All students should take time to understand their own unique learning tendencies, academic goals and motivation for these goals.  Once a student is able to do so, they will be better prepared to efficiently and effectively study and they will be ready to overcome any obstacles they may encounter in their academic journey.

Many students end up wasting time reading and studying in ways that are incompatable with their individual learning style.  For example, it may be perfectly productive for a read/write learner to get some extra minutes of academic reading done right before they go to bed.  On the other hand, a kinesthetic learner would probably not get much accomplished this way.  This is why it is very important for students to first understand their preferred learning style, then understand compatable learning strategies and finally adapt these new strategies into their own study habits.

Once a student is able to understand how they learn best, it is also helpful to analyze themselves in a constructive way. 

It is helpful to ask yourself a few motivational questions:

- What motivated me to enroll at this college, this term, in this class? 

- Are their personal and/or professional reasons as well as academic reasons? 

- What will I remind myself when I am faced with a particularly challenging assignment, class and/or instructor? 

- What challenges have I already overcome that will help me realize that I do have the ability to overcome almost any hurdle? 

- Who are the people in my support system? 

In addition it is also helpful to do a self-inventory of your academic skills.  Be realistic and seek resources to help you improve these skills.

- Research skills, general (evaluating sources, using articles, books, multimedia)

- Research skills, online libraries and databases (not google, bing, wikipedia)

- Research paper development (citing sources, paraphrasing, documenting sources in APA, MLA, etc)

- Critical Thinking (going beyond the obvious, being able to go deeper into a topic)

- Effective study strategies

- Effective Reading strategies

- Time Management

- Organization

Please take a moment to view this series of videos from Samford University on Effective Study Strategies:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RH95h36NChI

Now it's time to complete the VARK learning style assessment and SmarterMeasures assessment.  Please refer to the Journal 1 Assignment guidelines.