Fast Track Learning Results

By Author: Joseph Sgro
Total Articles: 2
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Fast track your results, develop positive learning behaviour,
establish purpose and design goals that motivate, with "study skills"!

What is the most important skill? I'll give you a clue - you're doing
it right now. It's not reading, although reading is an extremely
important pathway of learning.

It's "thinking". The most important skill involves learning how to use
our internal software and hardware. The hardware being the brain and
the software being thinking patterns or "thoughts".

This article is to introduce you to the study skills guide and how
"thinking" is the real reason for it's creation, which took about 6
months and two revised editions, and sums up some of the most important
"ACTION" and "LEARN to THINK" activities I've come across in my 20
years of classroom teaching.

So what are the benefits of using the guide?

1. The guide is a personal learning resource and reference for
the learner, presenting easy to use strategies.

2. The guide targets important skills and in particular "attitude".

...
... . "Study Skills," is a way to promote proactive learning.

4. This resource is a personal development course to work
through at the individual's pace.

5. The guide presents those essential transferable skills needed to
acquire understandings and knowledge.

6. The guide provides the perfect transition course for
the learner - before and during college.

Hi, Joseph Sgro here. I'm the author of The study skills guide - created
with the student's success in mind. In this article I do a bit of teacher
talk, but in essence I'm here to encourage parents who sometimes struggle
with their teenagers.

Unfortunately, I can't solve all the problems that come up, but I'm very
familiar with the problems students have in class and in 1994, I had a
deep desire to try and alleviate some of the pain. Since then all my
privately tutored students have used my study skills program and most
have succeeded at school.

The study guide has been used successfully with all ages and I believe it
will work really well with your high school student.

Good Results with Adults
I find that adults who want to return to education courses profit from the
exercises. It gradually brings them up to speed.

Here are some of the different people who have used the guide: I've used
it with one adult who was a remedial masseuse, another who was a personal
trainer, who was off to the U.S.S.R. to teach English as a second language
and a sixty year old lady who was studying history at university. These
people have all achieved and managed to pass their courses.

What the Teacher Expects
In class students are expected to "understand the question", "know how to
research", "collect information", "sift through the data" and come up with a
"logical way of presenting the information".

Those requirements presume that students already have those skills and
are motivated. Do your children demonstrate a lack of goals and purpose?
How is their life at school? Does student behaviour produce a poor class
environment and sloppy results?

Would you like your children to be more motivated to succeed and would you
be eager to see them develop a new sense of purpose, with goals that will
promote learning, more enthusiasm and acceptable class behaviour?

The success of our children is VERY important - isn't it? I would do anything
to make sure my two boys, Frank and Michael, have a GREAT educational adventure.
It is possible, but parents have to help their students create the "right"
learning environment.

Your children can be encouraged and guided in class to establish more powerful
goals to create "purpose" in what they do - aren't powerful goals what work best
for adults?

They need to be shown how to find the resources, how to decide which information
is relevant, how to make notes and how to organize and present that information.
The guide focuses firstly on developing the right attitude and sense of purpose.
Spending time on these essential aspects will virtually guarantee better results
from your students.

What Happens in School?
What really happens? Most of the time is spent on disruptive students and not
on developing skills and learning content.

What can we do?
How many students today walk into class feeling apprehensive and wonder whether
this will be just another opportunity to fail? They do not see that there is
anything to learn from failure other than that they are not worthy of success.

How do we help them through a difficult growing period in their lives? How do
we turn our words into actions?

This is why the study skills guide was developed. It was a way of offering a
friendly hand and guidance, while students tackle those dreaded assignments and
devour the endless content.

Each page attempts to make a contribution by providing exercises to reinforce and
explain essential skills and understandings. Some points merely need revising to
refresh what we already know, while other sections set the scene for important
learning.

Fine tuning our approach to learning...
The skills section is the last section in the guide because the text is more than
just exercises - it is a short personal development course.

The most important section is the first section which covers "attitude" and how
this will influence the results we want. Without some attention to the student as
a person, with feelings and a personal agenda, we may gloss over what education is
really about.

Of the five sections, attitude is the most important element in life, because it
is our personal response to life that really matters and is the making of our success
or failure.

You may notice something special in the title: "Study Skills - for students
who will only settle for success". The title is an expression of our journey and
how we must "expect" and "work towards our own success". It would be great if we
were just handed our success and told we could go and enjoy it - unfortunately it
will never happen!

Students look for guidance and because they want our attention, parent's time is
stretched to the limit - especially when you are a single parent.

The study skills guide will not solve all educational problems. Its major benefit
is that it becomes a useful resource for any student to discover ways of learning
essential skills and thus improving their learning.

It provides examples of how to improve the effectiveness of learning strategies and
it will be available when you are not around to answer the question of "how?"
or "what?" do I do.

Even though the guide is written for the student audience, I would not assume that
"the teacher" has become obsolete. With a little direction students will realize that
they now have a resource to help them plan and to improve the effectiveness of what
they do.

MAJOR BENEFITS OF USING "STUDY SKILLS"

So what are the benefits of using the guide? I see the following benefits:

1. The guide is a personal learning resource and reference for the
learner, presenting easy to use strategies.

2. Our guide targets important skills.

3. "Study Skills," is a way to promote proactive learning.

4. This resource is a personal development course to work
through at the individual's pace.

5. It provides a method of correcting the balance between the
need for content and acquiring the essential skills.

6. The guide provides the perfect transition course for 13 year old students.

I am confident that you will find these benefits attractive and begin to understand
my enthusiasm and desire to bring this valuable resource to your attention.

One major benefit is that the guide is easy to read, as well as helpful. The section
on goals is an opportunity for students to create the internal motivation and drive,
giving "purpose" to what they do in class.

As adults we need goals to motivate us and give purpose to what we do. We mustn't
forget how important this requirement of purpose is to the student.

MAJOR BENEFITS FOR TEACHERS

What will the guide do for teachers? The benefits are as follows:

1. Teachers have a handy resource for when there is a problem
with developing essential skills.

2. The study guide is a reminder not to assume students have the
required skills, and it answers questions such as, what do I
need to teach?

3. Teachers do not need to generate the lessons.

4. A way of developing skills which are transferable across the
curriculum and a helpful transition programme.

5. A way to improve communication between teachers and
students. Most topics lend themselves to encourage
discussion.

6. A way to promote the development of important life skills
such as: writing; reading; speaking and organizational
management.

In the final analysis the usefulness of anything depends on the user and what they
do with what they have.

MAJOR BENEFITS FOR THE SCHOOL

The school would benefit in the following ways:

1. By incorporating study skills in the school curriculum, the school can build a
better learning environment and encourage teachers to work more eagerly on future
school programmes.

2. The school has a new way of providing on-going pastoral care
by providing a valuable resource for students.

3. The school has a new way of promoting skill development and
in particular life skills.

4. The school has a valuable resource especially for new teachers
and another way of turning school policy into action.

5. The school has another visual expression of a programme
which can be shared with the community to demonstrate the
focus on personal development of its students and a helpful
transition course for high school and college students.

I understand how important time is to you and I thank you for your time. I sincerely
believe that the guide, "Study Skills - for students who will settle only for success",
provides an opportunity to achieve many educational objectives.

I will include a Special Bonus for anyone who
purchases the guide - "online support". I know
what it's like to be a parent and I want to do
the best I can to make this program successful.

When you purchase the manual I will include "my
personal online support".

Just mail me and I will answer your questions
and help you where I can. I've never offered
this before, but we are in a NEW age and I
understand the demand on your time.


About the Author Joseph Sgro is the manager of Tutor Help, which
offers home study courses for students and adults.
Take up this offer now by going to the link.
http://www.tutorhelp.com.au
contact: tutor@southwest.com.au
(C) Copyright 2005 Joseph Sgro