Online guide to good grades

Web Watch

Are you finding it difficult to keep pace with your lecturer during class? Having trouble searching for the right resource notes at the library? Not to fear. All you need to do is visit the McMaster University’s Centre for Student Development page
http://csd.mcmaster.ca/centre-for-student-development/academic-skills-esl-support/online-resources for a list of resources to help enhance your research and study skills.

These links are not mere web pages but video presentations that come with verbatim transcripts and summary notes.

Explore further

The video itself  can be viewed in large or small Flash formats, and can be played using  popular formats like Windows Media, mp3, Quick Time, and iPod Video. Now, let us look at some of the resources included in the six categories:

*Full Frontal Learning

*Just Enough Time Management

*Tactical Motivation and Procrastination Avoidance

*Math

*Writing

Full Frontal Learning offers tips under:

*The Good, the Bad and the Useless

*Think Like a Professor

*Notes and More Notes

*Question Method of Studying

*Getting Ready for Exams

The Full Frontal Learning video points out simple ways in which a student can improve his/ her grades. It explains the process of learning as a result of interactions within the brain and how to convert details from the textbook into long-term memory. The Good, the Bad, and the Useless video proves how there is no right way or wrong way to study. The Think Like a Professor video is useful for those who are unable to better their grades at university. This is best for those who have relied on their memory power and mugging up skills all through high school! The video challenges the student to understand a subject and how not to memorise. The video also helps clear misconceptions about the concepts of courses chosen by them.

The video Notes and More Notes is primarily a guide on note-taking. It tells you how to quickly make changes, and deploy a particular style of  note-taking. The video on Question Method of studying, gives you powerful strategies to enhance your ability to absorb a subject.  It uses the art and science of asking the right kind of questions to help you learn better. The Question Method of Studying should help as, in some ways, textbooks and lectures are but collections of answers to questions that were asked by scholars and researchers in that field. The Question Method involves matching self-generated questions to the answers listed.

The Getting Ready for Exams video tells you how to avoid fear and anxiety, which can drive the student’s  preparation process off track. You can also view the rest of the videos, grouped under Just Enough Time Management, Tactical Motivation and Procrastination Avoidance, Math, Writing for better results.