College Study: The Essential Ingredients - Softcover

Lipsky, Sally

9780130488367: College Study: The Essential Ingredients

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0130488364 ISBN 13: 9780130488367

Publisher: Pearson College Div, 2003

Uses an active learning approach that focuses on the reader choosing, applying, and assessing practical strategies, with the goal of creating an effective, efficient, and individualized system of study.

College Study exposes readers to how to make informed choices about learning content that is often new, complex, and changing rapidly, especially given the increasing link between technology and learning. Included is the inter-relationship of students’ learning behaviors and attitudes, with an emphasis on applying multi-modal strategies into daily course work. The text covers the major learning skills topics: academic planning and goal-setting, time management and procrastination, productivity, active listening and note taking, reading and studying, preparing for and taking tests, enhancing learning and memory, reducing worry/anxiety, and online and web-based strategies. The text is written in astreamlined format; with an informal, personal writing style; and engaging activities that maintain the reader’s attention and appeal to today’s college students.

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From the Back Cover:

Using an active learning approach, College Study integrates three interrelated elements of how students learn—their behaviors, attitudes (including motivation), and learning styles. The reader chooses, assesses, and applies strategies, with the goal of creating a personal system of study.

This text presents learning strategies within the context of the growing expectations and responsibilities of students at the college level and includes:

An emphasis on self-directed learning
Problem-centered content
Focus on immediate transfer of skills
Personal experiences that are valued and are used as a basis for learning

The text includes an appendix that links results of the Learning and Study Strategies Inventory (LASSI) with text chapter topics and features.

This text contains a complete and balanced coverage of essential learning and study techniques, with an emphasis on critical thinking at the college level. Readers are exposed to how to learn, while understanding why they learn, within the context of making informed choices about strategies that work best for them. After immediate transfer of a specific learning strategy into daily academic life, students critique its effectiveness. Content is presented in such a way as to guide students to become self-regulating learners and problem solvers.

Features

The text integrates three separate yet interrelated elements of how students learn:

Strategies. The text covers important and practical study techniques that students can apply immediately in their daily academic courses.
Attitude. The text provides opportunities for students to explore their levels of interest, motivation, and commitment to transferring learning techniques in their day-to-day lives as college students.
Learning styles. Individual differences in learning preferences and tendencies can help students successfully implement learning and study strategies. As such, readers become aware of and apply techniques that match how they learn best. Two models of learning styles are presented in the text: (I) use of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator� inventory to determine learning preferences, and (2) use of visual, auditory, and tactile/kinesthetic dimensions of learning.

Additional features of the text include:

A streamlined format and an informal, personal writing style that maintain the reader's attention.
A focus on modeling the essentials of learning so that readers can readily transfer strategies to content course work. Illustrations of how peers apply specific strategies, in the form of visual examples and students' comments, provide appealing, convincing models.
Relevant activities designed to immediately engage readers.
An appendix linking results of the Learning and Study Strategies Inventory (LASSI) with text chapters. The LASSI is a self-report instrument that assesses college students' use of and attitudes toward learning and study strategies, as defined by 10 scales: attitude, motivation, time management, anxiety, concentration, information processing, selecting main ideas, study aids, self-testing, and test strategies. As described in the appendix, each of the 10 scales in the LASSI correlates with topics presented in College Study: The Essential Ingredients.

This text is intended for use in either a two-year or four-year institution within a variety of contexts:

A study skills or learning strategies course (likely one or two credits)
A skills course "linked" or "paired" with content-area course work
An introductory-level content course using a supplemental learning strategies text
A first-year orientation program or seminar
A series of workshops for first-year students
A peer educator training course requiring a college learning strategies text

Furthermore, an Instructor's Manual accompanies the text and includes:

Suggestions for how to use text features for in-class activities, including small-group work, collaborative work, journal writing, and group discussion.
Problem-solving scenarios centered on topics presented in the text chapters. These scenarios lend themselves to in-class group work that reinforces decision-making skills.
Five-point chapter quizzes that provide a modest check of students' comprehension. Instructors may choose to use the quizzes as an extrinsic incentive for students to read assigned chapters.
A sample syllabus, including an outline of activities for a one-credit or two-credit college learning skills bourse.

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