
this has three parts to it so i'm gonna talk about each one just for a minute
a lot of students don't do very well at this and i don't know what your reaction is going
to be when you read it but that's true of a lot of people it says number three if they
have to be absent so if they have an emergency they do three things that are designed to
help them not fall too far behind
and improve their chances of doing well on upcoming tests and assignments
the first thing they do is they call or email the instructor as soon as they know they'll
miss class
in order to find out what will be done during that class meeting
and anything they will need to do before the next session
okay i wanna stop there for a second
when a person has a job
and they are they have a schedule
of job job shifts
and they find out that they're not going to be able to make it to work
what do they do
they call do they have to sort of remember to do that
i don't think so it's just sort of habit like oh i can't make it in pick up the phone and
call
well the question is when you know you're going to miss class
do you automatically run for the syllabus and get the phone number or the email address
and contact the teacher
some people do that well other people say
never even think of it and again this is just a habit
uh... those of you who have classes that meet once a week
this is especially
important because i've had students in classes that i teach that are once a week
who end up missing class
and that's a whole week's worth right cuz it just meets once and they don't contact me at all
they show up the next week
walk-in
hi how you
doing fine how're you fine
and then i say okay everyone i'm gonna collect the homework now
and they look at me like what homework
i gave assignment the week before and they have no clue well that means they have to
turn it in late lose a lot of points for it
and all that would've taken would be like a two minute call or a one on one line email
and then i would have gotten back to them and told them what they missed and what they
needed to do it's a very easy thing to do but if you don't do it you get way behind and you
get confused
the second part of number three
is they arrange to pick up copies
of any important class papers like handout study guides assignments etcetera from the
instructor
they pick up the material at the instructors office
right before the next class meeting or in some other manner
so the students who do this right in my class
know they're gonna miss they call or email me later that day i contact them back and
i tell them what they missed and if there's something important like an assignment or
a study guide
i either email it to them
i leave it for them so they can come pick it up or whatever so that they can catch up
and a lot of students again don't do that at all and it's important for you to be in
the habit of doing that
and then the third one my favorite part of this
is they make sure to arrive at least ten minutes early
for the next class meeting
so they can find and copy someone else's notes completely before that class begins
okay so i wanted to ask you a question and i hope this is kind of easy but i want to
ask anyway
um... if a person is absent why would it be important for them to get to class the next
time ten minutes early
why shouldn't they just show up on time and then borrow someone's notes and copy them
during class
what's the problem
yes and they won't be able to pay attention to what's going on so let me give you this example i
have seen this happen almost right in front of me before it's like a show during the class
a student misses class
the next time theres class they get there right on time which is normally you know good
and then right as i start teaching the new material for the day i see the person
do this hey...hey
they get their elbow going
and the person next to him is
uh... where you here last time
and they say yeah
uh can i see your notes
and they're kinda like
like this like they're trying
to swat a fly away they keep going the elbow keeps going and they finally say
alright and so they give the notes and then for about the next ten minutes the person is sitting
there
like this
have you ever seen other people's notes
i don't know if you you think your notes might be kind of scary other peoples
are almost unreadable except by them
and so then i've even seen people say
so what is this
well not only are they kind of distracting
me
but they're also concentrating on that so they're missing everything i'm teaching now
it's just like compounds the problem
so if you're ever absent from a class that is a lecture type class and you know you're
missing some notes
that's the first thing you should think about after those other two is i've gotta get their
early so i can borrow someone's notes copy them ask them about whatever i don't understand
and then be ready as soon as the teacher starts talking and i can hear all the new material
and again all of this sounds sort of common sense and all that but most people
don't do it and most people don't do it because they never
thought of doing it again that's kind of part of what we're doing today
so if you've never been absent from school
would you do these things if you have been absent or if you would be and if you have
been absent did you do all these things some people say i've never done any of those some
people say i did one but i didn't do the other two so this is just part of this today is
to think about your own
performance your own habits
ok number four
is a really simple one
they always come to class prepared this means consistently having the course syllabus the
textbook
if it's required by the instructor
a notebook containing past handouts past notes
paper for new notes pens pencils scantrons on test day's etcetera
now that should sound pretty obvious to you a lot of my students show up and they always have
everything they're supposed to have
other people it's an adventure
and i've had people get their elbow going again a lot of students have wild elbows
and they come in and i start teaching and i see them doing this hey..hey
and the person says yes
uh... you have an extra pen
and they say
uh... yeah
and they reach and they give em one 0:20:45.809,0:20:48.140 thanks thanks
have some paper
and they're just you know elbowing and i just look at that person again i think of
them as a professional student
if i went into a meeting
uh... at my job with my boss and all these other people and it's a very important meeting
and i said does anyone have a pen and paper
uh... that would be really unprofessional for me and everybody knows that but then when
it comes to being a student like i said people sometimes get kinda lazy with that
so do when you show up to your classes are you always prepared
most of the time
or do you always forget something then everybody's different with that ok and then the last one on
this side is they are consistently on time
or even a little early
so they can be prepared for the class
being on time pretty much without fail is a sign of respect for the instructor in class
it's a demonstration that school is important to them
and it's an important personal habit to apply to all life situations you know that in this
country thousands of people get fired from jobs every day
because they're late alot
that's sad especially in this economy it's hard to find a job so you don't wanna lose it well
again in my experience it's almost the same as this
when my students show up on time
almost all the times maybe late a couple times during the semester
the numbers are almost the same as this and when they show up late constantly
it becomes more like this
and that doesn't even have anything to do with the coursework
but usually when someone is there and they're on time
it sort of means they're very serious about the class and they work hard and everything
and end up doing well
so uh... how are you with that just in everything in your life do you always show up on time or
early
are you almost always late everywhere you go or is it somewhere in between again that's
something for you to think about
okay so we'll go back to these in just a little bit but you can go ahead and turn the page and
uh... i want to talk about the rest of these
by the way and just so i don't forget
i'm gonna go ahead and start this uh...
sign in sheet now so again when this gets to you if you could just fill out the information
and pass it along so it doesn't get stuck that'd be good um... so i'd appreciate that
okay um number six at the top of the uh... the backside is uh... i guess a very important
one to me personally
and i think it would be to you if you were a teacher also it says they are respectful
to the instructor and to classmates at all times this means that they pay attention during
lectures
regardless of whether or not the topic being discussed is interesting
and they do that by staying awake
sitting up
working hard to listen
and sometimes it's hard
maintaining at least fairly frequent eye contact etcetera
in addition they do it uh they avoid doing anything that will be distracting to others
in the room this includes having running conversations with classmates
having their cell phone ring text messaging
or doing anything else unrelated to what's going on in class at that time
well as you look at all that there you know how you are as a person you know a lot better
than i do
when you're in your classes
do you do any of these things that are mentioned that aren't so good to do or do you never
do them
and i'll tell you give you a couple of examples
i um...
am always surprised when i see this
in my classes it's actually a rule that
if you have a cell phone with you
which almost everybody does it needs to be turned off and put out of sight
some people put their cellphone on a silent or on vibrate
and then here's what happens i see this all the time they put it right next to em so
it's sitting there on the desk and then they
try to pay attention and take notes and all that and then all of a sudden
it
rings or goes off they hear the nhhh or whatever
and i've seen students actually during class do this
and uh... they're trying to like pay attention to me but they're so tempted and they end
up
grabbing it
and then
under the table
texting back
uh... that's very distracting to the teacher it's usually distracting to the people around
them
and unless you have an emergency that you're waiting for word about
uh...
there's no way that you should be able to
uh you should be able to go like an hour
two hours without texting some people are like addicted to texting
and so
they almost can't
that's why it's better to just put it away turn it off completely unless you have again
an emergency that you're waiting for
also in addition to that uh... or from this list here uh... i've had students before many
times
who have sat together maybe with a friend of theirs
and they
love talking
uh... and i love it when people talk but not exactly while i'm talking i think that's
the same for you you feel the same way
so i i'm in the middle of teaching something important and then i see
a person as soon as i finish saying something they turned to the person next to 'em and they do this
and the other person
and then about twenty seconds later i finish saying something else
and so after a while
i end up saying something and then almost looking at them waiting for them to talk
and then everybody gets distracted around 'em
um... the other thing
uh...
that i've seen and i don't know if this is going to surprise you are not
it always surprises me after even after all these years
i've seen some students sitting there while i'm teaching and they have their notebook
paper in front of them
and they're listening and then when i say something they do this
yeah now that looks good right looks normal except when they're done they do this
and then the person next to 'em
and they're passing notes
during class
and i look at that and i think if i wanted to see that i'd be teaching middle school
or elementary school it's it's very immature
so it's always important when you're in a class to be very respectful of your classmates
and the teacher it's you want to have an environment where you can really listen and concentrate
without being bothered by everything and
teachers are especially bothered usually by everything that happens where it's not focusing
directly on them
ok now number seven
i wanna make a comment about this too
uh... they realize that most college classes require several hours per week for homework
review and other types of studying
with that in mind they schedule time to study
and most often choose to study even when other more attractive activities come up
they do this regardless of how they feel at any given time
because doing well in school is very important to them ok now so here's what i'll say first
about this
if you spend
ten hours a day studying
i will
worry about you
i teach study skills so i like it when people study but you have to have balance in your
life or you go crazy so you need to enjoy things and all that
but what this one is about is this uh... i think this is true of most of you
maybe even all of you
you're in school right now and you have a friend like a good friend of yours
who's not in school
and that's an interesting combination because it seems like their whole goal in life
is to tempt you to
go away from what you need to do for school
and so i'm gonna give you this example and i don't know if this sounds familiar to you but this is
what a lot of people go through
uh... your best friend
calls you at six o'clock at night
hi it's me
hey how you doing
fine a couple of us are going down the street to the restaurant there
your favorite restaurant
will pick you up in a half hour
sounds good right well you have a test the next day
right so you have a lot of studying you need to do and you tell'em oh you know what i'd love to
but uh... i can't i've got a test tomorrow
and the person says hey it's me
it's us
it's your favorite restaurant
i'd like to but no no i can't i can't thanks anyway
they keep at you
and you start
weakening
you could feel yourself weakening and finally you say look i gotta study and they say
study-shmudy you can do that latter some other time and you say
ok i'll just study late tonight and i'll stay up till two in the morning you know that's not good
but i want to hang out with them and so you go
some students
cave in to the pressure
and go somewhere else other than studying
when they know they need to study all the time
other people are really good about saying no and saying i would love to no
and the person says yeah but no
and they're good with that and that's a good
it's a good habit to have
i've had some students
who hate studying so much
that when they were about to sit down to study
if somebody called
and they said you want
they said yes
whatever it is whatever i could do to get out of here and not study it's like any excuse
possible
so when you need to study when something is important are you really good at setting boundaries
and saying no and sticking to it or do you give in all the time or are you somewhere
in between again that's always a question on all these
okay and then number eight
is a pretty simple one also and that is they work hard to follow
all college and course rules and directions written and verbal this includes not being
afraid to ask the teacher to repeat or clarify instructions
during or after class
reading all written directions carefully
double-checking work for accuracy etcetera
now this actually has two parts to it so let me just give you a really quick explanation
of this
some of my students
are really good
pretty much all the time
at following all the directions i give so when they have an assignment to do or some due
date or whatever
they're always on top of it and they know and they double check and all that that's
good
always a few students who seem to never do things according to the directions and
i think they see the directions and then
throw them away and just sort of do it whatever way
and that tends to hurt a student in college because when teachers ask you to do things
a specific way
that's the way you need to do it
well the thing that i want you to think about here because again i don't know you so i would'nt
know this
is uh... the other part of this
one of the
habits that you need to develop to get through college and to get the degree or
whatever you're going for
is the ability
to not be afraid of teachers
some people tell me they're afraid of teachers and what i mean by that is
you need to be assertive as a student
now assertive doesn't mean rude
or obnoxious or aggressive but it means assertive
and what a lot of students do is that when a teacher teaches something or gives directions
to them
and they're confused about any part of it
their attitude is
i'm not really sure what you meant by that and so before they leave the room that day
they come up to the teacher and say could you please explain such-and-such again
so they refuse to leave until they understand
that's good
other people though
are extra shy
or
are afraid to talk to teachers or they think it's rude to go up to a teacher so they just leave
the room and say well i'll try to
figure it out at home
and usually that's not very good
i always tell my students at the beginning of the semester that i never want to see you
walk out of the room at the end of class looking like this
you know that's a bad look like
i had no idea what i'm supposed to do talk to me
um... there are a few teachers that i've had
who are scary
and i would'nt even want to go up and talk to them because they're pretty mean and all that but
most teachers aren't like that and they want to help you and they're available to answer
and explain but you have to go you have to be the one to do that ok and then uh...
number nine
uh... they make a major effort to turn in all homework assignments on time or early
realizing the problems that can be caused by turning work in late
lost points lower-grade increase
stress etcetera
so again as a person as a student throughout your life but especially now these days
do you almost always turn in all assignments on time or early
or is everything late
or is it sort of half and half and so again we'll kind of examine this in a minute and
then the last one of these and then i'm gonna put you to work a little bit is number ten
and i just want to take a couple of minutes with this it says they seek to learn from
their mistakes
and treat disappointments like low grades
as motivation for doing better
on future tests and assignments rather than giving up or getting discouraged easily
they talk to their instructors in such cases so they can improve their performance as the
semester goes on
ok so let me explain what i mean by this
uh...
here's what happens to some of my students and it's not good
i understand it but it's not good
they take the first test
of the course in the you know fourth or fifth week
and they get it back
and they look at the grade and they're disappointed maybe they got a d or an f that's never
fun to see right
they look at it
they give the test back
they leave
never see em again
so it's like somebody took a pin and just put in the
balloon and they just sort of give up after one you know bad grade
other people though do the right thing and that is when they get a grade like that they
look at it and they're disappointed
at the grade
but here's what their reaction is they look at it and they see a d or an f
and they say this
alright that's what grade i got
that's not good
that's the last time im ever gonna get a grade that
low in this class
and so they come to me
and they talk to me
about how they studied for the test and all of that and i give them suggestions
and try to help them know how to study better
so they treat it as a challenge never will that happen again and that's the better way
rather than just giving up so when you are faced with a disappointment like that
do you tend to just give up
do you make it a challenge like that or is it some of each
again depends on the person okay
so uh...
one thing that i wanna explain before we get to this last little part here did the
sign in sheet make it uh...
all the way to the back there
sign in sheet okay
and you two didn't sign right okay
if you could just pass that up will get it to the two of them thanks
um... one of the things that i wanted to tell you is that some people have experience as
a student all the way through elementary school in middle school and high school or whatever
that tends to be not so good
so in other words they're just never a very good student and so what a lot of students tell
me when they start college is
i'm not a good student
and i say well
how do you know
well i've just never been a good student never get really good grades
i said well uh...
that doesn't mean you can't be a good student now
and they say yeah but i'm just not smart enough or you know whatever they come up with all
these ideas
all the way through college you need to work on your skills
you know your academic skills your reading and writing and all those 'cause those always
need to get better for everybody but
i want you to think back at what we just did all ten of these
none of these are skills
there's no skill involved here at all they're just habits
and if they're habits that means everybody in here
can become
great at all of these there's no excuse for well i can't do that or i can't do that everybody
can do these and if a
student gets to the point where they're really good at all of these it doesn't mean that
they're going to be successful in college for sure
but it helps a lot it gives them a big advantage over everybody else so what i'm gonna ask
you to do and we're going to just do sort of a short version of this
um... is this
the little blanks you see
must have wondered what are those blanks doing in there
what i'm going to have you just start to do a little just so you kind of understand how
this works
is that i ask my
students when we go through this
to look at each one of those
and be very honest with themselves because they're the only one who's going to see it
so it's just honesty
and to give themselves a grade
from a
down to f anywhere in there
that they think is their grade for that right now and so i have people giving themselves
you know a c f
d b
whatever they give themselves grades
so what i want you to do is just take a minute or two
and at least look at the first few of these you don't have to read them again because
we already went over them and just sort of react and think is that a strength of mine
am i really bad at that or is it somewhere in the middle and just give yourself a grade
again from a down to f
some people like a plus or a minus in there if you want to do that you can
but it's mostly to come up with a grade and i'll let you just do that at least with the
first five here and then i'll explain the last little part and then we'll be done so go
ahead and kind of look at each one
and again just be honest you're not turning this into me so it's just for you
okay if you get through the front side and you want to go to the back you know and keep
going you may not get all the way through and that's okay and I don't exactly expect that
i'll just give you another minute or so
and then uh... as i said i'll just finish up with a couple of other
comments
uh... regardless of where you are in that you can go ahead and just stop for one minute
and i want to just show you the last little part of this
and again you can feel free to do this or not on your own it would just take a couple
of minutes and
we're going to be done here with our uh... workshop in just a minute so you can do that
in whatever way you like
at the bottom of the back side some of you have already seen this and some not it says which
two of the ten areas do you feel you need to improve in the most this semester
so that would obviously be the two lowest grades that you gave yourself and then it says
what specifically will you do
so improvement will happen and so the one thing i wanted to give you as uh... as
sort of advice for this
what you want to do is put a number like number one or five or seven here
but the one thing not to do
is if you're gonna fill this out and finish the sentence
i've had students show this to me and they wrote to improve in that area this semester
i will try harder
or i will do better
and that's not good enough it needs to be more specific than that
so for example i'll give you a couple of ideas
some people give themselves a low grade in the very first one
and they give themselves like a d or an f and then they put number one and then
they say to improve in that area this semester
i will make sure
to go to bed by eleven o'clock everynight during you know school during the week and
try to cut down on my junk food
so that's a very specific you know plan that's what you want to do
and or someone might say uh... you know that they have a tendency to have their cell phone
in class a lot
and so they realize number six you know yeah i know that's probably something i need to work
on so need to improve that area
this semester i'll always make sure to turn off my cell phone before class begins whatever
so that's what you want to put whatever that might be is to try to be really specific
and come up with a plan that you can actually follow instead of just being very general
about it which is what a lot of people do
the more general you are in writing something down the less you usually do it but if its
specific then you can work on it
ok so the last thing that i want to share with you and again i appreciate you coming today
uh...
next week we'll get into the subject of time management like i mentioned
is this uh... this is totally up to you uh... i cant in in these workshops i can't give homework
that's why everybody likes these
because i just sort of teach you and then off you go but i would suggest this it's
up to you and that is
keep this and then
later in the semester like four five six weeks from now
pull it out
look it over again
look at the grades you gave yourself
see if things have changed
especially look at these and say have i doing my plan or not and if you are
you should notice an improvement and if you're thinking
oh yeah that was a good plan
i haven't even done it yet
then just start kind of remind yourself
and again every
student is like a work in progress in other words everyone is sort of learning and improving
as time goes by
and so
by the end of the semester i would hope that you could look back to any grade you gave
yourself that was kind of lower very low and realize
i'm still not great at that but i'm much better than i was the third week of the semester
and that is kind of exciting to see that you're making progress as you go ok so that's the
idea with that
ok any questions on anything
okay thank you very much for coming
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