Last One's A Doozy

TECH Entry 10

            This week, the strategy I found that helped myself out with my classes for finals the most was the “Graphic Organizer” test prep strategy, and I used it to help me study for my final exam coming up around the corner in IST 195.  I feel that out of any of the strategies I learned in this course so far, using graphic organizers has been the most beneficial to me in my other classes because they make it easy to study for tests and even help to keep me on track when I am writing a paper.

Since I am a visual learner, I really benefit from setting up information I need to study for an exam and then reviewing it in that visual form rather than just looking at a bunch of words on a piece of paper or my computer screen.

The final TECH---prepare for my final exams!

I have to admitted that time flies! I have one more week I can go back  to my home, but before that I have to concetrate on my final exams. This week the strategies I used was ranking priority and acedemic fears.

Because we have already got t othe end of this semester so that is means our tasks would have an end. This week I jave a lot of tings have to do, so sometimes I lost my directions and did not know what I should do now. so the ranking priority would be a best way to help me organized all the task I did. I used  different colour in different courses si this will easilt regonized how much I should do on each of he courses.  After I did this everytime I felt confused  I have directions to keep doing my work.

Another strategy I used this week was acedemic fear, because to be honest I felt so stressful about my finl exam of my major class-ist195. Not only because this was the my major but because the contet of this exam is different from previoue two. on the first two exams of this course the questions are all based on the lecture but this time 80% of the questions was from the textbook. So i need acedemic fear to help me analyse the outcome.  when I finished the analyze I found acutally it isnot that bad if I failed so all I can do is relax and try my best to prepare it.

Building Blocks to Finish

this week i am going to use building blocks to finish strategy. 

as final weeks coming, i have already been busy.  in the next two weeks, i have a lot of to do. i will have couples of exams and final exam, which are very stressful. besides those exams, i also will have a project, which is from cls 105. it is future career exploration. however, i have already finished it during the thanksgiving break. it helped me to save a lot of time for my finals. in addition, i want to talk about my final schedule. basically, i will take statistic exams, linguistic exam, and psychology exam. in the next week, i have to take psy exam, which is on friday. on thruseday, i have to take my third statistic exam.  after the next week, which is the final week of this semester, i will take my linguistic exam, and i will take my statistic final.  my focus of next one week is statistic and my psy class.  after next week, i will focus on studying statistic again, at the same time i will also study the linguistic, which is very hard i think. 

Stress Management

TECH Entry 9

            This week, the strategies I used to help me out with my classes were the “Stress Diagram” and “A Day at a Time” stress management strategies in order to help me out with my homework that I have to do over break.

I used the “Stress Diagram” strategy for all my classes that assigned work over the break—which would be IST 195, REL 205, HST 231, and WRT 105—in a surprisingly successful attempt to manage my stress levels.  It worked so well because for me, I need a controlled environment when doing my work in order to be productive; and without it, I tend to just run in circles and have a hard time even getting work done.

The other strategy I used was the “A Day at a Time” strategy, and I used it in tandem with the “Stress Diagram” strategy with considerable success in that I used it to give myself a list of the stress factors that were persisting and needing to be eliminated.  It also gave me attention to which factors were more problematic because of the fact that I was having trouble getting rid of them.  This strategy worked well for me because I need a constant reminder of things that need to be taken care of in order to even get things accomplished, so having this on-going list of things that are causing stress enabled me to focus on what they were and get rid of them effectively in a faster fashion than if I had not used the strategy.

5 minutes escape and stress

This week I am going to talk about my stress diagram.  First of all, stress diagram helps us to understand how our stress spread, and how percentages they are.  As a normal person, I also have stress.  I am going to talk about my stress. Most of my stress, is my grade.  As known, I need to transfer to Whitman and ischool.  So I have to work on high grade.  I have been feeling stressed out since the beginning of this semester.  I really want to achive my goal and transfer into Whitman and ischool.  In addition,  I have some stress about my future.  As I am studying in university, I need to worry about what I am going to do in the future. I want to get internship during summer.  However, it does look like that it is easy.  Moreover, I want to apply an RA for next year.  I don’t have a lot confidence about that. It is also a good opportunity for me. I really want to get that. 

Second, I want to talk about five minutes escape. Taking a break is very important. keeping work will make people fatigue.  Once I study every 2 hours, I will take about 10 minutes or 20 mintues break.  Or I call it 5 mintues escape.  During that 5 mintues, I will have a deep breath. Or think something else, try to let my brain take a break.   Or sometimes, I will wash my face or try to breath my teeth.  I also call that 5 minutes escape. I try to keep my brain very clear. 

Blue is GPA concern

Red is career concern

Purple is  life stress. 

Green is TA competition

relax is great

Oh yeah! I am so excited because next week I can see my high school friends in Chicago. Thanksgiving break it is really wonderful time for us to relax for awhile. On this week's tech, I would use stress diagram and five-minute escape to help me escape from the stress of a lot of exams and projects.

stress diagram is a good way for me to know exactly what are the things really make me stressful. One of the things make me crazy was the due day because you have to think about it every single day. A lot of things come into your head is really annoyed so make the gragh to help me find out what are the things become important. I used different  color to help me to see clearly which one makes me so tired so I can do something to relase myself. Usually when I feel tired I would chose to watch a comedy or listern to the music which I loved. After it I would feel full of energy so I can back to work effienctly.

Nest strategy I used was five-minute escape. Due to the fact sometime I do not have so much time to watch movie so use a little break becomes so siginificant. Breaths is a very good way to relax yourself. I still remeber when I was a chid I went to the piano competition I was so nervous at the bac kstage so my mother told me to close my eyes and took a deep breath before I started to perfomance. Everytime it worked for me because you just feel you have nothing should worry about at this moment and all I should do is try my best to express the music. Also, a little exercise is very helpful expecially you feel your body isn't yours.

In summary, everyone has their stressful things so if we can find the proper way to relax ourselves I believe we will work more effiency.

Hope everyone can have a nice Thanksgiving~~

entry 8

This week the strategy I used are time waster and chunk the task. The reason I choose these two strategies are after all the exam I seem to relase myself but you know it is not good if I keep letting my self feel there are nothing I can do.

First of all, I used time waster, on the right column I listed the things which is distrction to me, then I listed the things which I should do. In this way, when I finished the chart I felt so guilty because I disorganize all my plan. Because I am a visual learner so I made this chart in two colors. I have to say this way is very suitable for me because when I posted on my wall, I started to thinking about why I am here, so in some ways it become a motivation for me to keep study.

Another strategies I used this week is chunk the task, firstly, I listed the thing I should have do this week, and then in option 1 and option 2  I write down the time that I should do the task. In this way it helps me set a time to finish the task.   

After making this chart I have certain conceprt that this week I should do what kind of big task and then I have idea that when should I did them . Also, in this way I  can give myself more flexiable time management so I can arrange other stuff in my life.

entry 8

This week I am going to introduce the techniques I use.

     First of all, I want to talk about time wastes.  I am a hardworking student. However, I also be lazy sometimes. When I was being lazy, I would waste a lot of time.  I spent a lot of time on the Internet.  I like to hang out on the facebook or other social networking. i think it is pretty addictive for me. because I can know what my friends are doing when i did not see them in real life. I spent so many time on the social networking without any proper reason for myself.  In addition, I watch a lot of TV. Recently I moved into the dorm,  and I had cable from school and my new TV.  I think American TV show is really awesome.  I am getting used to those TV shows. Generally, I spent a lot of time on both TV and Internet.

      Secondly, I used X minutes reading tech.  I am not good at reading, especially academic reading. I have difficulty in reading long and hard paragraph.  Sometimes it is very hard for me to concentrate on reading.  So I tried to use this X minutes reading.  Basically, I trunk the reading pages, and I summarized the reading materials. When I try to read more paragraph, I will look though and review the previous reading part. I think that helps my mind to understand what the content was trying to show me.

Time waste	Avoid tasks
Faceook social networking TV shows Hanging out with friends	I try to turn off my laptop and TV when it is not necessary for me to run them. If it is really necessary for me to turn on the laptop, I will open the facebook and listen to the music. In addition, I tried to do separate my focus on social networking and TV.

Trunk the reading parts.	Summarize the reading	Review the previous reading
Original of language Language and society Language and society of dialect 1 Language and society of dialect 2	Language is originated from where, when, and how. Different area has different dialect. Explain why and how does that happened.	Original of language Language and society Langage and society dialect 1 Language and society dialect 2

Time Wasters & More

TECH Entry 8

            This week, the strategies I used to help myself out with my classes were the “X Minute Reading” and “Time Wasters” reading and anti-procrastination strategies to help make sure that I get all the work that I have due this last week before break done.

I used the “X Minute Reading” strategy for my HST 231 class because the readings in it at the moment are very difficult to understand and are also quite lengthy.  And I found this strategy to be so helpful because it is really tailored to mold the user’s individual learning methods.  I have a hard time staying focused on lengthy and involved readings, but by using this strategy I could break it up into smaller sections and then at the end of each I summarized what I learned and reviewed that information, took a short break to clear my head, and then got back to the reading after quickly reviewing the previous material.  And the reward function of this strategy did wonders to motivate me to complete the reading so I could utilize it.

The other strategy, “Time Wasters,” I used for all my classes and it helped me to stop procrastinating today and get started on my work because it showed me that I really did not have time to waste any time at all.  It clearly listed what I was doing to procrastinate as well as the tasks I was trying to avoid having to do, which for me, was really helpful because I need to see the reminder in order for the reality to set in.  And the reality was that I was procrastinating and wasting valuable time that I really could not afford to waste.  Both strategies worked very well.

academic fear and exploring rewards

This week I am going to use academic fear and exploring rewards for my studying.

This semester, my tasks of my courses are not hard. I am keep doing my work. however, I am kind of lazy sometimes.  I have very high expectation for myself.  I finished all my homework.  My problem is that I can do better during this homework. My fear is laziness. In addition, when I am taking literal art courses, such as linguistic. My English is still a problem. I cannot read very fast.  I have to spend a lot of time reading again and again. by the way, it is a huge lecture. Professor pays very little attention to each individual student. 

So I write a tables for myself to analyze my problems. This tables are listed as following.

Academic fear	Worst outcome	Best outcome	Attention needed
1.     Laziness 2.     Reading in English 3.     Endless homework assignment 4.     High pressure exam	1.Low grade in the courses 2. fail the classes 3. disappoint myself and paretns. 4. waste my money and time.	1.     high grade 2.     easy to find a intenship or job.	1.keep myself busy and doing my work on time. 2. socialize less time. 3. pay more attention in the courses.

the other strategy is exploring rewards. I used this strategy pretty often.  Because I don’t want to study all the time, I give myself a lot of time to entertain myself. When I got high grade in my exam, I often reward myself something. Such as food, clothes.  I feel very excited when I get high grade in my exams.  at same time, I will encourage myself keep studying in the future. In other hand, I will reward myself. It is a win win strategy. I also listed my table as following.

No cost rewards	Play more time with ppl on my floor every night. Study less time. Watch tv, or play video game
Low cost rewards	Buy myself a meal of great food.  Or go to movie with friends. Buy a second hand video game
High cost reward	Buy myself clothes I like or sneaker I like. At the same time, I can buy some toys for myself.

Motivation

This week the strategies I used to help me have a positive status to study are Acedemic fear and Exploring Rewards.

 Although I do not want to admit that sometimes I really afraid heard that we will hve an exam on HOM165, I have to force myself to review it. So the strategy Acedemic fear help me to find out what is my problem and how I ca solve them. When you face the tough problem the best way is not excape from it but solve it.

So I filled the chart as the strategy told me and after that I find actually I can find way to solve them, it is not good if I always avoid to face this problem. The worst consequences even if it happened I can still have chance to make it up. Also , this strategy help me to list the method to get out of this trouble, that means if I really want to change the situation here I can change the result.

The second strategy is exploring rewards it helps me to encourage myself do not give up on the way so I can get the things  I wanted.

The good pointa of this strategy is it divides them to different level, such like if I finished the easy task I can reward myself with the thing I can do easilt,. However, as the diffculty increased that means I should pay more cost in order to reach my goal.

After the strategy I useed this week, I totally understnand how important the psycological suggestion is, if you want a thing badly you can do it!!!!

Motivation

TECH Entry 7

            This week, the strategies I used to help myself out with my classes were the “Exploring Rewards” and “Weighing Consequences” motivation strategies in order to kick myself into gear so I can get my work done for all my classes (IST 195, CLS105, REL 205, HST 231, WRT 105) for these last two weeks before break.

I used the “Exploring Rewards” strategy to give myself a physical list of rewards I intended to give myself if I could get my everyday work done ahead of time before it was even due.  And this worked well for me because given the way I am I tend to forget things pretty easily and end up just getting tunnel-vision on my work and forget to take breaks and just relax.  I did not really like the way it was set up with how it listed the categories for rewards so I changed the wording and filled it in with my rewards.

The other strategy I used, “Weighing Consequences,” was a great tool in my opinion because it lists a very plain and simple approach for work that needs to get done but does not have a lot of appeal for getting accomplished; and for me, that happens to apply to a lot of my work.  I used this strategy to smack myself in the face about how I was planning on completing the major assignment that I have due in each of my five classes the week before break; and it worked really, really well in helping me to organize my time which I am normally not very good at.

powerpoint notes and anticipating text questions

How time flies! It is already week 10 of this semester, so that is mean we are facing new round of exam. This week the strategies I used was help to my text of IST195. They are PPT notes and anticipating text questions.

For PPT notes, firstly I print the slides using the handout option with 3 slides on a page. So I got the slides on the left side and on the rights side it was used for writing. Then, I summarize the important point of each slide and write it down on the right side. Foe the term needs to remember I just highlight it. Because I am a visual learner so I try my best let my noted looks like interesting.

To use this strategy I review the lecture in a over-all view, and I also add some information of the knowledge the professor mentioned before. Because our text is based on the lecture so in this way I guess I wilL not lose any point of the exam.

The other strategy I used this week is anticipating text question, after I review the course I made some questions based on the lecture, and the way I did this is created fill in blank question, after that on the other side of the paper I wrote down the answer. I have to say this strategy is suit me well because during the process of created and answer the question I already review the key point for two times. Furth more the neat organization of created exam question in this way give me a positive attitude to solve the question and this is also very convenient way to review the knowledge anywhere.

exam prepare and one plus notes taking

this week, i used one plus three notes taking and exam pre for my psy class.
i am a visual learner. in my psy class, we have a lot of definitions and terms need to memorize. so i used one plus three notes taking to help me memorize those materials.  first of all, i wrote the names of those terms.  secondly i wrote the definitions of those terms.  last, i use pair studying, which i compare and contrast two similar terms.  those three steps made up my one plus notes taking.
materials i am studying about is on the chapter of language.  in this particular chapter, language was introduced to us.  we learnt analogy, reinforcement, imitation.  those terms are specific to children who learn language in their young age.  in addition, we leaner the principle of whole object assumption and mutual exclusivity. this chapter is not hard, but there are a lot of stuff i need to learn.  actually those materials are easy.  memorizing is the crucial part.

i would like to evaluate this strategy. however, i am satisfied this one plus three notes taking strategy.  it is perfect. it is hard for me to evaluate it.
i also used exam pre for my psy class this week.
i prepared the chapter of emotion.  this chapter introduce some theories about emotion. those theories are very famous.  those theories definitely are going to appear on the exam. so i draw the pictures of this theories.  and tried to use pictures to help me memorize those theories.  i attached some pictures about those famous and important theories.

Procrastination

TECH Entry 6

            This week, the strategies I used to help myself out with my classes were the “Excuse Buster,” “Study Partner,” “Chunking the Task,” and “10-Minute Technique” anti-procrastination strategies in order to help myself get on task and get my work done for REL 205 and CLS 105 ahead of time instead of waiting until the last moment.  The way I employed these four techniques was to use the “Excuse Buster” strategy to tell myself that I do not have time to start playing video games when I got back to my room after Lab; and in it did its job because I did not play any games this afternoon.

Next, I used the “Chunking the Task” strategy as a guide for laying out the steps on how I was going to go about doing each assignment.  I used a slight variation of this strategy however in that instead of including two different options on how I planned to get the work done I simply told myself that ‘failure is not an option’ and listed the steps to take for each task: so I replaced “option 1” with “REL 205” and “option 2” with “CLS 105” and filled in a sequential process to tackle each assignment.

After that I told myself I was going to use the “10-Minute Technique” and just work in ten minute blocks, but in reality I used it to get myself started on the work and after the ten minutes was up I simply kept working.  The final strategy I used was the “Study Partner” strategy to help ensure I stayed on task as I was working; but I used a slight variation of the technique and used the same idea of peer pressure by having my girlfriend from back home in California to Skype with me, and in this way I restricted myself from getting off task.  These four strategies worked extremely well together and enabled me to get my work done quick and cleanly and in a manner best for me since I procrastinate; it also worked well because I need that extra bit of structuring to work efficiently.

Reading Strategy

TECH Entry 5

            This week, the strategy I used to help me out with my classes was the “Charlie Reads SmarT” reading strategy in order to help myself to better understand my readings for REL 205 and HST 231.  I had to use a variation of “Charlie Reads SmarT” because it is designed for tests and none of my classes have any exams in the upcoming weeks, and I also felt I could utilize this strategy more by using it for writing a paper.  I took the idea of looking for what to expect on the test while reading and applied it in the sense that as I was reading I had a list of what I needed to look for in order to write the paper, and I found that it worked out quiet surprising well.

I designed a series of parameters for what to look for when reading, and anything I found that fit under that category I would record what page I found it on and where on the page it was so I could return to it in case I needed to.  For the reading itself, I broke it up into two sections to allow myself a break and avoid just staring at printed characters on a page since I lose interest in readings quickly.

TART& charlie reads smart

This week I choose TART and charlie reads smart both strategies both on my IST195. The reason why I choose TART on this course is IST 195 is totally a lecture based course so I guess it will be helpful to learn the course. For the Charlie reads smart I believe it will be helpful to my class because our homework of this course is all based on the textbook so I need to take time to reading them.

In the first place let's talk about TART, . Since my syllable of the class told me what thing I should learn so I just readed the part that realted to the topic on the textbook. Then I wrote down some of the terms that appered in bold print because I thought the professor might mention that during the lecture. Then I went to the class listern carefully of the professor and made a notes during the lecture to found if the terms I looked up was appered in the lecture.  After the lecture I read the book again and picked up the content the professor mentioned on the class. The last thing I did was I created the test question of based on the lectue and answered them.

Because I am a person who is  a visual learner so I made my TART colourful I found this strategies is useful not only help me to listened more efficiently on the class but also help me to combine the knowledge on the textbook. Furthnore, the questions I created is more closed than the central point of the topic.

Now let's move to charlie reads smart, I have to sat this helo me to figure out 42 pages reading more efficiency. firsyly , I chunked my reading materials into 4 different parts according to the different aspect of the topic. Then I began to read each part and wrote down the purpose and what problem should I understand after I read it, besides this , I made a signal of whether ths part realated to my lecture.  At the end, I made a essay questions to summarize and test my reading result. I have to sat test yourself by the question is always the best way to examine your study result.

The experinece I have of charlie reads smart help me to figure out which is the most important part I should concerned. Another point is through this strategy I have chance to read the tsxtbook over and over again. Also at summarize and text part I have to review the knowldge in the book very carefully, so I was thinking if I use this strategy to learn the course I will not afraid of the final exam.

Charlie Reads SmarT

this week i used the strategy of Charlie Reads SmarT for my two classes.

first of my class is linguistic 201. i am a visual learner. in my linguistic textbook, i chunk my reading assignment into several parts. basically i chunked my reading by different subtopics. in my linguistic chapter 8, which is mechanisms of language acquisition. there are four subtopic that are four very important hypothesis.  after i chunk the subtopics, i read those sections with purposes.  i turned heading into questions and i tried to find answers from the reading materials. i read those materials for review the lectures. i would like to deepen my lecture parts. after i read whole parts, i wrote summaries for each topics, so i could briefly review in the future.  finally, i created couples of questions in order to test myself.  from those questions, i could figure out the part i need to study more. i answered those questions, and tried to find the correct answers. as i mentioned, this strategy is called Charli Reads Smart.
in my another classes, it is enl 207. i have some reading homework assgiment to finish. i chose one of them to use strategy of CRMT. this is a almost 30 hundreds article.  i chunk this articles into paragraphs. those paragraphs make up several chunks.  after that i tried to read whole article with purposes.  before that, i read questions first. when i read my article, i read with some questions.  after read this article twice, i tried to summary this article and understood what this article talks about.  summering helps me to understand the meaning of the whole article.  after summary, finally i went to answer all the questions about this article.
  i think this strategy is great, and it helps me learn how to read.  when i evaluate this strategy, i think this strategy can be adapted to any kinds of reading in academic.

Note-Taking — 1 Plus 3

TECH Entry 4

            This week, the strategy I used to help me out with my classes is the “1 Plus 3 Note-Taking Method,” and I used it for HST 231 in preparation for an upcoming exam and REL 205 in order to help me out with the readings and papers.  The reason I chose to use this strategy is because I learn very well visually and this method makes use of a great visual aid that could really help me.  The 1 Plus 3 Note-taking strategy is good for more than just predicting test questions in my opinion as I was able to successfully use it to help me with papers and readings in that I outlined what would work for an assignment and how to quickly scan the readings for specific information.

 My overall opinion of this strategy is that it works; and for multiple reasons: first, it is extremely flexible and can be adapted to any purpose; second, it can be used to quickly and efficiently summarize lengthy notes after class and called upon at later dates to serve studying needs; three, it can be done on any computer that has a word processing application.