Developing time management skills is a journey
that may begin with this Guide, but needs practice and other guidance along the way.

One goal is to help yourself become aware of how you use your time

as one resource in organizing, prioritizing, and succeeding in your studies
in the context of competing activities of friends, work, family, etc.

First: try our exercise in time management: How do you spend your time each day?

Strategies on using time:

• School term/semester overview: develop, or plan for, blocks of study time
  About 50 minutes? How long does it take for you to become restless?
  Some learners need more frequent breaks for a variety of reasons
  More difficult material may also require more frequent breaks
  Place blocks of time when you are most productive, as morning person or night owl!
• Schedule weekly reviews and updates
  Sunday night may be an excellent time to review your calendar
  Be mindful that as deadlines and exams approach, your weekly routine must adapt
• Prioritize assignments
  When studying, get in the habit of beginning with the most difficult subject or task
  For more difficult courses of study, try to be flexible in your approach to success
  Build in “reaction time” when you can get feedback on assignments before they are due.
• Achieve “stage one”—get something done
  Don’t work the details until your assignment concept is fully developed.
  “Perfection is the enemy of good”, especially in the course of beginning an assignment.
  Given that you build in review, roughly draft your idea and proceed from there
• Postpone tasks or routines that can be put off until school work is finished
  Eliminate, delegate or delay non-essential tasks as part of prioritizing.
  Review for a test may be more important than enjoying a sport.
  and playing the game later will be more enjoyable without the pressure of the test.
• Develop alternative study places
  free from distractions to maximize concentration
• Use your “free” time wisely
  Think of times when you can study "bits" as when walking, riding the bus, etc.
• Review notes and readings just before class
• Review lecture material immediately after class
  (Forgetting is greatest within 24 hours without review)

Try the University of Minnesota's Assignment Calculator

Develop criteria for adjusting your schedule
to meet both your academic and non-academic needs

Effective aids:

• Create a simple "To Do" list
  This simple program will help you identify a few items, the reason for doing them, a timeline for getting them done, and then printing this simple list and posting it for reminders.
• Daily/weekly planner
  Write down appointments, classes, and meetings on a chronological log book or chart.
  If you are more visual, sketch out your schedule

  Image via Wikipedia

  
  First thing in the morning, check what's ahead for the day
  always go to sleep knowing you're prepared for tomorrow
• Long term planner
  Use a monthly chart so that you can plan ahead.
  Long term planners will also serve as a reminder to constructively plan time for yourself

Avoiding Text Anxiety

Some anxiety about taking tests is normal, but when the anxiety affects how you perform on the test, it is time to build your confidence. Review your skills either by yourself or with another person, preferably a counselor at your institution. Learn how to study and manage your time. Organize your material that is to be studied. Be aware of outside influences that affect performance. Learn from your testing mistakes.

When you are ready to take a test, approach it with confidence. Tell yourself you will do well. Prepare yourself by studying. Pick a good place to take the test. Make sure that distractions will not affect you. Give yourself time for the tests. Stay relaxed. Don’t talk with students who are not prepared. Eat something before you go into the test.

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

As you are taking the test, make sure your read the directions and answer the questions asked. Watch your time. Skip over difficult areas and go back to them. Move around in your chair, but don’t fidget. Don’t worry about other students finishing first. If you go blank on an essay or short answer test, start writing something on another sheet of paper. It may trigger your mind.
Whil

Image by sandranahdar via Flickr

e taking the test, stay relaxed. Don’t tense up. Take deep breaths. Expect to be a little anxious, but don’t let it control you. Think positive thoughts and tell yourself that you can take the test.

When you have finished the test, think back over what you did and what did or did not work on the test. Congratulate yourself on a job well done.

Needs Assessment Information
(Wants determine needs)

Needs assessment is a process that is used throughout education, government, and th

Get your own widget at Last.fm

e private sector as a way of generating information that can be useful for solving some problem. The idea of needs assessment is hardly new; it has been used, under different names, for millennia as part of the planning process. Certainly, in the past 50 years or so, needs assessment has been, and continues to be, a cornerstone of educational planning at all levels.

A recent search for information on "needs assessment" using Google as a search engine, yielded some 413,000 references. Many of the sites offer very detailed descriptions of what needs assessment "is" and the steps required to undertake one. The purpose of this page on ADPRIMA is to distill much of this into a practical, straightforward description of the fundamental ideas of needs assessment. With that in mind, let’s begin.

Needs vs. Wants

It seems reasonable to assert that wants trump needs. This is an opinion, but I think it is fundamental to the entire process. I suppose it comes down to a way of perceiving how meaning is derived from our choice and use of words and phrases. Here is how I see it.

We "need" things because of our wants. The things we need are comprised of physical objects such as food and shelter, as well as processes, such as root canals and haircuts. We also have come to "need" information such as the percent of students scoring at a particular level, or the total of charitable deductions for income tax purposes. As human beings, we also have emotional and psychological needs. Regardless of what we deem to be needs, they are all incontrovertibly linked directly to our wants. We need things either to happen or not happen because of what we want. We need certain conditions because of our wants. Abraham Maslow, (1908-1970) described the hierarchy of needs (being and deficit) that all humans strive to satisfy or to ameliorate. Regardless, the position here is that based on our wants, if something is "needed," it means we must have it, must get it, must obtain it. It is not a difficult concept. In some cases, such as the deficit n

eeds described by Maslow, in order to obtain what we want, we may actually "need" less of something.

Wants are sort of a priori transactions. We want one thing or one condition or another simply because we do. Our wants do not necessarily have to be justified. I want a red car, because I like red. I want to finish a report because it is important. Regardless of what our wants are, and they can be, to an outside observer, quite irrelevant or very important, our wants provide the criteria for determining what we need in order to satisfy them.

Wants are Like Goals

We want what we want, and yet there are many things or conditions we want that are beyond our ability to have. In the early 1960s, then President John Kennedy proclaimed that the United States was committed, before the end of the decade, to "sending a man to the moon and returning him safely to the Earth." What he was describing was a want, not a need. What was needed to accomplish that goal involved an enormous commitment of human and capital resources over a period from 1961 to 1969 when the Neil Armstrong and the crew of Apollo 11 splashed down in the ocean. Our goal had been reached, and what was needed to reach it was documented, refined, and improved, whether these needs were physical, human, or the development and implementation of procedures.

However, if President Kennedy has said that the goal was to send a man to Mars and return him safely to the Earth by the end of the decade, the goal would have been by no small stretch of the imagination, impossible.

PERT is not Necessarily Shampoo

The Polaris submarine program that was developed in the 1950s presented such enormous coordination and scheduling problems that a whole new way of operating in such a complex environment had to be invented. One of the inventions that resulted from this program was PERT, or Program Review and Evaluation Technique. PERT became a popular and highly effective way to manage complex projects, but at its core is the idea of determining what is "needed" in order to accomplish a particular project or purpose. At one time I conducted workshops for educators in how to use PERT and CPM (Critical Path Method) techniques for educational planning. In essence what I was doing was helping teachers and administrators in the workshop to do sophisticated needs assessments. PERT is not for everyone, but I will say that the structural demands and analytical thinking involved are excellent for any type of formal or even informal "needs assessments" as are typically done by thousands of educators and committees each year.

Needs Assessment Internet Resources

Below are links to sites that I think have useful information on needs assessment. As you will see, there is a fair amount of discord in the descriptions of what to do. That is not necessarily a bad thing.

Just remember, any needs assessment is really nothing more than an organized, systematic way to gather information relative to some goal. It is the quality and attainability of the goal that sets the stage for everything. If you have any questions, please let me know. Email

http://nnlm.gov/ner/nesl/9410/tol.html
http://www.ed.gov/pubs/Idea_Planning/Step_2.html
http://mime1.marc.gatech.edu/MM_Tools/NAM.html
http://eric-web.tc.columbia.edu/admin_finance/strategic/ch2.html
http://www.joe.org/joe/2002august/a4.shtml
http://www.mtsu.edu/~itconf/proceed98/rstewart.html
http://www.coshrc.org/webproject/framework.htm
http://www.drtomkelly.com/sys_chg.htm

I will add additional links and resources as appropriate.

"Anything not understood in more than one way is not understood at all."

Okay, now for something to read that might give you a chill or two....click here for my novel, What Waits Within

Tips for Parents - School and Teacher Relationships

Research shows that one of the most important factors that affects a child's performance in school is parental involvement. All too often, parents assume that just sending their children to school and looking at their report cards is enough. Not true! If you want to be involved, if you want to actively participate in the relationship betw

Image via Wikipedia

een your child and the school, there are some things you can do to make this relationship positive and productive. Read on. Be sure to check out Web Sites for Parents and Kids.

Methods for Parents to Get to Know Their Child's School Better

First of all, don't just show up at the school; make an appointment to visit.
After you've made an appointment, go to the school; look around, talk to people.
As appropriate, call or write to your child's teachers.
Talk to other parents about their experiences.
Be sure to read the minutes of the school board, which are usually printed in the local newspaper.
Take time to read the school newsletter.
It may not always be convenient, but try to attend school functions such as open houses and PTA meetings.

How Parents can Help with their Children's Homework

There are things you can do that will help your child do assigned homework and that result in learning, which, after all, is the reason for being in school.

Communicate with your child about school. This includes talking to him about his friends, activities, teachers, and assignments.
Show enthusiasm about school and homework.
Set realistic goals for your child, and then focus on one at a time.
Help your child get organized. Break down assignments into smaller, more manageable parts. Set out needed items (clothes, homework, permission slips, etc.) the night before to avoid last-minute rushing around in the morning.
Provide a quiet study corner in your home complete with paper, markers, a ruler, pencils and a dictionary.
Never do your child's homework!
Check with your child's teacher about correcting homework.
Expect, and praise genuine progress and effort. An opinion: don't praise or otherwise reward your child for doing what you and he know is expected. This practice leads you down a slippery slope, often with really bad consequences for you and your child.
Be specific when you do praise something.
Focus on your child's strengths in school.
Build associations between what is taught and what your child already knows and understands.
Incorporate concrete materials and examples whenever possible, especially with younger children. Try to help your child learn about the subject in more than one way, using as many senses as possible.
Separate your child's school weaknesses from your child. If your child fails a test, that is all the child fails. He or she is not a failure.
One more thing: Never do your child's homework! (deliberately repeated)

Questions to Ask at a School Conference

Is my child performing at grade level in basic skills? Above/Below? Math/Reading?

What are the objectives my child is supposed to attain? How do these objectives lead to the overall goal for the course/grade?

What achievement, intelligence, or vocational aptitude tests have been given to my child in the past year? What do the scores mean? (Be very specific and be sure you understand completely what the reported scores mean).

What are my child's strengths and weaknesses in major subject areas?

What subjects do my child enjoy most?

Can we together go over some examples of my child's class work?

Does my child need special help in any academic subject?

Who are my child's friends and how does he or she interact with other children?

Has my child regularly completed assigned homework?

Has my child attended class regularly?

Have you observed any changes in learning progress during the year? Has learning improved or declined during the year?

Research Papers

Every high school or college student will eventually have to write a research paper. If you break down the research paper into components, then the task will not seem so hard. Begin by deciding on your topic. Your instructor may give you a choice. Get some general information about the subject. You can’t use a general encyclopedia for a research paper, but you can use the encyclopedia to find out about your topic. Figure out pertinent details to make your research easier. You then perform a literature review. Look through the resources that are available. This includes hardcopy, periodicals, audiovisual and Internet.

Develop your thesis or your hypothesis. Provide enough information so that your reader knows how you approached the solution to your problem. Let your reader know your findings, even if they do not match your original intent. Develop your findings and possible conclusions. At the end of the paper, write a summary and revisit your original position and thoughts.

Always proofread your research paper. Use spell and grammar check. Make sure that you have met with your instructor about the proper documentation. Many instructors require certain styles, such as APA (American Psychological Association) or MLA (Modern Language Association). Make sure that you have documented all your facts. Double check for possible plagiarism. It is often easy to paraphrase and not give credit. You do not want to fail because you did not document.

Literature Essays

Essays for a literature class require organization. When you first get your assignment, look at it and isolate the key words. Restate them in own words, preferably with synonyms. Brainstorm with the assignment. Write down all the ideas that you have. It is often best to write your introduction after you have written most of your literature assignment because you know your conclusion at that point.

Use the key words that you isolated at the beginning over and over in your paper. Make sure that every paragraph you write in a literature essay supports your thesis in some form.

When you read the material about which you are writing, pick out a couple of short passages for your focus, or use a quote and illustrate your points about it. Make sure that you define the words that need to be explained; you don’t want your reader trying to figure out what you are writing.

Organize your paragraphs into an effective argument that underscores your point. A single concept or idea may be referred to throughout the paper. Use examples that support your thesis. Make sure the examples are presented in a logical manner. It may be a good idea to use a central idea and refer to it throughout the entire paper.

When you have a short literature paper to write, go ahead and focus on the point raised by the assignment. Don’t spend a lot of time building up to your point. Go ahead and present your point early in the paper.

Study Tips Main Page

A Purpose for Social Studies
(or what is social studies for anyhow?)

Learn about the comprehensive marketplace for cheap textbooks on any major study field including social studies at Valorebooks.com!

Although I am officially retired from teaching education courses at a fairly large public university, I have some ideas that might have resonance with people studying to be teachers. In my career, I taught

many graduate curriculum courses in regular college classroom settings and on the Internet. The other semesters, including summer terms. I taught an undergraduate course entitled Methods and Principles: Social Studies for Elementary and Middle Grades. I also taught the high school version of the same course. As part of these courses, I discussed with my mainly young students why social studies is important, and what it is for. To be quite frank, most of my students had no idea how to even begin to discuss this topic except to rely on old tried and true rhetoric such as, "it helps us be better citizens" or "by understanding the past, we can avoid making the same mistakes." By no stretch of the imagination does such rhetoric hold water, good intentions notwithstanding.

Believe me when I say that I have read many, many of the statements by such organizations as the National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS) that describe why social studies is important. If those statements meant anything at all in the REAL world, our students, after more than four decades of NCSS guidance in social studies curriculum, would surely have a better grasp of the content and would also engage in concomitant civic behavior such as voting. But they don't. Go to the NCSS web site and see what you think. There is a vast gulf between professed goals and actual results.

I have come to some conclusions about this. As I have expressed elsewhere on the ADPRIMA site, social studies is about understanding things, and not very much about learning skills. I have come to believe that any idea or concept that takes more than three pages or so of explanation should be broken down into two or more co

ncepts or smaller ideas that reflect a meaningful perceived relationship. I think Albert Einstein put this idea best when he said that "scientific theories should be able to be described so simply that a child could understand them." In social studies, we have a long, long way to go.

The countless textbooks that appeared in my mailbox, and that were described in an endless stream of brochures that touted yet other, new approaches for learning how to teach social studies marginalized themselves by their sheer numbers and bulk. In many ways, they remind me of the near weekly torrent of book

s on dieting. Harsh words indeed from a former college teacher.

Let me put it directly to you then.

I believe social studies should be part of the curriculum for the purpose of helping students understand human interactions that occurred in the past, are occurring now, and that are likely to occur in the future. The reason for these understandings is they may help students develop and nurture values that will make it more likely that they will be able to determine for any situation what the right thing is and do it, especially when doing the right thing is hard to do. It is about decency, respect, courage and honor. This is not a difficult idea to understand, but it can take a lifetime to appreciate.

If learning that Seoul is the capital of South Korea, that the Congo River crosses the Equator twice, that the Battle of Antietam in 1862 was the bloodiest single day in American history, or being able to describe the culture of China during the reign of Qin Shi Huangdi contributes to this, great. Understandings are not, and cannot "practiced" in the same way as skills, but they can be developed, strengthened and made meaningful by students connecting new information to what they already know. I am also of the belief that such understandings need not be described in such obscure and complex ways as to diminish their value to the learner. The countless mind-numbing hierarchies of social studies standards, strands, goals and objectives that are promulgated by both public and private entities, while often developed with the best of intentions, really haven't contributed much to the civic and social literacy of our nation. In fact, some would argue that measures of this literacy show a marked decline over the past forty years or so. Perhaps many have forgotten that understanding social studies concepts and ideas is an intensely personal thing.

So I really didn't "teach" my students how to teach social studies. That is impossible. What I did was to motivate them to want to learn about social studies and different ways of teaching it. They come to believe that they don't understand anything unless they understand it in more than one way. I believe I was successful at doing this, and it is a good feeling.

Earn one of the most current and relevant degrees offered in the area of Education. Complete your degree in as little as 2 years. Click here for details.