Academiclub

Focused Study: No Distractions

admin — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 00:00:00 +0000

In a few more weeks, the lazy hazy days of summer will come to an end. Once again the roar of the school bus and the toll of the school bell will call our children to those hallowed halls of academia expecting them to take on the task of learning for another year.

Some students are ready, but many have already forgotten all that their teachers tried so hard to teach last year. This generation seems to be plagued by the distraction of academic failure. Many public schools recognize that the emotional distraction of failure in the classroom is requiring teachers to reform and redesign what’s done there. More and more schools and school districts are looking at the focused learning model as a source of academic and behavior support for both at risk and challenge students.

Focused study provides a framework for planning and delivering instruction that can be successful both in the classroom and at home. Focused study provides cohesion in study because it is both consistent and pervasive. The repetition of an academic discipline addressed across the board in school curriculum and at home provides students with a strong foundation on which to build academic success and ultimately close the achievement gaps.

Make Your Study Time Count

admin — Mon, 29 Aug 2011 00:00:00 +0000

Study time is important for children of all ages. To make the most of your child’s study time, it is important to minimize distractions. This means turning off the television, cell phone or iPod while working on homework. If your child must use the computer, ensure they avoid social networking sites. Make sure your child is given the proper set up to be successful. A desk and comfortable chair are necessary to keep your child relaxed and focused. Good lighting and a bin of nicely organized supplies can make doing homework or preparing for an exam much easier. Creating a consistent study time can also help your child transition to doing school work at home. If study time falls directly after school, it is nice to have some prepared snacks to munch on while working. If you child has a big exam or spelling test, work with them one on one. Have them spell words for you or quiz them on their knowledge of history events. Taking time to study with your child shows that you are involved and care about what they are learning. Remember that all students get overwhelmed and it is important to take breaks while studying.

Effective Habits for Effective Studying

admin — Mon, 15 Aug 2011 00:00:00 +0000

A big part of learning is learning how to study. It seems like an easy task but often takes a number years, and hard work. People learn in various ways, so no one studying style fits all students. However, there are some general and universal study habits that have shown to help a large majority of kids in all levels of education. Before even starting to study, you must know what type of environment allows you to focus best. For example, some absorb information best by being in quiet places, others in busier areas.Confused? Here ‘s a little help . Knowing where you study best will lead to the most efficient and effective studying. Next, you must get in the habit of knowing how you learn. Is reading the text book and notes alone sufficient for you to engrave the given information until the text date? Often times, it helps to write key points (as though taking notes) as you read through the text. Finally, one of the most important study habits is to know how long you can study without taking breaks. Usually this is not a very long time. Taking short breaks is crucial for retaining learned information and for not running out of steam.

Ways for MENSA Members to Give Back

admin — Sat, 09 Jul 2011 00:00:00 +0000

If you’re a MENSA member you know what it means to think hard. Whether or not you use your talents there’s a world of opportunity out there just waiting for your skills and knowledge. Here are a few of the ways you can put your intelligence to good use and give back to your community.
Help city planners – Even with little experience, you’ll be welcomed into any busy city planning office. Come up with some novel ideas for transportation or crime solutions in your area and present them to the appropriate people – decision makers respect MENSA.
Help the elderly – Spend some time with the elderly; their old age means wisdom as well as poor health. If you can, help them with everyday things like comparing electric companies in the area or shopping for groceries. Human interaction is a tenant of a growing mind.
Volunteer at a High School – If you like kids, give back some of your blessings and talk to kids about a subject that interests you. Help organize a physics club or a pre-med curriculum or simply spend some time mentoring and tutoring at a local school. You’ll be glad you did.

Emerging Careers

admin — Sat, 30 Apr 2011 00:00:00 +0000

It only makes sense that people are trying to find out what careers are currently growing and emerging from a changing marketplace. Emerging careers give people job security, good pay, and the flexibility to take good jobs in different locations. Some of these emerging careers may surprise you, but here are a few of the fastest growing jobs currently available.

With so much internet business taking place, it only makes sense that computer software engineers and network systems analysts would be two of the fastest growing careers. By 2016 there is expected to be double the demand of workers in the network systems analysts field.

Surprising to many people, drug and behavioral disorder counselors are also growing at a very fast rate. A Master’s Degree is require to have this job in most states; this keeps the amount of eligible workers for this field low, while the demand continues to grow at a fast rate.

One of the fastest growing careers is actually registered nurses. There is an incredibly high demand for people to fill these positions leading to better pay, a large selection of locations to get a job, and major marketing trying to convince people to get into this field.

Great Careers to Focus On

admin — Sat, 16 Apr 2011 00:00:00 +0000

There are many careers in the world today. Careers in technology are great careers to focus on. Going to college to become a computer programmer, data entry and even teaching computers are careers that will be in high demand for the future.

There are always buildings to be built, amusement parks, and bridges. All require engineers to design them. Engineering is such a broad field and a great career to focus on.

Science is the wave of the future, many things are no scientific. There are a lot of fields of science to go into, biology, astronomy, archeology and even mythology. All are interesting careers to go into and in high demand.
Dentistry is another field that will always have customers. People will always need their teeth worked on from general dental care to orthodontic care.

It is not a glamorous career, and not for everyone, but plumbing is a great career to focus on. The world is always in need of good plumbers and anyone going into that profession will be in high demand.

If a person loves math, accounting is a good career. Taxes always need paid and records need to be kept. Businesses are always on the lookout for a good accountant who knows what he or she is doing and can keep their affairs in order.

There are a lot of careers in the world. The most important thing is for each person to find one that he or she will love.

It’s a Crazy Online World

www.academiclub.org — Sun, 30 Jan 2011 00:00:00 +0000

If you’re thinking about taking advantage of the advancements in technology to the point that a college degree can be obtained virtually without ever having to get out of your pajamas, you might want to make sure you understand the importance of accreditation before you pay tuition to a school that has not been awarded a standard of quality as measured and recognized by the U.S. Department of Education. Why should you have to worry about this, you ask? Simply stated, knowing that a school has been awarded accreditation by an agency such as the Department of Education means that the degree program(s) being offered are more likely to be recognized as viable and valid by future and prospective employers. Additionally, should you ever want to have courses transferred from one institution to another as you pursue additional or ongoing degrees, the likelihood of one institution accepting another’s coursework is much more likely when the courses were taken from an accredited institution. If you want to check the accreditation of any school you are considering, you should link up with U.S. Department of Education or the Council for Higher Accreditation and steer clear of others that know how to entice web traffic with their “legit sounding” names. Also steer clear of institutions that state they are pursuing accreditation, chartered, licensed, registered, approved, or authorized. The only term that should matter to you as you seek legitimacy in your education is “accredited.”

Learn Your Learning Style

www.academiclub.org — Sun, 09 Jan 2011 00:00:00 +0000

If you’re like me in a classroom setting you find yourself mentally distracted by the lecturer’s tie pattern or hair style more than concentrating on what is coming out of his mouth or being written on the whiteboard. That’s because I’m a “reflective” learner with a strong current of “sequential learning” thrown in rather than a pure visual or verbal learner. And if you didn’t know it yet, there are in fact many “types” of learners from eight identified by Richard Felder and Linda Silverman in their Index of Learning Styles to Howard Gardner’s Theory of Multiple Intelligences. These can range from sensory, intuitive, visual, verbal, active, reflective, sequential, and global in the first case to spatial, linguistic, logical-mathematical, bodily-kinesthetic, musical, interpersonal, intrapersonal, naturalistic, and existential in the latter. Once I was fortunate enough to take an Index of Learning Stylse test and have it analyzed it was quickly apparent that I was a reflective and sequential learner and would struggle with any course material that was presented in a more traditional format like a pure lecture or pure reading. This made a lot of sense to me since it’s impossible for instructors to adapt their teaching styles to the wide array of learning styles, so it should be up to the student to take the information and process it in a manner that makes best use of their unique learning styles to make the equation work. If you find yourself struggling in learning settings, whether it is brick-and-mortar classrooms or online technology, you may want to check out some testing options available from your school or through local professional development resources so you can make changes to your study styles just as I did. The information not only helped me fly through school once I adapted my own personal tweaks on the material, but has served me well to this day.

Study Habits

mgeedey — Tue, 07 Dec 2010 00:00:00 +0000

With the winter break approaching it might be a good time to take a pause and reflect on your study habits thus far to make changes and corrections where needed so you can fly through the rest of the year as effortless as possible. Following are some tried-and-true tips that you may or may not be using. If not, you might want to practice them during the break so they become more ingrained as habit before heading back to school after the break. Turn Off the Television: You may think you’re able to study and not be distracted by ambient noise and movement, but studies have shown that voices and conversations can cut into the efficacy of your learning experience. And this includes turning the computer off as well (unless you are using it to research or write) since it, too, can be a major diversion from tasks at hand. Be Well Rested: Sure, you may think staying up all night to study is a good idea since you’ll be putting in the physical time, but if your body and mind aren’t physically rested, physical time matters little. If you plan to be out the night before you need to study, make sure you’ve allocated (budgeted) enough “make up” time to rest before hitting the books. Caffeine is Not Your Friend: It’s trendy and some think it’s cool, but too much caffeine can actually work against you in a study-scenario since it can evoke jitters and other stimuli that interfere with the ability to retain information and isn’t that the purpose of studying in the first place? Pace Yourself: If you know you have three tests coming up next week don’t focus on all three since doing so can lead to overwhelmed feelings that could block learning. Instead, focus on the subject you like the least to get it out of the way first, then move through them to the easier tasks. Some Music Might Help: We’ve mentioned not listening to conversations on the television or lyrics from music, but some students actually benefit from listening to quiet music (sans lyrics) such as classical or new age. If you haven’t tried it before, experiment with it but not when you’re cramming for something important. Instead, try listening while pleasure reading to see how your mind handles the ambient noise.

Rosetta Stone

www.academiclub.org — Sun, 10 Oct 2010 13:15:24 +0000

Even when you’re no longer in school, there’s always a moment where we’re required to learn. For example, when you’re travelling to France and haven’t studied French in. . . oh, ten years? Well, thankfully there’s a learning program that can help. Rosetta Stone makes roughly 31 different language courses, teaching individuals to speak Arabic, Russian, Italian, Korean, Spanish, and many more.The program is divided into different levels, which vary from course to course. For studying Japanese there are only three levels, meanwhile Italian programs offer five levels. The number of levels will just depend on the language. However, if all you need is a basic understanding of a language, you can purchase the level one course.Rosetta Stone has perfected the immersion technique. Instead of focusing on flash cards and individual exercises, the programs place you in environments where the language is used freely. So instead of memorizing word after word, you’re seeing the language in action. Essentially, by immersing you in foreign surroundings, Rosetta Stone makes language learning a natural process.The CD-Roms are expensive, with the initial level costing around 200. For the more advanced levels, the price rises dramatically. However, if you are serious about language acquisition, Rosetta Stone is one of the best programs to use.