Reaching Lifelong Goals

I’m so excited!   I have just installed one of the best tools a Non Traditional Student could ever have – ENDNOTE – Bibliographies made easy.   This program is a must have for any serious research writing.   If you are a Non Traditional Student just getting started back in college, I whole heartedly recommend this program.   Go out and buy it today!!  Basically, Endnote  will allow you to SEARCH online bibliographic databases, ORGANIZE your references, images and downloaded PDF documents, and most important – CITE WHILE YOU WRITE!   I purchased the program Endnote 2.o, there are more updated versions available, but all will do everything you need when writing your research papers for college.  I am still in the learning curve…lots of features to master.   I did a cursory search of my probable thesis topic about WWI ace, Ernst Udet and was able to start locating some valuable resources.   And I have just scratched the surface of this program.   As an aside, I find that there has been very little written about Udet.   This is both a plus and minus for me.  One one hand, the available resources out there are few, but I don’t think my topic will have much competition out there.   I found just 17 references in the Library of Congress.   I will be digging into academic data bases when I get up to speed with Endnote.  One of the really fantastic features of this program is it’s integration with Office 2007.   Citation of references will be available with a single click, and the MLA foot note will be magically entered into the document I’m working on.   I’ll spend more time with the tutorials on Endnote and report my findings of the other spiffy features as I learn them.   If you are a Non Traditional Student that will be writing college level research papers over the next few years, this program is a definite must have.   I think there are a number of similar programs out there, but I had this one suggested to me by my History Professor.   He said if this program would have been available when he was writing his Thesis, life would have been sooooo much easier!!  I will update this post with more information about Endnote.  I will be diving into using it for my Non Traditional Student research paper for my WR123 class….Now that I mention this, I have a due date for my mid-term portfolio coming up soon.   Better climb that learning curve quickly!

Non Traditional College Students are a unique bunch.   There are more and more of us at colleges all around the USA.  What I find troubling is that the great resource sites on the Internet are not reaching the majority of the Non Trads out there.  I am tuned into this niche on the WWW and I am constantly finding great new resources and sites specifically for the Non Traditional Student.   I think we need to make it our personal quest to get the word out to as many older students as we can.   Non Traditional Students need to know they are not alone.   A student may feel that no one knows their situation with going back to school.   I am here to tell them, there is a whole world of Non Traditional Student websites out there for their support.   Over the next couple of weeks, I plan to develop a page here on the Reaching Lifelong Goals site with as many links as possible.   Sure, all of the great Non Trad sites out there have their links pages, but web statistics show that we are not reaching the majority of our fellow Non Trads.   With the ever growing demographic of older individuals returning to college in this economy, there needs to be greater effort put forth to “bring them into the fold” here online.    Today, I found another great forum for Non Traditional Students.   Returning To School – Adults Returning to College/University, a forum put together by Cynthia from Portland State U. is worth joining.   This forum is for all returning students and has a great format, fun to use and NEEDS MORE MEMBERS!    We all know at least a few fellow Non Trads that we can ask to get involved with this forum.   Right now, I see 19 members from around the country and England as well.   This forum as well as The Nontraditional Student Forum are a perfect place for fellow Non Trads to talk about their goals, successes and challenges.   Elizabeth from Kentucky has a great website and this fantastic forum available for Non Traditional Students.   Both of these forums are great places for fellow Non Trads to network and gain like minded friends forever.    Let’s get the word out in every way we can.   Our fellow Non Traditional Students need these resources!

While reviewing some of my materials from my College Skills Class, I ran into a great description of how we FORGET information.   This ties right into my post about Highlighting Notes and Textbooks.   Review of studied materials is essential to actually learning it.  The following five theories of forgetting are offered by psychologists to explain some of the reasons information can be “forgotten”.  The Decay Theory applies to short term memory.  It is possible that some stimuli, when received, are too weak.   The information simply decays or fades away before it can be sorted or processed.  Since this information is never processed, it was really never “learned”.  The second theory, Displacement Theory, also occurs in the short term memory.  The Displacement Theory states that if TOO MUCH information comes into the short term memory too rapidly, some of the information already in short-term memory is shoved aside, or “displaced”.   Adequate time was not given to process the information that was displaced; therefore, it was never really “learned” either.   The  Interference Theory applies to confusion that take’s place in long-term memory.   One type of confusion occurs when the new information you are learning interferes with your recalling or retrieving information that was previously learned.   For example, if you once knew how to speak Portuguese, but are now studying Spanish, words that you once knew in Portuguese may be difficult to locate in memory because your newly acquired language skills in Spanish are interfering.  This type of forgetting occurs when old information interferes with learning new information.  The old information is so thoroughly imprinted that it is recalled or retrieved instead of the new information you are trying to learn.  The  Incomplete Encoding Theory applies to information as it is rehearsed.   Some information is only partially learned or learned inaccurately.   When a person tries to recall this information, “forgetting” occurs.  The information cannot be remembered because it was not completely processed or imprinted in the memory system.   The Retrieval Failure Theory occurs when information has been learned, but cannot be “found” in the memory “bank”.   Failure to locate information in memory may be attributed to a weak organizational system for storing or “filing” information or to lack of use.  The information learned was not firmly attached or associated to well developed schemas (“file folders in your memory bank”) or ongoing review to practice accessing the information did not occur.    We see here that information can be “forgotten” during several different stages of the process of learning information.  Effective strategies for taking in information and processing, storing and rehearsing it can reduce or eliminate the effects of these five theories of forgetting.

Surfed into a great article on the Psychology Today site.   Written in the blog of “the Image Professor” by LisaMarie Luccioni.  The Top Ten Ways to Impress Your College Professor “Don’t bring an apple; bring your best academic self”.    This article is full of common sense items that I think most Non Traditional Students already practice.   Things like coming to class on time, turning off your cell phone, showing up for class on the first day…you know – Non Trad stuff!    This article is really worth taking the time to read, some of the points were not on the top of my list until now…   Item #1 should be of special note:

“1. Make your personalized contribution to the classroom. The best compliment I give any student occurs at quarter’s end when final exams are submitted. If you hear me say, “Lauren, your presence in my class made it better than it would have been without you,” know this: I was indeed impressed. Be THAT student.”

I sometimes forget that your contribution to a classroom means a great deal to your instructor.   I have been in a class where the only discussion on issues was between the teacher and the crew of nontraditional students, while everyone else just sat there…not contributing.  In a Community College level of classes, this interaction with your professor is probably easier than in a huge lecture hall on a University campus.     I try to connect in some way with all of my instructors, you never know when that letter of recommendation might be needed.    I really do hope you all take the time to read this special article.   I will keep it in mind throughout the rest of my college career.

Being the history geek that I am, my English Composition class is going to fulfill my needs in many ways.  Aside from being 3 credits towards my baccalaureate core at Oregon State, I’m soaking up some wonderful historical tidbits from every lecture.   My ENG 201 class, Early Shakespeare – 1587 – 1595 Shakespeare’s early years, poems and plays will turn out to be one of my “fun” classes this term.   My Professor, Peter Jensen has a lecture style that feeds my history addiction along with presenting the Bard’s works in an interesting format.   I am enjoying the historical perspectives that he adds to the study of the plays themselves.   We are starting with Richard III, which is one of the early works in his historical series.   I had not been exposed to this play prior to this class.  Sure, we all can utter the first few words of Richard’s speech, “Now is the winter of our discontent…”, words that come to mind in a list of great Shakespeare “one liners”.    But to really dive into the meat of this play and its history of royalty and the wars of the roses, has been a real joy for me.   Peter Jensen will be one of the teachers I remember from my time at LBCC.   In all of his lectures, I have been enthralled with the little “history tidbits” about Elizabethan Theater and England during the late 1500s.   Hence the title of this post…I am familiar with the term “groundlings”.    At Shakespeare’s Globe theater in London, the common folk would pay their “penny” to see his plays by putting their admission in a box at the entrance (this is where the term “box office” comes from…) and stand at the thrust of the stage in an area called the pit.   These folks were called the Groundlings.  The term “Penny Stinkard” was coined for the unwashed masses of commoners watching the plays while standing.  I find myself taking more notes about the historical bits (items I want to research further) than about the play itself.     One such note from Friday’s class sent me on a wonderful journey through history this weekend.   Peter made a comment about a news story he heard a few years ago.   It seems that 2 skeletons were found walled up in the Tower of  London, were they the two princes from Richard III???    This historical tidbit got my attention.   Quick….to google… and beyond!!!      What I found, led me to a great story and a possible research paper for ENG 201…    A work crew found a box at the bottom of a staircase during renovations that contained two skeletons.   They appeared to be small, like children.    Could these be the skeletons of Richard’s nephews, Edward V and Richard the Duke of York (ages 12 and 9)?   The kicker here is…they were discovered in 1647!!   The two “princes” were placed in an urn in Westminster Abby.   In 1933 the bones were studied with no conclusive findings other than the possibility that they were of the correct ages and had possibly been smothered.   I was hooked…could this be what my Professor was referring to?    I have a huge amount of information to sift through, some texts to find at the OSU library and more searching to do.    One comment in a lecture about Richard III and I found another historical quest before me!     I am determined to flesh this story out into a research paper.   References from the period, current news stories that involve the Queen’s denial of any further study of the skeletons,  and any references from a couple of years ago about walled up skeletons in the tower of London.   I really think that students should THANK their professors more often.    Professor Jensen, thank you for this new historical quest.