It's All About Choices: Recipes for Academic Success

In writing It’s All About Choices, Marlene Blumin’s goals were simple:

• To prepare students for a successful transition to the academic workload in college.
• To help students understand their learning preferences and how to apply them within their courses in order to develop a personalized repertoire of effective learning strategies.
• To create efficient and effective learners who master the necessary balance needed for success in college.

This textbook is suitable for courses such as: Freshmen Orientation, Study Skills, College Readiness or Student Success courses

This textbook is suitable for high school and college students.

PEDAGOGICAL FEATURES:

• REALISTIC AND PRACTICAL TOOLS:

The text is based on the experiences of college students that yielded practical and proven tools.  Students develop insight concerning their behaviors and understand how to become more efficient and effective learners. 

• STRAIGHTFORWARD STYLE:

The style is direct and to the point. The strategies are presented concisely and as simply as possible. This is a manual for understanding and applying strategies to course-specific contexts.

• EMPHASIS ON APPLICATION

In every chapter, students have the opportunity to understand the strategy(s), choose one(s) to try in a course, evaluate the effectiveness and personalize the adaptation of the strategy(s) to the course-specific context.

            TABLE OF CONTENTS:

1. A Starting Point: Assessment
2. Collaborative Learning
3. Management: Time, Task and Study Environment
4. Text Organization
5. Note-Taking
6. Reading
7. Memory
8. Exam Preparation
9. Exam Taking
10. Academic Dishonesty
11. Problem Solving
12. Procrastination
13. Stress Management
14. Motivation
15. Applications

FEATURES OF EACH CHAPTER:

• MULTIPLE CASE STUDIES

Each of the case studies are based on actual college students issues.  Also, student quotes are included as introductory material.

• NUMEROUS LEARNING STRATEGIES/STUDY SKILLS

The strategies that are included have been developed in collaboration with college students and applied to college courses.

• EXERCISES

Each of the exercises is intended to reinforce the application of strategies in the students’ courses.  In addition, the final chapter has additional application assignments.