HOW TO BE AN ENGAGED LEARNER: Participation

• Guidelines for Effective Participation

• Speak up in Class and Add to Class Discussions (City College of San Francisco) – Simple, practical tips.
• Self-Help Materials: Class Participation (Potomac State College, West Virginia Unversity) – Brief explanation of why it is important to participate in class and quick tips on how to do it.
• Class Participation Tips: How to Participate in College Class Discussions (suite101.com) – 11 tips from a former professor.
• Class Participation (Gustavus Adolphus College) – Brief set of tips focusing on when to participate and when not to participate.
• Participating in Discussion Classes (Gustavus Adolphus College) – Tips on preparation, participation, and note-taking in discussion classes.

Web Discussion Forum Participation

• Communicating Online: Netiquette (UBC) – Tips for respectful and productive online communication.
• Blackboard Discussion Forum Participation (Lawrence Technological University) – Examples of what high, medium, and low quality discussion forum contributions look like.

Research

• Reading and the Web
• The Good, The Bad & The Ugly: or, Why It’s a Good Idea to Evaluate Web Sources

Presentations

• Giving Effective Presentations – Covers organizing the presentation, practising, presenting, and using computer slides.
• Presentation Confidence – Covers common fears, relaxation, visualization and other topics.
• Designing an Effective PowerPoint Presentation: Quick Guide (OWL Purdue)

Testing

• Strategies to Use with Difficult Exam Questions

More

• Remembering
• Learning from Lectures
• A Guide to Time Managment , an award-winning, Web-based workshop on time management
• 20 Easy Ways to Raise Your Student GPA in College
• Where Does Time Go?

How to Listen Critically and With an Open Mind:

1. Be ready for the message.
2. Listen to the main concepts and central ideas, not just fragmented facts and figures.
3. Listen for new ideas.
4. Repeat mentally.
5. Decide whether what you have heard is not important, somewhat important, or very important.
6. Keep an open mind.
7. Ask questions.
8. Sort, organize, and categorize.