December 3rd, 2014 Scheduling, Organizing,and Reviewing for the Last Week of Class!

Students were back from their Thanksgiving break ready to work on their hand writing and note taking skills!

Our Agenda

• Return Quizzes
• Review last few classes
• Scheduling
• Analyze
• Homework
• Discuss Next Week's Class 

A Closer Look

Students received their quizzes from the last few classes. They received a check minus for work that needs improvement, a check for good work with room for growth, and a check plus for excellent work. Some students will only have 2 or 3 quizzes due to absence, there was a total of 4 quizzes. The quizzes went over material we discussed in class; students are to use their listening and note taking skills to take note about the class discussion and use the notes to help with the class quiz.

Review Board

With the return of the quizzes, a review of the last few classes was our next step in preparing for our final class. Time and stress management, listening, and note-taking skills were reviewed; organizing, scheduling, and prioritizing were new items discussed today. We discussed the importance of each item and how all of them connect together to help us achieve our academic or personal goals. Good listening skills leads to good note-taking; good note-taking takes organization; organized notes, desk, locker, and backpack leads to better studying; better study time leads to less test anxiety and stress; scheduling also helps reduce stress, be organized with our time, and prioritize studying and items of high importance.

We went over a cycle of studying:

Listening --> Note taking --> Studying --> Test Taking

We went over how the study cycle shows we need to be organized with our time, notes, items, and places; a schedule and to-do list will help us keep organized with all of our many responsibilities and maybe even help with finding a little "me time"!

Schedules and To-Do List

Several types of to-do list were reviewed and distributed. Some students mentioned they keep their to-do list and schedule on their phone. Use of smart phones to keep schedules and to-do list is a great idea because the smart phone will do the one thing your paper won't do, beep at you! With all of the apps and gadgets available to smart pone users, paper schedules and list are becoming a thing of the past; however, there is still something comforting about writing all of your goals down on paper to get a better perspective, and of course crossing the item off of your list after it's completed! Weekly and monthly calendars were also passed out for examples and encouraged to be used either in paper or digital form. Since we are working on our handwriting skills along with note taking, we are working with paper schedules and list. We went over the importance of schedules and to-do list and discussed the homework assignment. Student will make a schedule of the items the anticipate and desire to complete.

We also discussed analyzing our schedules to see if we are able to achieve the goals we set, have a realistic sense of how we spend out time, as well as see if there are any adjustments we can make to maximize out time for more fun things like being outside or playing games. One of our homework goals is to analyze the schedule we created to see how close we were to our schedules.

Review Board

The class discussed the structure of the test and what it will cover. The test will cover:

• Stress and Time Management 
• Listening Habits and Importance
• Organizing and Scheduling
• Studying and Test Taking 
• Handwriting Re-Assessment

Test is written only and will be graded using the same check system as the quizzes.

Homework

Students are to go home ad use the weekly schedule page to create their anticipated/ desired task and goals to accomplish. They are to make out their schedules considering the time it takes for sleep, eating, travel, studying, exercise, activities, etc. Their scheduled should cover 7am through 7pm Thursday December 4th through December 10th, 2014. Students should use pencil, black or blue ink to write down their anticipated and desired task.  As the week progresses students are to use an alternative color ink (red, green, purple, etc.), to write down any adjustments. Students will jot down items they had time to do, items they could not complete, breaks they scheduled, extra time they had from finishing a task early, extra time they added to a task to create flexibility in their schedule, along with any other schedule adjustment. Assignments are due before the test on December 10th.

Next Week

Last week of class!
The last week of class will be a big one; homework assignments are due, there is a handwriting re-assessment, well take our big note-taking test, and students will get their worksheets from the semester.