Posts tagged as:

University Success

Johnny Can’t Fail Policy: Why University students are becoming stupider by the minute

June 18, 2009

Ok, fair warning, this is going to be a rant post.

This should be Johnny

This should be Johnny

I’ve just read an article by Joanne Laucius on a new education policy called the “Johnny can’t fail policies”.  Very simply, the policy gives high school students the opportunity to redo tests and assignments and receive ‘incompletes’ for missed work and plagiarism instead of a zero.  These policies as stated by the Ministry of Education have been implemented to increase student’s success, quoting studies that failing students or giving them zeros does not cause them to learn their lesson and succeed in the long run.  This is ridiculous.

Why this is Ridiculous

First off, without viewing the evidence of student achievement vs harsh marking for plagiarized and missed assignments I cannot specifically comment from a quantitative standpoint.  However, from a qualitative standpoint I can tell you that this ‘policy’ is absolute bullshit and will only produce low quality, academically unaccountable students.

The western education system has made a choice in terms of how we teach students.  We have decided to use standardized testing in order to categorize and stratify students.  This is a very good way to let people who are good at crossword puzzles and rote memorization to float to the top.  I personally think our system is bullshit but unfortunately I’m not a university dean or in charge of the board of education… yet.

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General Tips for Academic Success: Where’s the “ANY” Key?

June 15, 2009
D,oh, sometimes I'm so concerned with advanced methods, I forget the basics

D,oh, sometimes I'm so concerned with advanced methods, I forget the basics

I’ve unfortunately committed one of the cardinal sins of critical thinking….

I can’t believe I haven’t addressed this earlier but unfortunately I sometimes don’t see the forest for the trees.

I got an email from a student today, she asked me for some ‘general tips for academic success’. I was just about to throw her an email saying “well, uhh… why don’t you just check out the ENTIRE BLOG, WEBSITE and BOOK!

But I then took a look around the blog and realized I haven’t actually given any of you the basic tips for academic success! I suppose I’ve always just thought that anyone who wanted that info should just check out the VTA Method and consult an online tutor. But I want this blog to be a resource for any student, not just ones that have bought my program (although it’s awesome).

So with that in mind I’m going to start a recurring series of the general tips for academic success. Here is what I’m planning on talking about:

General college study tips

Exam study tips

How to study for finals

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Academic Goals: If you want to succeed, keep your goals to yourself…

June 12, 2009

goal-comicSo I just got a link to a great article which you can find here about how to achieve goals.  In the VTA Method goals are the first step towards academic success.  All the online tutors that work here also make goals a major component when they tutor college students.

Whether you’ve read the VTA Method or not, I’m going to give you one of the greatest secrets behind the VTA Method now confirmed by a New York University study.

Goals should be kept to yourself

Results from a new study from New York University suggest that whatever your goal, keeping it to yourself is a better idea than broadcasting it to the world.  The article goes on to suggest that sharing our goals with others doesn’t necessarily motivate us to achieve.  In actuality, by talking to others about our goals and plans we start to feel a premature sense of completeness about our goals.

The VTA Method on Goals

This directly relates to what I discuss in the VTA Method when talking to others about academic goals and who to talk to them with.  I teach that when you begin to become a better student, it’s crucially important to NOT talk to others about it, especially those people who can’t hold you accountable for your goal.  The reasons why you shouldn’t share your goals seem a little counter-intuitive, but let’s take an example.

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Study Pulses: Why studying more is making you a dumbass

June 9, 2009

Study PulseHello all, today I’m going to explain why studying too much is actually turning you into a dumbass and an all round boring person.  I use to study quite a bit (about three hours a day) and this produced a solid B- average and a stressed out university student.  What’s more, I was amazed when some of my fellow students didn’t study much at all and were getting much higher marks then me.  I initially just thought they were smarter than me.  When I later realized that success in University had nothing to do with intelligence, I then started studying how they were doing so well and I was doing so badly.

I later turned what I learned into an online tutoring program.  One of the biggest things I learned was how to study efficiently.  So much so that I wrote a book on the subject “How To Study 30 Minutes a Day and Get A 4.0 GPA”.  Anyway, I just spoke to a guy that works for me and he had a great way of explaining one of the central study techniques within my book and online tutoring program.  “The Study Pulse”

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Past Present and Future: Cementing Your Academic Mind Shift

June 5, 2009

Hello Fellow Students.

In researching for my online tutoring system, The VTA Method, I interviewed dozens of students and asked them how they became successful so successful in school.  The one thing they all had in common was their mind shift from thinking they knew they were going to succeed to knowing they were going to succeed.

Difference between Believing and Knowing you will succeed in University

Let me describe the distinction between believing and knowing.  Believing you’re going to succeed at something is when you don’t exactly know how you’re going to accomplish a goal but you have the faith that you will be able to achieve it.  This, in itself is a rare and highly successful way to think.  Many successful students and people have this mindset and have accomplished great things by implementing this kind of mind shift.

Knowing is a little different.  Knowing your going to succeed is having the same mindset that you will be able to achieve your goal BUT having a fully laid out plan to accomplish said goal.  So believing you’re going to succeed is having faith that you will be getting an A on a paper, knowing you’re going to succeed is having all the research, brainstorming and essay outlines completed and refined ready to be used to write an amazing paper.  You first need to believe before you know, and knowing requires quite a bit of testing and refinement, but once you know it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy.

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How students can conquer their Susan Boyle Addictions

May 11, 2009

susan-boyle

So you know that paper is due tomorrow, but you’ve been watching Susan Boyle on youtube all afternoon and can’t seem to tear yourself away to actually get your work done.  Or you do pull yourself away for a few minutes then back to Boyle once you lose focus.  Well I have a special little program that will help end your Boyle addiction.

Leechblock is the ultimate Boyle killer; very simply, it enables you to restrain your web surfing through restricting certain websites.  By either restricting the amount of time you access the site each day or by restricting you from accessing the site completely.  I’ve tested many web surfing time management tools but have not come against anything as easy to use as leechblok.

How to Install Leechblock

Instillation is easy; here is what you are going to need.

- A copy of Mozilla Firefox

- A copy of the Leechblock add on

- 5 minutes

Go to www.firefox.com is you still don’t have a copy of Mozilla firefox.  Then go to https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/4476 to pick up a copy of the leechblock add on and download it, follow the instillation instructions (don’t worry you can check out the video below for a full tutorial).

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How to study 30 minutes a day and get a 4.0 GPA

May 4, 2009

Hello and welcome to 30 minutes a day to a 4.0 GPA!

This is the first post of the virtual teaching assistant blog. I’ve put together a program (the VTA Method) which is going to help you get to a 4.0 GPA while only studying 30 minutes a day. This blog is going to serve as an update site for advanced study tips and methods for all, for free.  I’ll usually be trying to post one new article a week. I won’t be posting daily as I’m interested in producing quality content and quality requires time.

I’m a recent graduate from McGill University where I was finishing grad school specializing in sociology, social media and migration. I always struggled with school and didn’t really figure out the keys to success till later in my undergraduate degree and in graduate school. I became a teaching assistant during my undergraduate degree and grad school and figured out all the secrets that professors and teaching assistants don’t tell their students. During the five years I worked as a TA, I helped thousands of students through classes. I developed my knowledge into a tutoring service where students were paying me more than 100 dollars an hour to tutor them.

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