Shuzie's comic for IS versus WANTS

HOPE YOU ALL COULD HAVE FUN WITH THIS AND ENJOY A GOOD WEEKEND!

What to change the headache situation right now? IS VERSE WANTS is here!

For this week, I chose to try IS VERSUS WANTS as my Problem-Sloving strategy for my ECN 203 and ENL 207. Because I feel like even I had a good attitude for studying, but I still could not help myself perform better.

For my ECN 203 class, here is my Problem Solving Chart.

I have tried this strategy for almost one week and I had my ECN 203 exam during this period. I will know whether I am successful or not after I know my grade. I thought I did better than what I used to be. At least, nowadays, I can totally understand my lecture and I am applying those principles in my daily life under the help from my professor.

For my ENL 207 class, I made some changes in my chart based on my situation.

I still want to figure out id they are effective methods for solving my problem on my ENL 207 class, because usually writing classes cannot show me an accurate answer in a short term. However, I will invite my teacher to help me check out the output of those methods.

Building the blocks to finish & chucking tasks for HOA105

I tried building blocks to finish and chucking tasks for my HOA105 class this week.Here is what I did for these strategies.

1.Chucking tasks:
Because I used to cram before exam and write paper the night before the due date so I want to use chucking tasks to finish my assignments before the deadline and have enough time to prepare other courses.

First, I had a look at the syllabus and found out what I can do for chucking tasks.
Exams and Paper are given due dates so I can apply chucking tasks on those two. However, hws are not so I can not do it with this strategy.

After that, I figured out the topics we are going to do for every exam and did the topic outline for exams. For paper, I thought up with the processes I should do to write a paper and typed them on.

Finally, I added specific dates for each lines and flags before each task so I can put a check after I done with each. Here is the chucking-tasks list:

2.Building blocks to finish:
I did building blocks because I am a visual/ Kinesthetic learner and the highlights and colors makes me motivated to learn.
After I done with chucking tasks, building blocks is much easier for me. I just found the dates I need to do those tasks on my monthly calendar and highlighted them.
Here is the results:



Now I think I get the overall picture of the assignments and exams for HOA105 this semester and I feel that I am more confident with that course!

Shuzie's comic for DO and DUE

Hey, this is just the way I try to make our blogs not boring. Hope you had fun with it.And enjoy the sunshine today!

D's Due and Do Organizer

This is one of my favorite strategies to use. I use my computer a LOT and bring it to almost all of my classes, so I have modified this strategy to fit to my style of learning. I decided to turn my iCalendar into a D's Due and Do Organizer with three simple steps.

Step One:

I took all the information I had from my syllabi and assignments given out in class and figured out when I needed to do the assignment and when the assignment is actually due.

Step Two:

I plugged all of the information into my calendar week by week. You can do this by double clicking on the day of your choice to create a "new event".

Step Three:

I labeled each do with red and each due with yellow. You can do this by adding a new calendar.

If you want to change the color of your do's and due's, you can do so by right clicking on each and clicking "Get Info".

This screen should appear and you can choose from a variety of colors. I'm a visual learner so labeling with colors is extremely helpful.

When you finish filling out your calendar and labeling, it should look something like this:

I plan on continuing to fill out my calendar as my assignments are given out to me. It's extremely effective as I can make a distinction between when I need to do assignments and when assignments are due.

Target Planner on CLS and WRT105

When I first heard about the Faculty Interview Project, I was a little worried as to how I would get it all done. Being an Acting major, most of my time is taken up by the exorbitant amount of work we are assigned, and I wasn't sure that I was going to be able to get the project done and still retain some of my sanity. However, I was able to employ the use of the Target Planner, and it was more than a little helpful. By using the Target Planner, I was able to shrink what had seemed to be a project of overwhelming size to what my brain processed as a series of short assignments!

Below, I have scanned the Target Planner that I used to help keep me in track during the project.

When I used this planner, I keep it hanging up on my bulletin board. That way, every day I would wake up and see what needed to be done. I found this to be very helpful, and I would highly recommend pinning your target planner somewhere that is visually very easily accessible. I found that, the more I saw the deadlines I had set for myself and what needed to be done on a given day, the more likely I was to complete the tasks I had set for myself. Now, about a week before the project is due, I have completed every aspect of the project besides the reflection, and I still have time to spare. In fact, the Target Planner has made me work faster and more efficiently, because I see that, once I've broken the project down into smaller parts, it seems far less daunting.

I also used the Target Planner to help me write an essay for my Writing 105 class. It was interesting to see how the planner could work with an essay as well as a long-term project. I spaced out the paragraphs between the week I had to write it, and I found that I had trouble stopping once I got started writing. I tried to stick to my plan, but I found it easier to just write it once I was on a roll. I chose to use the remainder of the time I had plotted out to write the paper to makes edits and proofread the paper. It was useful, but not as useful as the strategy was for the Faculty Interview Project. I think in the future, I will still use the strategy, but I will factor in less time for writing, and more time for editing.

All in all, the strategy worked well, and I am going to recommend it to my sister, who is a sophomore in high school and often stresses about the amount of time she has to do her work.

TECH1:20-MINUTE TEST PREP&TARGET PLANNER on ECN203

For the past two weeks, I tried TARGET PLANNER and 20-MINUTE TEST PREP on my Economics class. To be honest, before I did tried these two strategies, I didn't think that they will help me a lot for my first Economics exam.But I still brought these strategies from textbooks to real life and obeyed the requirement.

According to syllabus, I tried Target Planner first. It is kind of a general plan to help me to organize my time for doing something, especially for complete a task for prepare for an exam, or planning the progress of a project. I was a little worried about my Economics exam because since I am an international student, I had no idea about what the exam would be. I knew we would test the first 3 chapters.

What I did on using time for preparing an exam? Here are my experience:

On the first day: "Okay. I am gonna to review ECN. Where should I start? Of course is Chapter 1! After a good start, I suffered couple of hours studying!!!!!! Until I have to go to sleep because I cannot read or remember anymore! The world in front of my eyes are so dark!! I am so tried!"

On the second day: "I am tried. I had studied a lot. So how about using my free time today for playing video games? Hahahahahaha!!!!!!"

On the third day: " I am still tired, I need sleep! Good sleeping, better studying!"

On the forth day: " En, where did I stopped at the first day? I cannot remember. That's not a big deal, I can restart! Okay, Chapter one."

On the fifth day:" Music with studying!!!! Chapter one, start! Oh, I don't like Jay-z, I would try to find my Lady Gaga's CD. What's a nice song, fine, I won't study anymore, but I will study tomorrow, For God sake, I promise I will study tomorrow."

On the sixth day: " Saturday!!!! I need shopping, I need do laundry, I need sleep!"

On the seventh day: " Chapter one......"

On the eighth day:" OTTO, MY GOD! I only have two days leave. Oh, I am so upset, Chapter one....."

On the ninth day:" I still have two chapters left! What should I do!!!!!!"

On the exam day: " I am dying!!! "

See, that what I used to do. All my low grades came from here. But now, I am changed! I am not like the stupid one in the past anymore! Do you want to know the reason? Obviously I use my TARGET PLAN!

Here is my Target Plan for my first Economics exam.

I chose to studied Chapter 3 for the first 4 days because we would just finished chapter 3 so I still had fresh memory. As a result, it would be more easy and efficient for me to review Chapter 3.

And according to that rule, I would move to Chapter 2 and then Chapter 1.

On the last two days, I would try to test myself to see if I had already remember all the principles and theories I need to remember and see if I would be able to apply them in different examples.If I figure out questions, I would still have time to find the answers.

Wow, I am not in a mad rush anymore and it did worked! I reviewed all the things I need to reviewed, I did all the exercises and I even had extra time for having fun! ( How nice my life is!)

Now, I am going to talk about my 20-MINUTE TEST PREP.

In China, we have an old saying, " Every little makes a mickle", I think it is a suitable sentence to describing 20-MINUTE TEST PREP. Using little periods of time, go over materials again and again, until I remember all the stuffs and can make applications, even according to the syllabus to anticipate questions for myself. It pushed me to learn actively instead of being a learning machine only taking useless notes and even logging into Facebook during the classes.

I post every steps about my strategy usage.

1. After each class: (I only picked up the most important points on it and some of them are outlines. And I read them over and over again to make sure I have remember all the things whenever I was free)

2.At the end of each week ( I figured out 8 questions. Since my ECN class always concerns about principles and functions, I put most of my attention on them)

3.One to two weeks before the exam( Actually because of my ECN exam was on 23rd, September,so I only have about half of the week to prepare this. Plus, I added examples, graphs, analysis and some of my own understandings in them. And I marked the important points to remind myself pay attention.)

The three steps for preparing exams helped me a lot and I will keep using them for every tests.

Fritter Finder

During this past week, I used the Fritter Finder in my SPA 102 and WRT 105 courses. The areas within my schedule that are colored in pink are the times when I am not in class. I chose to use this strategy because I learn the best with visuals. The Fritter Finder was very easy and simple to use.

I now can fit other strategies like the 20 Minute Test Prep and the 10 Minute Technique into my schedule. The free time I have in between my classes is where I can implement these other strategies. This time management method really helped me plan and organize my schedule in an effective way. It made me realize how much free time I do have and how I should use it wisely.