'Success at School also means better comments.' What do we mean by this? In an earlier post we saw that even if we do not get on well with teachers, we can begin to improve on our future prospects by working in our local community and how that small contribution can spiral outwards to leverage opportunity. We saw that it can link us with potential employers or other contributors to a more successful future. It gets positive comment flowing around us. That is valuable.
All well and good. 'How do I get more postive comments from my high school? Are these not very important too?' Absolutely. If your school gives you a lot of bland comments, employers can easily read into this that you have not really tried to do much, just cruised, did not join in, were not a team player, needed to be pushed all the time. All these conclusions can be reached from bland but non-negative comments. Most schools these days brush over the truth of the matter with bland, beige, non-personal, half-truths so they do not offend. Trouble is, then everything has to be interpreted by parents, by employers and by higher learning institutions.
What can you do to make the situation reflect better on you? First thing to remember is that teachers like to write positive comments because it reflects well on them. If they have a class full of hard working, attentive, curious, homework doing, organised, pleasant, polite, respectful, collegial students, the thinking is that it is they who have worked hard to create such a utopian classroom. If they can use these and other, similar, adjectives to describe students in their classes, they will tell everyone, knowing it positively influences their reputation. In high school that environment is very much down to the individual student.
Above all, remember it is the teachers standing in front of you each day who contribute those comments next to your name at the end of each semester. It is those comments that build a picture of you for people you may need to impress. Do not wait for too long to get those comments going because you want a consistent, non bland, picture of you to emerge. As always do not rush it, or the job will seem too big but also because you want an emerging, not static, picture as this creates a sense of growth in the person. It's just a perception thing, as most of what we do is.
What are your favourite two subjects? What sort of comments did you get on these? Were they strong, descriptive and complimentary? Did they reflect you in your best image? Did they faithfully represent you in that class? If they did, go to the next two and ask the same. Wherever you find that the comment is not as good as you would like it, take it on as a challenge to improve by the end of semester. Your target is at least two more clearly positive comments.
It is easy to do. Your teacher can hate you but must report factually. Use this. Here's how. What sort of comment would you like to see added to your next report? Some comments to get you thinking: works hard; works independently; asks questions if needs clarification; is polite; helps others in the class; submits excellent reports; is respectful of others; has a positive approach; finishes all set tasks; is organised; work is of high quality; cheerful; attentive; always prepared with equipment ready. You get the picture. There are a lot more we could keep listing. Now pick the two you want to work on. See, two will do because teachers do not write about each subject endlessly so they write about the things that stand out most.
Now about once per fortnight during the semester you have to follow up. The time in between each confirming action in the middle could be slightly longer but I would not risk it because teachers are very busy and so need constant affirmation of their thoughts about students for it to be embedded in a positive manner. How do you get '[insert your name] respects the needs of others in our class' next to your name? Show it. 'Morning sir/miss'; or whatever the standard greeting in your area is will start the process. You can do this around the campus out of earshot of those who may tease, if you are worried about that. So, not necessarily in the classroom in front of everyone. Then the real confirmation comes in the class itself. Look for it. If a student has no pen and you have a spare, ask through the teacher if the student wants to use yours; '[insert penless student name] can use mine sir/miss, I have a spare'. No loss of face there. If two students have no text to share and your buddy sitting next to you has one, offer your text. This does not need to happen often. What does it say? It says to the teacher that you realise that some people need a hand, that you value the learning of others, that you are courteous, that you respect their right to learn ... There are many conclusions a teacher may draw from this but all must be positive. Do this only a few more times during the semester and you are a stand out for a great comment. Impossible to ignore. If you need help with other ideas, email me.
Attack only two at a time, or you will give the teacher overload as they can only write about so few. Add another next term/semester.
Good luck with your studies. Hope you start to get more positive comments now you know how easy it can be to get them.
Have a great day
Sunday, November 20, 2011
Sunday, November 13, 2011
Exam stress
Just found this on a friend's Facebook post. Remind you of anyone?
Have a great day. Good luck with exams
Saturday, November 5, 2011
Relaxing for exams II
From the first second of your first class of the high school semester, your work load starts to build up. It builds up quickly, exponentially if you are mathematically inclined, quicker than flies around sh.. on a hot summer day if you are not. Take control early, maybe from the second second. I liked writing that 'cause it sounded neat. At the end of the first day, take a look at what has happened in all your subjects. Did you get a guide to assessment in anything? Did you get outlines of courses? Were there any events mentioned that would mean missing classes? Keep track. You need to know everything that is going to affect your learning. Don't think you will always be able to fix things up as they come along. Not so. At least, not always. The further through high school you get, the more risky it is to leave things go.
Again, keep track. Get a small, cheap but durable notebook for this. The importance of noting down has been emphasised before. This book can be strong enough to last for a couple of years or for the whole of high school. Get one. Its content will be a recipe of what to do, when to do it. It will be the best planning tool. Write 'to do' lists, comments by teachers that relate to assessment and content, important ideas, thoughts about how you are going. Do not confuse it with a diary.
A 'to do' list is a seriously strong ally in keeping the growing mountain of requests and requirements down to a volume you can keep a clear picture of in your head. If the pile grows too big, your head will start to spin with the workload. This creates some serious blocks to clear thought and creates doubts about your ability and stamina to finish off a workload, growing virus-like in your head and in your school room. Your back starts to bend and groan under the load. Don't let it get this far. Remember you are starting to keep the load down from the second second :) Still like that eh?
So, the 'to do' list. Keep it really simple. A priority column and a description of the job to do. That's it. For priority, I use I, II, III, IIII and so on so that as one job is done, I can update priorities easily. You'll invent your own as you go. If you get to the end of a page, take all unfinished jobs off that page and put them onto next page, with priority. If there are several large jobs to do, get some sort of order to them, broken down into do-able bits if necessary, and write them as first to do and absolute must do on your page. It is better if you can clear at least one large job from your list each day, especially if you have several queued up. Feel good when you do because you know some of your buddies and some of your competitors will be looking at that same task, waiting for divine inspiration to get going. Smallish, do-able chunks is what you want. Stay on top of the pile to keep it from growing beyond the possible as deadlines become exhausting, brain fuzzes over and will fades.
How does this help relax for exams? Well, because you are less stressed the whole semester as you stay well in control, your brain will be less tired, your thoughts clearer and your ability to do well under stress will be stronger. It is the stress and strain of trying to overcome the multi-task mountains that leave us tired and frustrated. If we stay on top of things with a few simple strategies, we remain more relaxed. This comes from knowing everything is under control and by being able to take a break during the semester; playing sport, going to the beach or just chilling with friends. It all improves our health in both body and mind.
Take charge in the second second. Stay on top of the load. Have more fun in doing so. Watch others struggle and stress. Help them out if you can.
Best of luck with your studies. Have fun.
Again, keep track. Get a small, cheap but durable notebook for this. The importance of noting down has been emphasised before. This book can be strong enough to last for a couple of years or for the whole of high school. Get one. Its content will be a recipe of what to do, when to do it. It will be the best planning tool. Write 'to do' lists, comments by teachers that relate to assessment and content, important ideas, thoughts about how you are going. Do not confuse it with a diary.
A 'to do' list is a seriously strong ally in keeping the growing mountain of requests and requirements down to a volume you can keep a clear picture of in your head. If the pile grows too big, your head will start to spin with the workload. This creates some serious blocks to clear thought and creates doubts about your ability and stamina to finish off a workload, growing virus-like in your head and in your school room. Your back starts to bend and groan under the load. Don't let it get this far. Remember you are starting to keep the load down from the second second :) Still like that eh?
So, the 'to do' list. Keep it really simple. A priority column and a description of the job to do. That's it. For priority, I use I, II, III, IIII and so on so that as one job is done, I can update priorities easily. You'll invent your own as you go. If you get to the end of a page, take all unfinished jobs off that page and put them onto next page, with priority. If there are several large jobs to do, get some sort of order to them, broken down into do-able bits if necessary, and write them as first to do and absolute must do on your page. It is better if you can clear at least one large job from your list each day, especially if you have several queued up. Feel good when you do because you know some of your buddies and some of your competitors will be looking at that same task, waiting for divine inspiration to get going. Smallish, do-able chunks is what you want. Stay on top of the pile to keep it from growing beyond the possible as deadlines become exhausting, brain fuzzes over and will fades.
How does this help relax for exams? Well, because you are less stressed the whole semester as you stay well in control, your brain will be less tired, your thoughts clearer and your ability to do well under stress will be stronger. It is the stress and strain of trying to overcome the multi-task mountains that leave us tired and frustrated. If we stay on top of things with a few simple strategies, we remain more relaxed. This comes from knowing everything is under control and by being able to take a break during the semester; playing sport, going to the beach or just chilling with friends. It all improves our health in both body and mind.
Take charge in the second second. Stay on top of the load. Have more fun in doing so. Watch others struggle and stress. Help them out if you can.
Best of luck with your studies. Have fun.
Wednesday, November 2, 2011
Relaxing for exams I
How would you like to go into the next exam feeling more relaxed and ready to go?
Want to find out how to get to this idyllic state? We'll have a look at how that may happen. It will take a few articles to go through but any one of these will give you ideas and help.
The thing about the brain is that it can work well under all conditions. It performs better as the conditions become more familiar. It performs better if it is not stressed too highly. It should come with a well rested body. It also performs better the more easily it can retrieve and use its vast storehouse of information. Ohhh. That sounds like a lot of pre-conditions. Luckily you can set this all up with not much, if any, more total effort than you currently use in the lead up to exams. So let's get going. Working towards best results at high school.
Personally, I think the best thing is to be ready well ahead of time. One of the absolute must do exam preparations is to go over the information you have covered on a regular basis. This does not mean you spend hours and hours each week on a single subject and multiply that up to get a huge total number of hours for all your subjects. You can sneak small portions of spare time. It will probably, but not necessarily save you a few hours when exam cram comes by. Sneak. Surreptitious study. Oh that sounds so cool. So how to get so cool? You need only to go over the material you met very soon after you meet it. Tidy it up. Your notes, I mean. Fix up the pages and numbers on the pages. Put important information into the back of your notebook. Read through the tidy notes twice. First time to refresh what you did and organise the bits you did not understand. Second read through, comfortably this time because you know it and know where it is in your notes.
This will help store it in the same way you got it. In a tidy manner, ready for easy retrieval. How much time do you need? Little. You could do the information for one subject in much less than a lunch hour break. This could be the tidy up part as it does not need to be an area of calm and, if you get interrupted, you can get back onto it. You will get used to the timing you need very quickly. You do need to do the second run through quickly. Most lessons should only take a few minutes to review. Add some homework to this and you will be surprised how quickly you can get on top of your learning, ready for improvement in your grades and more success at school. Find time between classes, on the bus, at home, before you go out, in class down time such as when the teacher is absent. You get the idea. You will soon find your own ways to sneak time and increase your chance of success at school.
Go over each subject often in small doses, rather than wait until just before exams when stress and other demands on your brain and body start to snowball, and finding you need to do massive hours. You should be better prepared if you do small sections at a time over a long period rather that try to get it all done in one block. Your brain will be a bit scrambled from so many and so untidy pieces of work. Retrieval will be difficult in such unordered material.
OK, so you now have some repetitive structure happening to your learning. This will help you learn the information so it can be retained for longer and retrieved more easily. Make sure to go over all the work covered to date that will go on exams another two or three times. Constant brushing through each subject will truly enhance your learning as will some of the other ideas you can see in other posts to follow.
Want to find out how to get to this idyllic state? We'll have a look at how that may happen. It will take a few articles to go through but any one of these will give you ideas and help.
The thing about the brain is that it can work well under all conditions. It performs better as the conditions become more familiar. It performs better if it is not stressed too highly. It should come with a well rested body. It also performs better the more easily it can retrieve and use its vast storehouse of information. Ohhh. That sounds like a lot of pre-conditions. Luckily you can set this all up with not much, if any, more total effort than you currently use in the lead up to exams. So let's get going. Working towards best results at high school.
Personally, I think the best thing is to be ready well ahead of time. One of the absolute must do exam preparations is to go over the information you have covered on a regular basis. This does not mean you spend hours and hours each week on a single subject and multiply that up to get a huge total number of hours for all your subjects. You can sneak small portions of spare time. It will probably, but not necessarily save you a few hours when exam cram comes by. Sneak. Surreptitious study. Oh that sounds so cool. So how to get so cool? You need only to go over the material you met very soon after you meet it. Tidy it up. Your notes, I mean. Fix up the pages and numbers on the pages. Put important information into the back of your notebook. Read through the tidy notes twice. First time to refresh what you did and organise the bits you did not understand. Second read through, comfortably this time because you know it and know where it is in your notes.
This will help store it in the same way you got it. In a tidy manner, ready for easy retrieval. How much time do you need? Little. You could do the information for one subject in much less than a lunch hour break. This could be the tidy up part as it does not need to be an area of calm and, if you get interrupted, you can get back onto it. You will get used to the timing you need very quickly. You do need to do the second run through quickly. Most lessons should only take a few minutes to review. Add some homework to this and you will be surprised how quickly you can get on top of your learning, ready for improvement in your grades and more success at school. Find time between classes, on the bus, at home, before you go out, in class down time such as when the teacher is absent. You get the idea. You will soon find your own ways to sneak time and increase your chance of success at school.
Go over each subject often in small doses, rather than wait until just before exams when stress and other demands on your brain and body start to snowball, and finding you need to do massive hours. You should be better prepared if you do small sections at a time over a long period rather that try to get it all done in one block. Your brain will be a bit scrambled from so many and so untidy pieces of work. Retrieval will be difficult in such unordered material.
OK, so you now have some repetitive structure happening to your learning. This will help you learn the information so it can be retained for longer and retrieved more easily. Make sure to go over all the work covered to date that will go on exams another two or three times. Constant brushing through each subject will truly enhance your learning as will some of the other ideas you can see in other posts to follow.
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