Study of Academic Skills Needed to Succeed

On any given school night, a common question parents ask their teenagers is: "Do you have any homework?" or "Have you studied yet?" What those parents should be asking, is: "Does my child know how to study?" Unfortunately the answer is often no, yet having strong study skills are the key to academic success-whether in middle school, high school, or college.

What often happens in the middle and high school classroom is that a teacher tells students that they need to take notes. After the pens and paper come out, the teacher usually tells the students what to write down. Some students get it, some don't. The students are given a reading assignment to go along with their notes, and sometime later there is a test. The teacher usually does some type of review before the test, but basically the student is on his own to study. Maybe he never read the assignment; maybe he only half listened during the note taking; maybe he only half listened during the review. When he sits down to study, he doesn't have what he needs, probably gets bored, and calls it a night. That does not bode well for how he will do on the test.

It doesn't matter what the subject is, if the student does not understand, or even care, about the correlation between good study skills and good grades, he or she will probably end up a mediocre student at best. And if they want to go to college, keep in mind that a student without good study skills can sink very quickly. Parents should know that college professors must assume that the student comes to class fully aware of the importance of good note taking, effective reading, and paying attention. Those that have those skills succeed in college; those that don't struggle.

The problem, of course, is getting your teenager motivated enough to learn good study techniques and then use them. That is not easy and parents will need to be creative in their efforts to get their teenagers to see the value. If that teenager plans to go to college, be ready to explain to her that reading, note taking, and studying are everyday chores in college-the better prepared she is now, the more likely she will do well in college.

Some middle and high schools do offer classes that teach study skills. One example is a program called AVID - Advancement Via Individual Determination. In AVID classes, students learn how to take notes, read for content, study, and organize themselves. It would be worth a call to the counselor's office to see what your teenager's school offers if you feel he does not know how to study.

One effective study method can be self taught-if you can convince your student it is worth the effort. SQR3 (Survey, Question, Read, Recite, Review) uses five clear steps to studying:

   1. First survey, or scan, the whole document. Pay attention to titles and subtitles, to graphs and charts, to bold or italic text.
   2. Question what you've just surveyed. What questions come to mind with each subtitle or chart? What does that italic test make you wonder?
   3. Then thoroughly read each section one at a time, looking for answers to your questions.
   4. Next recite the answers to your questions out loud - speaking the answers helps you remember the information.Then write down the answer.
   5. After you have read and recited each section, do a final review of all your notes, questions, and answers. Make a list of the main points.

How Educational Resources Have Changed?

As with all advancements in technology, many different sectors are directly influenced by the changes, sometimes for the good and sometimes not. Most industries that are hit first are those of business as these advancements can often affect their operations, marketing and production, etc. However, education in schools, colleges and universities are all influenced by the changes in technology.

We all know that the world was revolutionised with the introduction of computers but they are now more heavily involved in part of many early years' resources. For those in higher education you can understand how the process is a lot easier to integrate and will be more easily adapted. However, concerning really young children who will not be able to quickly learn about computers, the process could prove more challenging.

One of the ways in which this notion has been introduced with outstanding success is via the replacement of traditional white boards, or even chalk boards, with electronic smart boards. These have been specifically designed for classrooms and feature a range of teaching programmes. This simple advancement will allow the children to familiarise themselves with the computer systems, allowing for easy adaption, without putting any pressure or responsibly onto the actual children.

Many of the programmes used by these systems are fun, interactive and also educational, which has been found to help younger children grasp particular concepts a lot easier. They are actively involved within the lesson and you can teach them via topics they are interested in and will want to learn. It has also been found that the use of educational games and sounds has been a success when it comes to teaching more academic levels. They are able incorporate the use of imagery and sounds, combined with words to help adhere to a range of different learning styles.

With more and more educational bodies recognising the different learning styles and how many children learn better using a variety of techniques; audio, visual and kinetic, they have been able to incorporate these factors into differing features of technology. This has allowed teachers to get the most out of classes and the best performance from individual pupils. By addressing this at an early age, where children are prone to soak up information, it can help to push the standards of education forward.

Importance of Outdoor Learning

Traditionally, learning and education has always done indoors in a safe and secure and lean environment, but this has since been revised and look into more detail.

Outside environment is rich in natural space and the dynamic of a lot can be learned through physical processes and interactive. Children of all ages will be able to learn in a fun and healthy environment when some classes are taken outside. Its value as an important lean environment has been recognized by many different pieces of research, and more recently Stage Early Years Foundation (EYFS).

They have been able to summarize the values ​​of the outdoors and have identified the following in particular;

    * Being outdoors has a positive influence on children's welfare and all other aspects of development.
    * The outside of the home offers the opportunity to do things in different ways and at different scales, which is not possible in the room is accessible.
    * They also give children real life experience with the weather, seasons, wildlife and their habitats as well as many other things related to the natural world.
    * They give children the freedom to explore and use their senses and be physically active and alive.

Because of its unique features and characteristics of the outside offer, it will provide children with experiences and activities that can not be easily replicated in the room. It has the same value of learning in a room and provide a basis from which children can actively acquire academic information. They need support from adults who are involved and enthusiastic about the outdoors to show them how important and how it can affect their health and wellbeing; it will seek to ensure that they have a positive opinion from the outside, helping them form a well balanced lifestyle and active.

While teaching in your outdoor environment to actively encourage children to make their own decisions about things, while also giving them the opportunity to freely explore, solve problems and grow in confidence as they create their own experience. They need a lot of time to develop their own skills and find things they are interested in, and things that they do not, something that can only be achieved by giving them time to investigate the accident environment. They will make predictions with a drawing of what they have leaned in the classroom in addition to playing experience, they will be able to actively learn and test these theories because they experience things first hand for themselves.

A Simplified Approach for All Students

Recently, a "regular student" approached me in absolute panic! With tears in her eyes, she told me that he had received half the value that he truly believes is lower than that obtained. I explained to him that the teacher did, indeed, make mistakes from time to time, but it is relatively easy to solve the problem. All students have to do is take all the duties assessed him, tests and quizzes for the master and ask him to re-calculate the grade. Unfortunately, the "regular student" is a throw in assessed work habits when teachers return. In accordance with the form, this student has made no paper in the file and, therefore, had no way to verify its values, or explore the possibility of teacher-generated errors.

This is a difficult lesson to learn, but students are not entirely to blame. Children, at a very early age, came to depend on adults to keep track of important information. By nature, mothers and fathers are responsible for ensuring children get to school on time, go to the doctor for routine check-up, clean up his room, etc. Ultimately, however, there are times when a young student should begin to assume a modicum of responsibility and independence. Thus, sooner or later students will find that adults are not perfect. Unfortunately, too often children come to this realization through the episode as described above.

This is why it is essential that a student begin to use the scheme of the organization when he started school (kindergarten is not too early to start organizing a job). Parents can not rely on the school system to teach children organizational skills. That's not to say that all schools at all ignoring this problem. Unfortunately, some schools are not, indeed, make a token effort to help students to organize themselves, fall short of doing a complete job and almost always fail to strengthen the process throughout the school year. The school may, for example, give students a "planner" (often an organizational tool that schools only have to provide). In many cases, however, both teachers and counselors take the time to show students how to use a planner or to verify that students have used the planners at all! This applies both to public and private schools alike. Many private schools are the most expensive, after selling the parents in the schools' organizational skills and a rigid program of study, "do nothing to teach students to use and maintain these essential skills.

Because the school has been regularly ignored to emphasize the importance of adopting an efficient organizational scheme, students have come to a natural conclusion that the organization is not important. In fact, students are often denied their implementing any "outside" the organization chart by asking, "Why do I have to do this, the teacher does not make me do it!" The sad truth is that so many teachers do not realize the impact that the organization (or lack thereof) has a student's performance.

And what about the students who try hard to get organized. He had to take a trial-and-error to this issue, because no one ever showed him only what works and what does not work. Let me give you an example. Students often will buy a notebook wire-bound or glue-bound some believe that a separate notebook for each class is a good way to organize one's work.