These 45 minute part-lecture, part-interactive sessions are taken from the center’s core curriculum on learning and motivation. They are presented by request for members of the Ohio State community, as an open series in spring, and as part of the First Year Experience success series.
Our current workshops topics include:
Gearing Up for Higher Education
There is no magic bullet that will help you successfully manage higher education. It takes a number of strategies and hard work that will put you on the proper path to college success.
The gearing up for higher education workshop was developed to help you know what it really takes to succeed in college. It will help you apply strategies for managing time, learning from texts and lectures and preparing for exams that will help you thrive in the context of a university.
Active Note-taking Strategies
If you have ever been in a lecture where the teacher was speaking too quickly or just very monotone, you may have wondered how to best take notes. You worry about keeping up or just not sure what to write down at all. At the end of the talk, you wish you had taken notes but weren’t sure how it could have helped. Being an engaged listener and taking effective notes is not always easy.
In our active note-taking strategies workshop we will teach you how to be more effective at taking notes so you can get the most out of your classroom instruction. You’ll learn how to recognize instructor emphasis and determine which information is most relevant, how to organize lecture content, how to use abbreviations and symbols to be an efficient note taker. Finally, you’ll learn how to develop an effective study plan based on your notes.
Dealing with Procrastination
We all have been there. It’s the beginning of a semester. You have all the important deadlines you have to meet. You tell yourself you will not fall behind and will get a head start on assignments. But invariably, time slips away and you find yourself scrambling to finish an important research paper or cramming for final exams.
Procrastination is a real issue we all have to face. In this workshop, you will learn everything you always wanted to know about procrastination but haven’t gotten around to asking. You’ll come to truly understand the costs of procrastination. You’ll explore your reasons for procrastination and work to identify what’s really going on when you procrastinate. This workshop also will introduce you to a plan to begin minimizing it using proven techniques to better manage your time.
Great minds work together: Planning effective study groups
Working well with others to achieve a common goal is essential to your success professionally and personally. As a college student, you’ll likely experience this on group projects or study groups. This workshop will show you how to plan for success and get the most out of a study group.
You will be introduced to social learning and understand why some study groups have successful experiences while others end with disappointment. You’ll also be taught the four stages of group development and how to choose compatible study group members. Finally, you will learn which study group techniques are best for each type of learner and ways to enhance your group’s effectiveness.
Preparing Papers
An essential part to your college education will be writing a variety of essays and research papers for your courses. Making a compelling argument and properly supporting it with appropriate sources is a necessity to writing a successful paper.
For this workshop, you will learn how to create strong thesis statements, introductions, body paragraphs and conclusions for any paper you have to write. You will learn how to combat writer’s block. We also will train you how to appropriately document supporting materials and avoid plagiarism at all costs.
Keys to Strategic, Confident Test Taking
Exams can be a stressful experience. You have to learn the material, take a test in a finite time and wait for your grade to post. But if you are strategic about how you prepare for your exams, you can be confident any exam you take will turn out just fine.
In this workshop, you will learn the optimal ways to prepare for your exams and the best strategies to take different types of tests. You’ll understand what an effective plan for mid-terms or finals week looks like and how you can use this plan to be more confident going into exams.
Personal Learning Strengths… Understanding Your Preferences for Learning and Using Them to Make Studying More Effective.
Most people recognize that each of us has a preferred way of learning. Some thrive during long lectures while others need to talk through an issue to understand it. Some learn best by themselves and some prefer to learn in groups.
Do you know your strengths as a learner? We have developed this workshop to help you distinguish the characteristics, strengths and weaknesses of several learning methods and to help you identify your own preferred form of learning. You’ll also be able to recognize which types of courses and teaching styles are less than ideal for certain learners and how to react constructively to an academic situation that does not suit your strengths.
Stress Less: Tips for Building Academic Confidence and Resilience
Stress is an inevitable part of life. Each of us deals with it differently. But being able to manage stress and create academic goals will help you build confidence and resilience to handle any of the challenges college throws at you.
Our stress less workshop is perfect for students who are looking for strategies to manage stress and techniques that will help you quickly bounce back from adversity. Additionally, you will learn the importance of thoughts, identify self-talk and how to create manageable goals.
Use Your Brain! Memory Tools for Effective Studying
Your brain is a powerful tool that can learn and retain all kinds of information. Retaining the information you learn in college is not only relevant to your studies now but also is important to build on as you move into a professional career. Improving your memory is a skill that will benefit you throughout life.
The Memory Tools for Effective Studying workshop teaches you the different types of memory and the factors that affect it, how to build meaningful learning and how to solidify that meaning for the long-term. By the end of the workshop, you will understand what it takes to not just study new information but to do so in ways to help you to truly retain it for both the day of the exam and long after.