At the beginning of the course, I knew very little about the importance of time management and searching using multiple databases and search engines. I only had a rough idea about time management. And I had never used an online calendar to plan my day and analyze how I spent my time. Because of that, I found it difficult to utilize my time and energy efficiently. I also learned how to find the appropriate databases for different subjects.
The most important things I learned from the class:
- Plan your day ahead of the time and monitor how you spend your time to improve your efficiency. One of the biggest difference between high school and college is the lack of supervision from other people. Professors would normally assign deadlines to students without checking progress and urge students to meet the deadlines. To make the matter worse, college students have to deal with multiple classes while job searching. It’s very easy to lose track of your activities and fail to meet deadlines. Therefore, time management is essential for academic success in college.
- Learn how to find and use academic sources. In college, professors require students to use credible and reliable sources in their paper. Proper citation style and presentation formats are also usually required. It is important for the students to learn and apply these techniques when writing academic papers.
- Learn to take notes effectively. With effective note taking skills, students can record important information on notebook for later use. The class introduced me to the Cornell system and concept mapping note taking techniques. They are really helpful in recording and organizing the information from lectures.
I definitely learned about myself in this class. I learned from this class that my time management abilities are improved by the end of this semester. I also confirmed that I had a strong preference for visual learning by taking the quiz in module seven.
I will apply what I learned from this class in the future. First of all, time management skills are essential for college success. I will use the worksheet method to help me plan and organize my time usage. Secondly, I will use the methods I learned from module six to find and evaluate academic literature I find in the future. I am sure I can improve the quality of my paper by applying these methods. Thirdly, I also learned about many online study tools in module four’s discussion board. Websites like Wolframalpha, studystack, evernote and Memorize can definitely help me in the future. Lastly, I will setup course goals at the beginning of the semester. Goals are important for academic success too. Instead of copying what others are doing without my own ideas, I can discover my own way with a clear goal in my mind. Setting intermediate goals throughout the semester will also help me motivate myself (e-learning companion: A student’s guide to online success (4th ed.) by Watkins & Corry, page 161).
My parting words to my readers are to focus on your tasks at hand with passion and clear goals in your mind. It’s very easy to get distracted in college. So try to regulate and use your time efficiently with calendars or the methods that work the best for you.
In reading your blog, I saw you noted the use of proper citations. Citations are something I know a lot of people struggle with and can cause them to lose points in important assignments. I don’t know if you have ever tried easybib.com but it generates citations for you that are always accurate to the format you are citing in. I hope this helps, the cite is definitely worth a shot!