By: Katie Adkins, Strategic Learning Specialist, Learning Strategies Management

When I meet with students during a Learning Strategies workshop or individual session, students often express that they didn’t have to study much to get good grades in high school. Upon entering university life, many students are unprepared for the amount of time necessary to devote to coursework. In addition to being overwhelmed by the change in time devoted to academics, students find that their old study strategies aren’t cutting it. By identifying unused pockets of time during a day, and throughout the week, I can collaborate with students to identify study strategies that meet learning style and schedule needs. Time management as related to study strategies is a mindset switch from memorization to understanding concepts. Helping students reset mindsets about how they study focuses on a discussion of identifying how the process of understanding the material can be carried forth throughout a student’s University and professional careers.

My approach with students is not to micromanage time, but to help them understand how best to use time and balance the dimensions of their lives. Together, students and I identify the activities they engage in a typical week accompanied by how much time is spent in each area. We highlight the previously unused pockets of time (20-30 minutes) often disregarded as not enough time to be productive, but just as important to increasing chances of being successful. During these small pockets of time, students are encouraged to engage in such activities as: visiting with a professor during office hours, reviewing note cards, creating a paper outline, completing a few math problems from a larger problem set, reading 5 pages of a 20-page reading assignment accompanied by a 2-3 sentence summary note, etc. Capitalizing on these brief moments throughout the day is incentivized by illustrating to students that they may be able to end study sessions earlier in the day, thus leaving prime social time available and decreasing procrastination for more inviting activities with friends.

This process takes time. Some students will begin making changes immediately, others will need more guidance and encouragement. Changing your whole weekly schedule at once can be overwhelming to the point of avoidance, which puts us back at square one. I encourage students to “aim small, miss small”; asking them to pick one task at a time to affect change on; be specific and intentional about the change and why they are making it; and to integrate the SMART goal setting model as often as possible.

The SMART goal concept is widely used across disciplines and the meaning of the acronym has different iterations as it is used in various environments. For our purposes, SMART stands for Specific, Measurable, Action-Oriented, Realistic, and Timely. The outcome of the SMART goal process is for students to streamline broad goal statements, whether academic or personal, and hone in on what it takes to make that goal a reality; short term or long term. The SMART goal worksheet can be found on the Gonzaga’s Learning Strategies webpage, within the Learning Studio section.

Throughout the year, the Learning Strategies program is available via workshops and individual strategy sessions to assist students in understanding how to organize, identify, and plan as it relates to individual learning needs and strengths. Students must initiate contact via the online Learning Strategies inquiry form to engage in an individual session, or sign up for a small group workshop, both accessible at www.gonzaga.edu/learningstrategies. Students are encouraged to not wait until the week before finals to inquire with our program as space may be limited and a week is truly not enough time to efficiently develop new study strategies and plans. For those students who do show up last minute, a 5-7 day study plan can be created with the student to help reduce stress around how to begin study sessions.