Break Time!

This week we discussed ideas about how to improve motivation for assignments and work. In the past, I have been exclusively motivated by my grades this sometimes meant that if I didn’t see the value of an assignment and it wasn’t worth a lot of points I often would not do it. It crazy though with assignments like these were I am only motivated by grades I typically wait until the last minute and it is not always my best work. However, on the rare chance that I am motivated by my self interest I will jump at the opportunity to complete the assignment and I will sink a lot more time and resources into making sure it done well even going above and beyond what is required at times. Quite frankly this shows me that I am kinda short-sighted, I only care about the immediate gratification I get out of something not the long term benefits. Moving forward I plan to shift my motivation from these short term benefits to my long terms goals. Looking at an assignment and telling myself I need to do well on it get a good grade in this class won’t motivate me as much as telling myself I need to do well on this assignment so I can reach my long term career goals. However I am not completely confident in this method either, so I am also gonna throw in some extremely short term goals like breaks. Complete this part of the assignment and you can take a 10-minute break to do something else you want to do. However, I can’t be trusted to keep myself reliable on this system so I am gonna use some online timers featured in this week’s lesson in order to keep my self accountable. I also like the idea of going to the gym more so I am gonna try that as well.

keep in touch,

Alex

Sources:

https://tomato-timer.com/

How to Take a Study Break

Google search or research?

I have a lot of hobbies and for most of them, I taught myself how to do it through the internet typically just starting out with a mere google search and continuing from there, find resources that would raise additional questions and googling some more until I had only answers. What I am trying to say is I always felt my researching skills were adequate and even go as far as to say above average. However, hobbies are not academic papers, the source I use for my hobbies would never stand up in an academic paper. Furthermore, when conducting research for papers I always turned to google scholar as I was very familiar with google, yet I never realized I wasn’t using it to its full potential. I understood how to use the AND/OR operators but some of the other features I’ve never used before, like query a specific site for sources. I also found it discouraging to use google scholar because a lot of the sources I found didn’t actually have any content with them and was just a preview. This was really frustrating to me as I’d have to open twice many links to find a full source I could use. This all leads to me to my next point, I never realized I could use google to find a source and then access the source another way such as thought he library.

Good luck with your next paper,

Alex

Source: https://www.lifewire.com/restrict-search-to-specific-domains-1616500

This just in, note-taking is hard!

In high school, I was constantly searching for new ways to take notes but this was more to do with my desire to have a copy of my notes regardless of where I was. You see the thing is I was very organized in high school, I had a folder and notebook for each class. Loose papers went in the folder and notes where taken by hand in the notebook.  Alas at the end of the school year I’d be left with a pretty hefty stack of paper that I didn’t really know what to do with (They ended up in a box that I still have), but the point was that there are notes in there that may be helpful today but I can’t find because they aren’t conveniently available. That leads me to my quest to search for other note-taking options and was very happy to hear that I was receiving an Ipad for college, for once all my notes are in the same spot, easily accessible and always available (I don’t go to campus without my Ipad). However, even with this improvement, it is very unlikely I ever check my notes after I write them with the exception of once before a midterm or quiz (this doesn’t apply to every class, I used my physics notes regularly). This is for one main reason my notes aren’t the greatest, and often it is easier and quicker to do a quick google search to re-familiarize myself with a topic then dig up my notes and try and decipher what I once confused for organized notes. It is, for this reason, I am excited to try new note-taking methods for several classes, the one I have the highest hopes for is the Cornell notes. I like the idea of Cornell note the best because the margin on the left of the notes allows me to come back later and title sections, meaning I can focus on getting ideas and concepts down without worrying about the bigger picture that the ideas fall under for organization. I am also going to take steps to ensure that I am more focused during lectures (like turning my phone off), something I think will also help with my note-taking and retention when learning.

Best of luck with your notes,

Alex

Sources:

4.4 Got Notes?

https://www.npr.org/2016/04/17/474525392/attention-students-put-your-laptops-away

Big test? Long Paper? How?!

Finding the time to study or trying to focus while trying to write a paper have always been some of my downfalls, more often then not this would result in last-minute cramming. However, there is a bright side, this week we went over online learning strategies to help focus and memorize content. Do you remember the scenes on television when a child would act out and a teacher would discipline a child by forcing them to write the same sentence 100 times? Well apparently there is more behind this then just an unusual punishment, writing things down is actually a strategy that forces you to remember things. This of course only works when you write the entire sentence, in an effort to maximize the time I would write down one letter in a sentence then go on to the next sentence basically completing all the sentence one letter at a time simultaneously. This, of course, wasn’t the only strategy that we went over this week, there are lots like creating mnemonic devices something that in the few instances that I have done it have proven so effective I remember the information today nearly 6 years after I had initially learned it. These devices can make studying for a test more effective and more efficient.

It’s been great talking,

Alex

Sources:

https://www.fastweb.com/student-life/articles/memorize-this

I have so many hobbies, and it can be very detrimental to my ability to get work done because often I’d rather work on those projects then do boring and interesting homework. Often the only reason I do any assignment is that I don’t want to fail the class, very little does it happen where I am actually excited to do an assignment (although I always bite off a little bit more then I can chew on these).  This week, however, we discussed ideas and ways to improve time management, one of my favorite ways was to ask yourself just 3 questions. The 3 questions are Where are you? What do you want to accomplish? and How will you fell when it is done? I believe that these questions will not only invalidate my current activity but also prove to motivate me to switch the more important task and give me reasons to do it. I mean after all, if an assignment takes 20 minutes to do before the due date, why not just get it done with now and not have to worry about it later. Furthermore, we discussed ways to stay on track and even tracked our entire week on a spreadsheet, news flash I spend a lot of time sleeping and working on various projects. However, I did like one of the methods we discussed which was to use a task manager, I already use the carmen calendar for school work and absolutely love getting assignments crossed off but this does very little for everything else I do in my life and so I feel adding a task manager to my life will improve my focus as I’ll have yet another thing to look forward to at end of assignment.

Take care,

Alex

Link: https://www.lifehack.org/articles/technology/top-15-time-management-apps-and-tools.html

To whom it may concern,

This week’s lesson taught me less then I was hoping for and reinforced the fact that I have some good habits already developed when it comes to learning and collaborating online. Of course, I typically fall short in one major area and a very important area, time management. That, however, is something I am constantly trying to improve and hasn’t affected my ability to get work done by any due date. This week’s lessons put some emphasis on effective ways to work and collaborate with a team both online and in-person, but as surprising as it may I have not once had a negative experience working in a group. This can be partially explained by my dedication to group work though, as I will step up(if no one else does) and organize group projects and even set mini due dates just like where suggested in the videos from this weeks lesson. In the past I have relied on everyone to remember and what they are supposed to do and get it done by this time, occasionally checking on progress to make sure everything is moving slowly. Moving forward though I am excited to try services like Trello to organize who is doing what, something I see becoming even more valuable as projects become bigger and more complex.

Changing gears a little, I have never personally used blogs or social media very much because even from a young age (I made a Facebook account when I was 13) I was very conscious about my online presence. I honestly always felt a little weird sharing personal details about my day or week or what have you with strangers on the internet of which literally anyone could see. Today I am thankful that my young self was so mature, as your online presence can have a lasting effect on your eligibility for getting certain jobs with some employers even using it as a way to vet candidates for a position. I have no idea what I’d do if an interviewer asked me what I meant by some off the wall slightly offensive comment I left in the 7th (luckily there are none).

Formally,

Alex

P.S. did you notice this is formatted a professional email should be? (Minus this P.S. of course)

Sources:

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/e/2PACX-1vQDfFfTekNgYcbrYPPkUhWXlokk8kZ0vBsy6JbPfO6XxCFxAsOpaGwqpZG0YCteIT0UwhNSv2eqpl0e/pub?start=false&loop=false&delayms=3000

https://trello.com/