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Module 7: Maintaining Motivation

In this Module, we learned about maintaining motivation and how you can achieve that. We looked at through building motivation, and the mind, the body, and motivation.

Everything in this module I have found very useful and can help me along my path in school. The thing I have found most useful though is probably managing your stress which can be found in this link. https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/e/2PACX-1vTsf2ZT9EM1lbzVBxgTSPu-BrF5YV3bmw2r6qDdoZyBN_JX34mJ81sheuvdDWjhUTP9pO7VeGS2jOmt/pub?start=false&loop=false&delayms=3000&slide=id.g3cf2681289_0_70 . I find this to be the most useful because as a college student myself, you tend to find yourself very stress out at some point in the year due to school. I find to be most stressed out is when I have a lot of homework due in a short amount of time or find myself stressing out about an exam. I believe these tips can help you through these times and is something I will be taking into consideration during finals week. The slide gives you a bunch of tips that can help you.

Something that I can put to use from this module would have to be building motivation and valuing my sleep more. Building motivation is something that I need to work on. I think that is a reason that leads to procrastination for most people. If you do not feel like doing it, than you will tend to push it off longer and longer, which is something I do. Being unmotivated is something I feel a lot on Sundays as I just want to lay around all day and do nothing. But finding the motivation to do it and see the results after is a good feeling. Another thing I need to work on it valuing my sleep. I usually do not get much sleep at night and this leads to me taking ling naps during the day. At night I am usually on my phone on social media or watching Hulu a lot of the time and then I look top and it is about 1 in the morning. Doing this starts my day off bad as I am tired for most of it and is another reason I am unmotivated. If I can get more sleep at night, feel more motivated to get my things done for the day and have more free time.

What I am good at from this module would have to be exercising and reducing stress that way. Everyday I feel the need to get some form of exercising in. I usually try to hit the gym about 4 times a week and stay in shape. Feeling good is important to me and the way I go about my day. Whenever I get a workout in, it makes my day a lot better and makes me feel a lot better. I tend to get more accomplished in that day than I day I do not workout.

From this module, you can take away a couple of things. First, it is important to take care of your mine and body. Taking care of these two things can make you feel a lot better and help you accomplish more things just like it helps me. It might help you stay motivated more often. Second, keep away you distractions. If you do not have any distractions such as your feel, you will be more focused on one task and will be able to get in done better and faster. And third, reduce the stress you put on yourself. There is no reason someone should have a bunch of stress on themselves. It makes you feel terrible and you will not be about to give your best effort. Find something that reduces your stress and that will be very helpful for your future.

Module 6: Searching and Researching Blog

In Module 6 this week, we went over and reviewed different ways to search and research while writing in college. There were a lot of good slides that would be able to help you with college work. There were writing tips,  source credibility, and a bunch of writing things for us to look at.

I think that most useful thing I learned in this lesson is the slide on academic writing. It gives you tips of writing papers and research papers. (https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/e/2PACX-1vQZrj92KI3pYOhE3FI5nQiDiNr7c6RnxVvE-i4BthXmA5EmgV3mlKmiYpH6NqqR7Br1ApVFUxrLnkr7/pub?start=false&loop=false&delayms=3000&slide=id.g3b024e9517_0_28). This is important to everyone who is in college because at some point, even if you are not taking a writing class at the time, you will have to write a paper for some class or in the future for you job. Throughout my college career, writing has probably been my least favorite and something I need to work on more and more each day to get better at. My writing needs to be a little more interesting I think as it is kind of boring right now. Writing is something that I can always improve on and strive to get better at since I know ill need it in the future for my major which is business. These tips that I linked above can help you with pretty much anything you are doing too.

Something that I already put into use from this module would have to be pre searching before I actually do my paper. This is a big part in doing a good paper and knowing what you are going to be writing about before you even do it. You need to know keys facts about your topic and what you want to say before you actually do. Here is a link that can help you with this that is from the module: https://ohiostate.pressbooks.pub/choosingsources/chapter/main-concepts/

Even if you are good at something and you think you know how to do something right, I believe that there is always room to improve. This is my mindset with writing. Writing is something you will do everyday without even knowing it such as a paper, texting, email, etc. The slides from this lesson can help in many ways if you are having trouble with something within your writing abilities. I think that knowing how to write and always improving will benefit you a lot in the future and your college career.

Module 5: Web Enhanced Listening and Viewing Strategies

In Module 5, we discussed many things that can help us in the classroom and improve our success in school. We learned about taking notes, using active listening, and finding resources online that can help us along our path to success. Even in college, you may think that you already know how to do these things, I believe that there will always be room to improve and I can say that I think I still need to improve on many things, especially taking notes and being an active listener.

Taking notes is not one of things I like to do but I know I can be better at this. I always think “why should I be taking notes when I’m given the slides?” or “why read the textbook when the slides are given?”. Notes will be a key part of your success and will help you remember things that you may or may not of forget during a semester. They will be essential when studying for a big exam or even a quiz. I am not a very good note taker and sometimes get confused on what to write down. This is an area that I think I can improve on big time. One area that I think am pretty good at is finding online resources to help me.

During you school experience, you may have a hard time learning something and just do not understand it. The way the teacher is explaining it, may not be working for you since we all have a different way of learning. This is why finding an outside resource may be beneficial to you. I do this all the time when I do not understand something and it helps me. some good websites may be youtube.com or even khan academy.( https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/e/2PACX-1vR-CucX-jZUVsp0vhLQ0BpXulqFRh325N1XLMQrlzdbWnZvG8SZi4Sy8JKXrrtwfXD-BDUXr_l6Jkj7/pub?start=false&loop=false&delayms=3000&slide=id.g3d08199471_0_129 ). You can find more websites here that may help. I suggest you try them out and give it a shot.

All of these 3 things in the lesson this week can have a big impact on you in your school work and may help a lot, even if you do not think. I took a class my freshman year, and just went to the class to listen to the professor without taking notes. I did not do so well on my test and had to switch things up. I went back in and took notes and did way better the second test. Even if you do not think that it will help you, I suggest giving it and try next time and see.

Module 4: Web-Enhanced Reading and Study Strategies

In this Module 4, we learned about active reading, memorization, and learning with technology. Boosting your learning with technology was probably the most important thing I learned in this module. As everything is becoming more and more online and we are getting away from the traditional ways of learning, becoming more familiar with websites and applications that can help you will be a big key in your success as a student. There are a ton of new applications can that help you be a better student. There are different ones that you can make notecards and ones that even help you write papers. Knowing how to navigate your way around these will help you see the results you want. Here are some good websites that can help you with studying.

  • https://quizlet.com/latest
  • https://www.studystack.com
  • http://memorize.com

More example are located at this slide.

  • https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/e/2PACX-1vToEQ056lQZucyWkZWBk4xFCkex97IhbcbWG5YsbJ46Mss5M7_WWas8Z1AaWskYt8_tJix7Zh6Jz4-C/pub?start=false&loop=false&delayms=3000&slide=id.g3cfe7eebad_0_203

Using these apps is something that I have learned to adapted from this module. I use Quizlet more than a couple times a week. Whether that is studying for exams or quizzes,or making notecards for the future. I think that this is one of the better websites you can use. For me, this has worked great for high school and for college too. I review the notecards I make for a class and I feel so prepared for the tests that come up in class. But I think I need to become a better active reader. I usually am not a fan of reading in general so what makes me what to read stuff I’m not that interested in? Reading is a big success in college and professors are making you read textbooks more and more outside of class so it does not waste class time. Being a good reader is something you need to do and something I’m learning to do more. Some tips I have been practicing and that I would give you would  be:

  • Start highlighting things you think are important so you can go back and review it later.
  • Write important notes from class.
  • Quiz yourself after you read something to make sure you understand it.

After all of this, the best advice I can give you would be to take full advantage of all the learning websites online. Find the best one that fits your style of learning and the one that can maximize your success. Do not let your chance to get good grades go bye and wish you could of done something different. Make sure you are understand what you are reading and not just reading to get it done. Read it to learn something from it. And the last thing would be is it start memorizing important things from a class early. This will help you when exam times come along and you do not have to study as much because you have it in your head already.

 

 

Module 3: Efficiency in the Digital Age

From Module 3, the most important thing that I learned was about ways to stop procrastination. The main focus for me, as I continue to take this class and for the future classes I take, is to stop procrastinating and get my work done earlier. I always seem to be finding myself pushing off assignments, thinking I will have plenty of time to do them. As deadlines approach, there are many distractions and other things occur that can stop you from doing you work. In the slides, there are 3 ways to stop procrastination. They are the 10 minute rule, 3 magical questions, and ultimate goal vs immediate desire.

Also in this Module, we learned about time management and tracking your time. A solution to this was tracking your time for a whole week which I did. At the end of the week, you can see where your time has gone and how much time you spent doing something such as studying, sleeping, etc.  This is something that I think can be useful to anyone right now in college. It will provide an overview of the hours of each day for you to see where you can cut time at in some aspects of your day and transfer it to something else such as studying. For me, this will be a good thing as I saw myself not spending enough time doing my school. Seeing that I can cut down on different activities such as playing Xbox will allow me to do my school work and stop with my procrastination. But I am not very good at doing everything. Something from the module that I can improve on would have to be reducing my  digital distractions. I know a lot of us are engage on social media at all times of the day and always wants to see what is going on but this is not very good. For myself, this will be a big thing I have to improve on. While doing homework, I always tend to check my phone or talk to my friends. I start to lose track of time. This is also the way I am with my Xbox. I play for a while and never want to get off when I know I have homework due or have to study. After this module, I am going to start putting my phone away while doing homework so I will not be able to check it.

Everything for this module was very useful but there are some advice I want to share with you guys. Number 1, stop procrastinating. This will never lead to anything good. I listed 3 ways above in paragraph 1 to help you guys. Number 2, track your time. See what you are doing with your time and make changes to it if it is not working out for you. And number 3, do not get distracted with technology. Take scheduled breaks if you have to and do not let it interfere with school work.

 

Module 2: Communicating and Collaborating

In the second module, we learned some valuable information about online communication and how we should go about doing so. For example, emailing, academic emailing, group communication, blogs, and online communication from Netiquette. The most important thing I think from this module would have to be Netiquette and how we look online to others. This is a big thing now and days where everything we do is mostly online and everyone can see what we do or what we post. I know for myself, social media is something I get on everyday and continues to grow too. But how do you want others to perceive who you are? Do you want them to think of you as a person with a bad online reputation? Doing one bad thing online can hurt who you are and what you want others to think of you as. Here is an example, on twitter we post and say a lot of things without thinking of the consequences. You might post something and it has a lot of vulgar too it. Now you are going to apply for a job and the person who is hiring you sees this tweet. You might not get hired just because of one thing posted online even though you are the best candidate for the job. This is something I think about before doing anything online. Be careful of what you post online.

Another thing found valuable in this module was getting better with your online communication. Since everything is now leaning towards being online, you always have room to improve your communication online. A good way to improve is by thinking you are actually talking in person, even though you are not. this may help with your emailing skills too. But be careful about how you do communicate because you aren’t face to face. Some of the things you say may be taken the wrong way. For example, sarcasm. The other person can not hear you voice through the text so they may take it as you benign rude.