Student Success

The following ideas come from students and faculty about how to succeed in this course or college in general.

• Results of an anonymous in-class poll on reading strategies students are using in ENG 112 indicates the importance of re-reading, especially for poems and stories.
• Results of an anonymous in-class poll on how ENG 112 is changing the enrollees' attitudes toward literature indicate that students who finish this course gain a new perspective on music, movies, and television programs, plus a new appreciation for written literature as having a broader range and more to do with real life than they had thought previously.
• Advice from the Litonline design team for succeeding in an online course

Links from the JSRCC Distance Education Orientation Exercise

• Thanks to former online ENG 112 student Elizabeth Evans for these links--
  • The University of Idaho distance education center page on learning from a distance profiles the distance learner, contrasts a "shallow" approach to learning with a more successful "deep learning" approach, and suggests ways to improve learning at a distance.
  • A compendium of study guides at the University of St. Thomas (in St. Paul, MN) suggests ways to improve learning, participation, reading, writing, and test taking, group projects, and writing and studying in math and science.  Elizabeth says she plans to use the M.U.R.D.E.R. study system--

  Mood: Set a positive mood for yourself to study in. Select the appropriate time, environment, and attitude.   Understand: Mark any information you don't understand in a particular unit. Keep a focus on one unit or a manageable group of exercises.   Recall: After studying the unit, stop and put what you have learned into your own words.   Digest: Go back to what you did not understand and reconsider the information. Contact external expert sources (e.g., other books or an instructor) if you still cannot understand it.   Expand: In this step, ask three kinds of questions concerning the studied material: If I could speak to the author, what questions would I ask or what criticism would I offer? How could I apply this material to what I am interested in? How could I make this information interesting and understandable to other students?   Review: Go over the material you've covered. Review what strategies helped you understand and/or retain information in the past and apply these to your current studies. Adapted from Hayes, John R., The Complete Problem Solver, Lawrence Erlbaum Publishers, Hillsdale, NJ: 1989.  ISBN: 0805803092       copied by permission

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