The Student Development Center offered a study skills workshop on Nov. 4 to help students improve their study and note-taking skills while attending IU Southeast.
A small group of IUS students listened to a study skills workshop taught by Fran Warren, a professor at Jefferson Community and Technical College in Louisville. Warren has taught the workshop at IU Southeast for a few years.
The students were given note-taking pencils and a note-taking pad to use throughout the workshop.
The workshop gave the students an opportunity to learn how the brain works while they are studying, and how to remember information they read in their textbooks.
“If you do the things I tell you to do, you will get an A,” Warren said.
Warren said the workshop would give students examples of what to do and not to do to be successful in their college courses.
Abbi Kraus, elementary education freshman, said she was interested in taking this workshop because she wanted to learn the different ways to deal with her classes.
“I haven’t taken a class like this before,” Kraus said. “It probably would be beneficial for other students to take this class.”
Chelsea Parsons, nursing freshman, said she attended to better herself as a student.
“I’m trying to be the best student I can be,” she said.
Warren said a lot of students make the mistake of going to a class and assuming the class is just going to be boring.
“Don’t say a class is boring, but set out to learn something in class every day,” Warren said. ”To learn information, you have to have the intent to learn the information that is taught. The best way to learn information is by increasing new information by using prior knowledge of the information being taught.”
Warren said a way for students to be successful in their studying is to use as many senses as possible to remember the information being studied.
The students were offered the opportunity to ask Warren questions about ways to improve their individual study skills. Warren gave recommendations on the supplies to use while taking notes for college classes.
The study skills workshop is usually offered in the summer for incoming students, but it was offered this semester because of a survey incoming students took before the semester.
Incoming freshman selected study skills as a topic they would like to improve on, or felt like it would be a topic they needed to learn more about to be successful at IU Southeast.
Doug Denton, Student Development Center coordinator, said the workshop is designed to help students that are uncertain about the college experience. The workshop aims to give the students the study skills they will need during their time in college.
“These are skills students have never learned and they have never learned how to read text to be more efficient,” Denton said.
Denton said the Student Development Center is considering offering pizza to students who sign up for their next workshop. He said they hope to attract students to their workshop because of the advantages.
By JUSTIN RAY
Staff Writer
jusray@ius.edu