Sunday, 26 February 2012

Life Training in Assignments

Doing school assignments is a training for grown up life in the future. In a shorter vision, it is training for doing essays and coursework in future higher degree level studies. Young students are not given the task for no reason. The academic curriculum includes doing home work to teach students responsibility, time management, resourcefulness and independence among others.

1.    Responsibility – Through assignments, younger students learn to be responsible through this task that requires time management, resourcefulness, independence and other relevant character traits. They given the responsibility to accomplish a task that they will be held accountable to. They are answerable for whatever the end product will be.

2.    Time Management – A learner will manage his own time by himself. He can plan whether to put the task in the last hour or to make it the priority above his timetable. He will learn many related lessons in here. As part of this, he can learn about and develop emotional intelligence by doing the assignments first before recreation and entertainment.

3.    Resourcefulness – Students learn to find resources for their home work. This is very important because life is all about scarcity of resources which need to be located. So that they can complete this requirement, the learners need to be resourceful to be able to locate limited references. There is also competition in getting to the materials or securing them.

4.    Independence – The young learners are own their own, without the continuous supervision of the teacher. There are home works in which students can consult their teacher especially those which have a long duration that stretches over class lectures and meetings. However, the teacher is not always with the students during the whole duration of the home work.

The home work or assignment is a task that enables students to learn more by themselves. In the process, they are also trained for, among others, responsibility, time management, resourcefulness and independence which are needed in higher level learning and grown up life in the future.

Thursday, 9 February 2012

School Admission and Student Skills

Admission to a university, college and other academic institutions like online schools have varying requirements. There are standard requirements and common ones but they vary depending on the level of qualifications required for each course. The qualifications include educational and work backgrounds and skills which can be measured in final grades, coursework writing and others.

Academic admission is one of the milestones in a person's education, profession and life in general. Graduation from certain degree levels will come to mind first when we talk about milestones in one's education and life. Passing entrance examinations comes second only. It is indeed second as it is only the start while graduation is ultimate goal. However, in one way or another, admission can be almost as important graduation. This is the reason why people invest time, effort and resources for academic admission. In fact, doing day-to-day school tasks like coursework or class participation is part of the preparation.

If you are looking for pointers on how to prepare for academic admission to the next degree levels, preparing as early as possible is the first one. For most applicants, this is somewhere towards the end of the level they are currently in. This is correct because you need all the time you can get to prepare yourself and your credentials. However, you can prepare way before this point. Doing the regular activities in the classroom everyday could be a best start. This is because they contribute to your final grades which is one of the basis by which competing applicants will be rated. Thus, you should always do good in your coursework.

There are many components of the academic admission application. Your final grades is one of them. They are a representation of your student skills and talents. You will also need these skills in the admission screening interview and written examination.

Related Article: Why Is It Important To Seek Coursework Assistance?

Wednesday, 8 February 2012

Essay Writing: Why There Can Be No Shortcuts

Essay writing is not an easy task, which is why there are no shortcuts in doing it. An essay has to be planned carefully in order for the student to achieve the highest possibility of success, which in essay writing translates to high marks. 

Writing essays involves several steps. First, the student decides on which topic to write on, if the topic has not been pre-assigned by the professor. It is important for the student to determine exactly what the marker expects him or her to do in the essay. The student may be asked to compile the facts regarding the topic, build an argument for or against it, give instructions on how to achieve a certain goal, or simply provide his or her thoughts on an issue. The next step involves researching for relevant materials which will support one’s discussion on the topic. These references should be up-to-date, revealing the latest knowledge on a field of study. The student should ensure that these books, journals, research papers and official papers are all properly credited in the references or bibliography section of the essay. The next step is to create a working outline wherein the ideas on how to address the topic are placed. In the next step which is the actual writing process, these ideas are then developed into arguments, instructions, analyses and observations. It does not end there as the essay still needs to be proofread and edited after in order to ensure that there are no mistakes that were not left behind. These include spelling and typographical errors, as well as unintentional grammatical errors. Proofreading is also the last step to ensure that all the ideas that were originally intended to be included in the essay have actually made it to the final drafted paper. A good trick to ensure a comprehensive proofread is to read the essay out loud, as there may be some mistakes not seen by looking at the text, but which can be captured when the passage is read out loud. 

Related Blog: Essay Writing Tips

Thursday, 2 February 2012

Reasons Why Some PowerPoint Presentations Are Not Effective


Using the presentation program Microsoft PowerPoint has become a staple occurrence in this computer age. It is a common household name, as the program is not only used in the academic setting but also in the working world. Students and professors use it for academic presentations and lectures while employees and employers use the program for reports and briefings. Thus, the application has become a common tool that almost everyone uses.

The powerpoint has become so common that people have begun to disregard the true purpose of the program, which is to effectively convey a message in an efficient manner. Efficiency means achieving a result with minimum use of resources and time. Some people have begun to create presentations that are contrary to the true purpose of the program. Instead of effectively conveying the message, some presentations effectively put the audience into sleep due to boredom.

These are some mistakes that would render one’s presentation ineffective.

  • Some presenters rely on the slides during the presentation. This should not be, since the slides are based on the presenter’s report, not the other way around. Reading the slides is a no-no.

  • Some people tend to place too much information on a single slide. This will result in low information retention. The bullets are there to highlight important points, not to serve as separator of sentences.

  • There are presentations that are completely ineffective because the audience cannot see what were written on a slide as the font used is unreadable or too small.

  • Using too much slides might bore the audience while presenting too little slides might fail to effectively convey the message.

  • The use of animations is recommended. Using too many animations in a presentation will take away the attention of the audience from the message.

  • Attempting to use different slide background and fonts distracts the audience. It is better to use a single theme throughout the presentation.

  • The most embarrassing mistake in a powerpoint presentation is the failure to check the equipment to be used. If they do not work, there is no presentation. 


Related Article: Tips to Making a Powerful Powerpoint Presentation