Taking Effective Notes

Whether you choose to go old school with pen and paper, or prefer to have everything digital, the most important thing for taking effective notes is staying organized. That means attending classes, dating your notes, and keeping your notes and course info in one place so it can be easily retrieved. For computer note-takers, software like Evernote is a great way to keep all your course material in one place – your syllabus, readings, and notes can all be stored and accessed from any computer through your browser. Plus, you can tag your notes with keywords and retrieve all your notes with that tag in a click when you’re studying for a test!

It’s easy to get distracted in class, whether you’re sitting next to someone chatty or you’ve fallen into a black hole of GIFs. Minimizing distractions is key to getting all that important information down, so turn off your WiFi if you have to, put away your phone, or sit towards the front to stay focused.
Instead of just copying down what you professor says in lecture, try adding keywords and questions to your notes to help you see important themes in your lectures, brainstorm for essay topics, and create practice exam questions. If you’re taking notes by hand, the Cornell note-taking method uses different columns in your notebook to include your notes, questions, and a summary of the lecture to complete after class. There are lots of resources for Cornell note-taking paper that you can download and print to make it even easier.

Reviewing your notes this way is great for checking your understanding and researching any questions you have before you forget all about it. Even though re-reading your notes after a two-hour lecture might be the last thing you want to do, it’s important to make sure your notes are complete while everything is fresh in your mind – a break between classes is the perfect opportunity to do revise!

Ultimately, the best tip is to make a system that works for you and stick to it. It can be tough to stay disciplined but some extra effort throughout the year will have a major payoff when it comes to exams and assignments.

Content courtesy of: http://www.schoolfinder.com/news/article.asp?ID=2701&SectionID=7

Knowing How to Write Well

Communication skills are at the heart of what it means to be a student. Whether in college, university, or on the job, knowing how to write well is not only an essential skill, but also an important part of fostering good overall communication. Despite differences in study, improving your ability to communicate your ideas and concepts clearly will come in handy.

Planning and necessary preparing before you write is critical to your paper’s success. Teachers are famous for requesting an outline before any written draft of an essay. The reason is that an outline is highly effective for organizing your thoughts, ideas, and arguments. Writing without an outline is flying blind—make an outline and make your life easier.

“Does spelling count” is often heard in elementary, and even high school, but will seldom be heard in a university or college classroom – everything counts! A major part of writing is precision and discipline: which means editing, editing, and editing. Lazy mistakes, errors, and thoughtless words on a page will do little to impress your instructors or help you get your point across to the reader. Edit your work!

Often students will try to pump-up their essays with large words, clichés, wordiness, and poor grammatical and sentence structure. Make sure you approach your properly indented paragraphs with caution, and use words you know, always side with plain English, and try to avoid clichés that are commonplace.

Read over your work and be thorough – university and college professors will not take kindly to phrases that make no sense or that they cannot understand; there are no part marks.

To be a strong writer, a helpful place to start is to become a strong reader. Reading helps you understand structure, style, and content that will all inform and better your writing.

Most schools have writing resources to aid you with your assignments – take advantage of these services. Good luck!

Article courtesy of: http://www.schoolfinder.com/news/article.asp?ID=2705&SectionID=7

Study Tips for Your Learning Style

Everyone learns differently, so knowing Study Tips for Your Learning Style will help you to make your study time more efficient. A popular model for defining learning styles is the VARK model: visual, kinaesthetic, reading/writing, and auditory.

Educational group games & activities

Educational group games & activities

Access an ever-expanding online database of educational group games & activities specifically designed to equip teachers, corporate trainers, camp leaders, youth workers, outdoor educators and many others with outrageously fun and interactive activities.

Visual dictionary on the topic San Francisco

With this  visual dictionary on the topic San Francisco learn 14 new words and expressions related to this topic. For every vocabulary item there is an illustration, a definition, its use in a sample sentence, and audio pronunciation.

My Favourite Phonics and Literacy Websites

My Favourite Phonics and Literacy Websites from Teacher Suzy

Stop Multitasking

Stop Multitasking - it will destroy your brain. Such are the words of Deepak Chopra: "It’s the one skill that gets worse, so if you practice multitasking it will get worse progressively. It also damages your brain. It’s like any other addiction."
See this interesting video:

Free Reading Comprehension Cards

These free reading comprehension cards help students think critically and better understand stories and texts they read. Using the cards, students will practice the following reading strategies:
1) Predict
2) Connect
3) Clarify
4) Question
5) Comment
6) Synthesize
These reading comprehension cards can be used in large groups, small groups, literature circles, or individually.

Subject:

Reading, Critical Thinking, Reading Strategies

Grade Level(s):

Third, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Seventh, Eighth, Homeschooling

Goal Setting for the New School Year

“If you don’t know where you are going, how can you expect to get there?” – Basil S. Walsh

This quote by Basil Walsh really pinpoints the importance of setting goals.  If your children do not do goal setting for the new school year, they will be just aimlessly floating through their lessons.  By helping your child set goals you are not only teaching him an important skill that he will use the rest of his life, but you are helping him create a tool by which to steer his life.  These blogs will help you teach your child how to set goals, create a visual tool to stay focused on those goals and explain why setting goals is so important.

Good Homework Habits

Good Homework Habits

ABC Life Literacy Canada offers 10 tips on how to make homework a part of your family’s daily routine. Establishing good homework habits for younger children helps them develop effective study skills for high school and beyond.

1. Have a specific – and limited – time each day for homework. An hour should be enough for younger children. Early in the evening is best, so that when homework is done there is still time for play. Starting later means rushing to get finished before bedtime, when kids may become too tired to concentrate.
2. Have a regular place for homework. For older kids somewhere “quiet” might be best, but younger kids often do better in a common area like the kitchen or at the dining room table, with an adult nearby.
3. Limit distractions and temptation. Turn off the TV, cell phones and other electronics during homework hour – for the whole family.
4. Parents can do their own routine tasks during homework hour, but should be readily available to help, encourage, and answer questions. But don’t do their homework for them!
5. Start with the hardest subject first, since it will probably take the most time and effort.
6. Kids can become overwhelmed with big assignments or projects. Parents can help them break the project down into smaller steps.
7. When kids resist or delay doing homework, parents can help motivate them by using positive language (“When you finish your homework, you’ll be able to …”) instead of negative language (“If you don’t finish your homework, you won’t be able to …”).
8. Kids have different learning styles, and parents can help them develop effective methods for doing their homework. However, if homework is a constant struggle, talk to the teacher.
9. Show kids how the skills they are learning relate to real life. For example, if a child is learning math, collect receipts from the supermarket and calculate the weekly or monthly cost of your groceries.
10. Don’t limit family learning to homework hour. Make learning a part of daily life by embracing everyday learning opportunities.

To receive a FREE copy of our e-book, A Parent's Guide to Solving Homework Problems please visit our Facebook page.

How to Find the Right Tutor for Your Child

It can be painful to watch your child struggle through a particular concept or unit in school. Whether it is difficulty in understanding long division, struggling with standard English grammar rules or anything in between, there is only so much that teachers and parents alike can do. For children who are having trouble in particular areas of study, it often helps to hire a tutor. This can be a great way to help a child better understand concepts in a way that relates to him. Over time, working with a tutor can result in a significant improvement in a child’s grades and self-confidence.

This article, How to Find the Right Tutor for Your Child, provides 4 key points to consider when looking for that special tutor.

10 iPhone Apps to Help Kids Manage Homework

As kids get older, their responsibilities and schoolwork begins to increase, sometimes to the point that it seems like they need a dedicated personal assistant to manage the workload! Whether your child has his own iPhone or shares yours, these are 10 of the apps you can both rely on to make sure that homework gets finished on time and reference material is readily available.