Recovering from a Bad Semester

Presented by: K.L. Jordan

Adapted from “On Course: Strategies for
Creating Success in College and in Life” by Skip Downing
 Overview
• Defining Success and its Obstacles
• Setting SMART Goals
• Struggling vs. Successful Students
• Becoming an Active Learner
– How the Human Brain Learns
– Three Principles of Deep and Lasting Learning
– The CORE Learning System
• Focus Points
• Resources and Reminders
 Setting SMART Goals
• Specific
– Significant, Simple
• Measurable
– Meaningful, Manageable
• Attainable
– Achievable, Action-oriented
• Realistic
– Rewarding, Results-focused
• Timely
– Tangible, Trackable
Defining Success
Obstacles to Success
Struggling vs. Successful Students
Struggling
• See themselves as victims
• Difficulty sustaining
motivation
• Procrastinate
• Solitary
• Resist learning new ideas
and skills
• Need instant gratification
• Doubt their competence
Successful
• Accept personal
responsibility
• Discover self-motivation
• Master self-management
• Employ interdependence
• Gain self-awareness
• Adopt lifelong learning
• Develop emotional
intelligence
Becoming an Active Learner
 How the Human Brain Learns
• Your brain contains ~100 billion neurons
• When learning happens your neurons send
electrical activity causing nearby neurons to
learn as well
• Groups of neurons fire to form a network
• If the network is formed once learning is
weak
– You see your instructor solve a math
problem one day and can’t recall how to
do it the next.
• If the network is formed repeatedly the
result is long-term memory
– You solve ten similar math problems
yourself
 To excel as a learner, you need to
create as many neural connections
in your brain as possible.
 Three Principles of Deep and Lasting Learning
1. Prior Learning
– Relate new information to previously learned information
2. Quality of Processing
– How you study affects the quality of your learning
3. Quantity of Processing
– Use frequent practice sessions of sufficient length
distributed over time
 You don’t create deep and lasting
learning by passively listening to a
lecture, casually skimming a
textbook, or having a tutor solve
math problems for you.
 The CORE Learning System
• Collect
Collect
– Read your textbook!
– Attend class
• Organize
– Make sense of what you’ve
collected systematically Evaluate CORE Organize

• Rehearse
– Solve MORE THAN the required
problems
• Evaluate Rehearse

– Assess what you’ve learned

(quiz yourself or teach someone
else)
While rehearsing, you might realize that some info doesn’t
make sense to you, so you organize it in a different way.

Rehearsing study materials, you’re probably evaluating your

master of that knowledge at the same time.

You can expect to use the four components of the CORE

Learning System in any order and in any combination.
 Focus Points
Almost everyone has had occasion to look back
upon his/her school days and wonder what has
become of the knowledge he/she was supposed to
have amassed during his/her days of school.
~John Dewey

Education which strengthens a person’s ability to

gather, organize and evaluate information,
contributes to more accurate adult judgments.
~Muriel James & Dorothy Joneward
 Focus Points
Marcus Stroup
There aren’t nearly enough crutches in the world for all the
lame excuses.

Don Wilder
Excuses are the nails used to build a house of failure.

George Washington Carver

Ninety-nine percent of the failures come from people who have
the habit of making excuses.

Laura Schlessinger
People with integrity do what they say they are going to do.
Others have excuses.
 Focus Points
“The best day of your life is the one on which
you decide your life is your own. No apologies
or excuses. No one to lean on, rely on, or
blame. The gift is yours - it is an amazing
journey - and you alone are responsible for the
quality of it. This is the day your life really
begins.”

~Bob Moawad
 Resources
Donna O. Johnson Skip Downing
www.nomorestudy.com www.oncourseworkshop.com
 Reminders
• Register for the Technical Research Exhibition tonight
• Follow @nsbeaex on Twitter
• “Like” us? Visit www.facebook.com/nsbeaex
– There you will find the Achiever’s Plus (A+) Blog
• Academic Improvement Scholarship deadline
extended
• SUBMIT YOUR TRANSCRIPT to NSBE Transcripts: 205
Daingerfield Rd Alexandria, VA 22314 OR
scholarships@nsbe.org
 Questions
K.L. Jordan
NSBE National Academic
Excellence Chair
nebaex@nsbe.org