To Aim and Score

There is a difference between a goal and an aim/achievement. A goal is task to be completed where as an achievement is what we aspire to complete to gain personal gratification. My main aim is to pass the Foundation degree programme and eventually the Bachelor of Arts. Besides completing something I started a while ago , I need to give my family the personal peace of mind they deserve.

SMART Goals

What are SMART goals? Specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and timely. All of my goals have to satisfy these criteria in order to achieve my goal more effectively and efficiently. This should help clear up the way for other goals and hopefully lead to achievements. For example I would like to build muscle. Regardless of how quickly I want to do it, there is a natural progression and because I have other SMART goals, I can ensure I get to attain my weekly goals.

It's usually difficult to predict what one will be doing in a year’s time let alone 5 years. From my teenage years till i was about 20, i have had a lassie affaire attitude to life and work. Going into university can have its up sides, new people new things to do and learn.
However there are pit fall that many students fall into and that is what i went through. Having wasted many years of my life not making any progress, I decided to take things more seriously and enjoy again the feeling of learning something new and different. I suspect in the next five years that i would have suspended my formal education for at least 5 years and i hope to work an no particular industry in this period.

Vark Test

The vark test is a way of finding your most preferd technique of studying.Now what does VARK stand for? Visual Aural Kinesthetic and Read/write. These are the several methods by which we absorb information. Usually most individuals make use of any medium possible to learn new things e.g. by self practice or emulation of someone elses method. However it would be usefull to know your individual prefered method of learning and attempting to apply this in every aspect of life so as to learn more . On the other hand, you may want to know what you weaker learning methoths are and improving on them so as to achieve a higher learning rate with a spread of data. Either way there is a use full web site where you can perform the test at http://www.vark-learn.com/english/index.asp. 

The test itself is a simple questionnaire that anyone can fill and it gives result at the end that indicates with points, your different learning techniques scores. From this you can tell which ones are your strong points. If you wish to help the Assistant Professor for Research and Evaluation Methodology, Department of Educational Psychology at the University of Florida with a major statistical study, complete the following quaestionnaire and i'm sure they'll be greatful. Here is a snapshot of the questionnaire and my results (my highest score was in the visual area and therefore I prefer visual aids to descriptions for example).

Woohooo! I finally got my usename and login details after much ado. The Student page is quite straight foward and accessible, all the class and course work is provided on the portal unlike others i've seen and the vedio class feature is one of many very useful features.
However MY personal issue is time management. As we can see from my first blog date, I haven't started till now ( should have started befor the half term!).



Theoretically i should have started early but i haven't had a clue what to write about..Managing Professional Developement. This seems pretty straight foward; Managing(coping with), professional( as opposed to personal) and developement( in terms of notable progress). The problem is all three words dont strike a chord with your regular student, me. So the question is what real steps must i take to actually develop any skills i might have. I have to say a big thank you to Jay Glover for providing all the different resources. Thank you!

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