“Motivation and Learning Strategies for
College Success “ Second edition . This
book written by Myron H. Dembo , consist 361
page , 11 chapters .
Chapter 1 explain about Academic
Self-Management
In
this chapter , explain about academic self-managament . Do you know what is
academic self-managament ? This is several point that explain ini this chapter.
WHAT IS ACADEMIC SELF-MANAGEMENT?
The word management is a key term in understanding
successful learners. They self-manage or control the factors influencing their
learning. They establish optimum conditions for learning and remove obstacles
that interfere with their learning. Educators use a variety of terms to
describe these students (e.g., self-regulated, self-directed, strategic, and
active). No matter what term is used, the important factor is that these
students find a way to learn. It does not matter if the instructor is a poor
lecturer, the textbook is confusing, the test is difficult, the room is noisy,
or if multiple exams are scheduled for the same week, successful learners find
a way to excel.
WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN HIGH
SCHOOL AND COLLEGE? Some
student fail to recognize the differences between high
school and college
learning during the first wee in college
One of the major differences in the transition from high
school to college classrooms is the change from a teacher-directed to a student-directed
environment. In high school, many teachers tend to guide students’ learning by
telling them what, when, and how to learn. For example, when assignments are
given, high school teachers frequently help students manage the tasks necessary
to complete the assignment, such as requiring outlines or drafts of papers. In
college, students are on their own. They can ask questions and obtain more
information about an assignment, but rarely does a college instructor monitor
students’ progress. In college, students are expected to manage their own
learning. Another difference between high school and college is that high
school teachers often spend considerable time attempting to motivate students
to learn, whereas college instructors generally expect students to be
self-motivated. Although students are told about the demands of college, many
freshmen experience culture shock when they enter learning environments that
differ from their past experiences.
HOW CAN I MANAGE MY ACADEMIC BEHAVIOR?
The
following are major components of academic self-management or self-regulation.
1.
Motivation
A number of important motivational
self-management techniques can be used to develop and maintain these important
beliefs. The first is goal setting. Educational research indicates that high
achievers report using goal setting more frequently and more consistently than
low achievers. A second motivational
self-management technique is self-verbalization, or self-talk. This procedure
takes many forms. For example, verbal reinforcement or praise can be used following
desired behavior. You simply tell yourself things like: “Great! I did it!” or
“I’m doing a great job concentrating on my readings!” Reinforce yourself either
covertly (to yourself) or aloud. Another motivational self-management technique
is arranging or imagining rewards or punishments for success or failure at an
academic task. Students who control their motivation by giving themselves
rewards and punishments outperform students who do not use this control
technique.
2.
Methods
of Learning
Another term for methods of learning is
learning strategies. Learning strategies are the methods students use to
acquire information. Higher achieving students use more learning strategies
than do lower achieving students. Underlining, summarizing, and outlining are examples
of learning strategies.
3.
Use
of Time
Why does time management appear to be
so important in determining academic success? One explanation is that use of
time impacts self-management. If a student has difficulty dealing with time, he
or she ends up doing what is most urgent when deciding which task to do first.
If a paper is the next task that needs to be done, one works on the paper; if
an exam is the next challenge, one studies for the exam. Little time is spent
on any long-term planning to consider the importance of different tasks and how
they can best be completed.
4.
Physical
and Social Environment
Another important aspect of
self-management is the ability of learners to restructure their physical and
social environments to meet their needs. Zimmerman and Martinez-Pons (1986)
found that high achievers reported greater use of environmental restructuring
and were more likely to seek help from others than were low-achieving students.
For the most part, environmental restructuring refers to locating places to
study that are quiet or not distracting. Although this task may not appear
difficult to attain, it poses many problems for students who either select
inappropriate environments initially or cannot control the distractions once
they occur.
5.
Performance
The final factor that you can manage is
your academic performance. Whether writing a paper, completing a test, or
reading a book, you can learn how to use self-management processes to influence
the quality of your performance. One of the important functions of a goal is to
provide an opportunity for you to detect a discrepancy between it and your
present performance. This analysis enables you to make corrections in the
learning process. When you learn to monitor your work under different learning
conditions (e.g., test taking and studying), you are able to determine what
changes are needed in your learning and studying behavior. When you learn how
to monitor and control your own performance, you become your own coach or
mentor. You can practice skills on your own, critique your own performance, and
make the necessary changes to meet your goals at a high level of success.
Chapter 2 explain aboutUnderstanding
Learning and Memory
1.
There
are seven flaws in human memory: transience, absentmindedness, blocking, misattribution,
suggestibility, bias, and persistence.
Transience refers to the situation when
individuals fail to remember a fact or idea. It is a weakening or loss of
memory over time. A second flaw in our memory is called absent-mindedness. It involves the breakdown between attention and
memory. It often occurs when we are preoccupied with distracting concerns like
placing sunglasses down at a friend’s home and forgetting to take them when you
leave. Although this type of memory problem occurs more often in older adults,
it is prevalent as well in individuals of all ages. A third flaw is called blocking. It is the unsuccessful search
for information that we may be desperately trying to retrieve, such as the name
of an attractive woman or man we met at a party the previous night. A fourth
flaw is called misattribution. It
involves assigning a memory to the wrong source or incorrectly remembering that
someone told you something that you actually read about in a newspaper. You are
sure that a friend told you something, but find that he or she never mentioned
a thing about the topic. We often see this flaw on television programs in cases
of mistaken eyewitness identification. A fifth flaw is called suggestibility. It refers to memories
that are implanted because of leading questions, comments, or suggestions.
Numerous examples of this flaw are special concerns in legal situations where
suggestive questioning by law enforcement officials can lead to errors in
eyewitness identification. This flaw also has been identified in cases of child
abuse where psychotherapists have elicited memories of traumatic events that
never occurred. A sixth flaw is called bias.
It involves the editing or changing of previous experiences based on what we
now feel rather than what happened in the past. The
last flaw in our memory is persistence.
It refers to remembering what we would prefer to omit from our memory. Have you
ever had problems sleeping because you can’t stop thinking about a poor grade
on an examination or bad interview you had? I bet you can still remember a
certain negative experience in your life and how you recalled the experience
repeatedly in the days and weeks after it occurred, even though you would have
liked to forget it.The
information processing system is a model that is used to identify how individuals obtain, transform, store, and
apply information. It comprises the short-term sensory store, working memory,
and the long-term memory.
2. Learning
involves getting information into long-term memory.
Psychologists provide many different
theories and explanations of human learning. One way to understand how
information may be acquired or lost is to understand the information-processing
system .
Short term memory
information enters the short-term sensory
store (STSS). Information in the STSS is stored briefly until it can be
attended to by the working memory (WM). Everything that can be seen, heard, or
smelled is stored in the STSS, but it only lasts for a matter of seconds before
it is forgotten. Many of the stimuli humans experience never get into our WM
because we do not attend to them. We are constantly barraged with stimuli from
our environment. For example, by the time an individual wakes up, gets dressed,
and walks or drives to class, he or she observes hundreds, or perhaps thousands
of objects that cannot be recalled. If you drove to class today, do you
remember the color or make of the car next to which you were parked? Do you
remember the student who sat next to you in your first class? What did he or
she wear? If you found the person attractive or interesting, you may be able to
answer these questions, because you may have been attentive to such details.
However, the fact is that we are not attentive to most of what we see or hear
in our daily lives. If you have not attended to information, there is little
concern about retention or retrieval, because no information will have been
acquired. When you attend a lecture and your attention fades in and out, you
will fail to recall some of the important information presented by the
professor. This is why it may be important for you to improve your attention.
Long-Term Memory Long-term memory
stores all the information we possess but are not immediately using. It is
generally assumed that storage of information in the LTM is permanent. That is,
the information does not fade from LTM, nor is it ever lost except perhaps as a
result of senility or some other physical malfunction. Information enters the LTM through the WM. Although
information must be repeated or rehearsed to stay in working memory, it must be
classified, organized, connected, and stored with information already in LTM if
it is to be easily retrieved at a later time. It takes time and effort to move
information into long-term storage.
Chapter 3 Explain about Understanding
Motivation
Many of my students frequently state in
class or in written assignments: “I have no motivation” or “I need to get
motivated.” Unfortunately, I find that many students do not understand the
meaning of these statements. Actually, everyone is motivated. Educational
researchers have found that many different patterns of beliefs and behaviors
can limit academic success. WHAT IS MOTIVATION AND WHAT FACTORS INFLUENCE IT? Student
motivation in the college classroom involves three interactive components
(adapted from Pintrich, 1994). The first component is the personal and
sociocultural factors that include individual characteristics, such as the
attitudes and values students bring to college based on prior personal, family,
and cultural experiences. The second component is the classroom environment
factors that pertain to instructional experiences in different courses. The
third component is internal factors or students’ beliefs and perceptions.
Internal factors are influenced by both personal and sociocultural factors and
classroom environmental experiences. Current research on motivation indicates
that internal factors (i.e, students’ beliefs and perceptions) are key factors
in understanding behavior. Most of the attention in the chapter is given to the
internal factors of motivation. I begin this section with a discussion of what
behaviors determine students’ motivation and then discuss how personal and sociocultural, classroom environmental, and internal
factors influence motivated behavior.
Motivated behavior
If
you want to understand your own motivation, you might begin by evaluating your
behavior in the following three areas:
•
Choice of behavior
•
Level of activity and involvement
•
Persistence and management of effort
Personal and Sociocultural Factors
The
attitudes, beliefs, and experiences students bring to college based on their
personal and sociocultural experiences influence their motivation and behavior,
and even their persistence or departure from college. You also are influenced by your family and cultural
experiences. Family characteristics such as socioeconomic levels, parental
educational levels, and parental expectations can influence motivation and
behavior. Here is a list of some other student characteristics that can
influence adjustment and involvement in college (adapted from Jalomo, 1995):
•Married
students with family obligations
•Single
parents
•Students
who never liked high school or who were rebellious in
high
school
•Students
who were not involved in academic activities or stu
dent
groups during high school
•Students
who are afraid or feel out of place in the mainstream college culture
•Students
who have a hard time adjusting to the fast pace of college
•Students
who lack the financial resources to take additional courses or participate in
campus-based academic and social activities in college
Classroom Environmental
Factors
Many classroom environmental factors influence student motivation. These
include types of assignments given, instructor behavior, and instructional
methods.
Internal Factors
Students’ goals, beliefs, feelings, and
perceptions determine their motivated behavior and, in turn, academic
performance. For example, if students value a task and believe they can master
it, they are more likely to use different learning strategies, try hard, and
persist until completion of the task. If students believe that intelligence
changes over time, they are more likely to exhibit effort in difficult courses
than students who believe intelligence is fixed.
Chapter 4 explain about Goal Setting
WHY IS GOAL SETTING IMPORTANT?
Goal
setting is a planning process and is an important aspect of self-management.
This process puts meaning in people’s lives, helps them achieve their dreams
and ambitions, and sets up positive expectations for achievements. Students who
set goals and develop plans to achieve them take responsibility for their own
lives. They do not wait for parents or teachers to instruct them as to what
they should be doing with their lives. Unfortunately, many students fail to
take responsibility for personal goal setting.
WHAT ARE THE STEPS IN THE GOAL-SETTING
PROCESS?
Step 1: Identifying and Defining the Goal
Individuals
set goals throughout their lives. As they attain one goal, they often identify
another. In fact, one of the major ways individuals seek happiness is through
goal attainment. When some students are asked what goal they would like to
attain, they often mention being happy. Keep in mind that happiness is not a
goal, it is a feeling or state of mind that occurs as the result of goal
attainment. As you set each of your goals, you want to make sure they are SMART
goals (Smith, 1994): Specific, Measurable, Action-Oriented, Realistic, and
Timely.
Step 2: Generating and Evaluating Alternative
Plans
Now
that you know how to write a goal, let’s move on to the second step in the
process—determining how you are going to attain your goal. By asking these questions, the student begins to think about
alternative ways to attain the goal and the advantages and disadvantages of
each strategy. My point is that one constantly has to weigh the advantages and
disadvantages of one strategy over another.
Step 3: Making Implementation Plans
In
Step 1, you learned why it is necessary to be specific in writing a goal. It
also is important for your plan to be specific so you know exactly what needs
to be done to achieve your goal. One way to develop a plan is to identify each
of the necessary tasks that must be completed and the date by which the tasks
will be accomplished. Setting deadlines for each task is helpful in determining
that you continue to make progress toward your goal.
Step 4: Implementing the Plan The first three
steps in the goal-setting process are planning steps. Step 4 requires you to
put the plan into operation by completing each of the planned activities. Check
your progress as you implement each task. Do not hesitate to make changes in
your plan if you find that.
Step 5: Evaluating Your Progress In Step 5,
you will evaluate your plans and progress. Ask yourself the following questions
after you have attained your goal or when you begin to realize that your plan
is not working effectively. If you do not attain your goal, you can evaluate
what went wrong. Evaluation can help you rethink your strategy and determine
another way to reach your goal.
From first chapter until fourth chapter
, this book give easy explanation about their content . This book very
recommended for college student . This book also give the example in our daily
life.
