Learning  

Essentially secondary school offers you a five year window of opportunity to learn. The degree that you develop and grow will to a great extent be determined by how actively you engage and participate.

At the very least, by the time you graduate you should be able to motivate, organize, discipline, and executively manage yourself...your life!

This site is dedicated to helping you maximize your secondary school learning opportunity

Here are some web links to help you better understand  KEY words which could play a significant role in maximizing how well you "do" in school

TEN key words which could play a significant role in maximizing how well you "do" in school are:

1. METACOGNITION

(literally means "after thinking")

In an education context, it means you thinking about... 

    YOU?        

         and           

HOW YOU LEARN BEST?

the other key words are...

2. ELEMENT 

(where do your natural abilities and your personal passions merge?)

3. APTITUDE

(what you "get" easily?)

4. PASSION

( what you  take a deep delight in doing?)

5. ATTITUDE

(what you truly want)

6. OPPORTUNITY

(where & how can you get what you want?)

7. MOTIVATION

(how much do I care about learning?)

8. ACQUISITION

(how well do I understand new information?)

9. RETENTION

(how well do I remember what I have learned?)

10. PERFORMANCE

(am I able to apply new information in a "test" situation?)

“I always wanted to be somebody but I should have been more specific” Lily Tomlin

“We don’t know who we can be, until we know what we can do” Ken Robinson

“It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.” ee cummings

A fundamental goal of the Student Learning Centre is to help develop as many self directed learners as we possibly can. We aim to help students create a receptive mind set to accepting the responsibility of executively managing their own learning. Specifically this means planning, monitoring, evaluating, and adjusting their approaches to learning.

How do we do this?

One of the educational research “gurus” who has given us a very useful framework for our efforts is Rick Sheets who uses a metacognitive approach to study skills. In the study skills context, this term literally means “after thinking”.

The first step of this approach to becoming a more efficient learner is to reflect back on past learning situations. The purpose of this step is to recognize what was done well as a student and what was done poorly.

Once this ACTIVE mindset “ball” is in motion the next step is guide the student in selecting specific new learning strategies. Rick Sheets helpfully divides such strategies up into four separate but interconnected SUCCESSFUL learning requirements:

MOTIVATION

“the desire to learn” which incorporates: attitudes, purpose, time management as a student approaches a new learning situation…in the effort to “want it”

ACQUISITION

“understanding new information being presented/taught” which incorporates active reading, active listening, in the effort to connect new information to prior understanding…in the effort to “get it”

RETENTION

“the ability to access newly learned information” which incorporates memory, practice, review, essentially… time in contact with the information…in the effort to “keep it”

PERFORMANCE

“the ability to apply new information appropriately” which incorporates discussion, composition, assignment completion, test taking…in the effort to “show it”

Using this approach, we hope to give GSS students the opportunity to learn how to SELF motivate, discipline, organize, monitor, and adjust before their 5 year secondary school learning opportunity is over.

Are you running on empty?

Gino Odjick ex Vancouver Canuck remembers a visit to his Grade 9 English class by a group of First Nations retired NHL players. From that moment, Gino felt that his "dream" was turned ON! He suddenly found his life very easy to organize. This will get me to the NHL, therefore I will do it. This will prevent me from getting to the NHL, therefore I will not do it.

Having a dream, a purpose, provides a tremendous "boost" to your academic performance. Sir Ken Robinson, in his book The Element, offers numerous examples of individuals whose lives were stalled and frustrating. Like Gino, they also "found" their "on" button.

Discovering your "element", igniting your dream, has the potential to provide you with "instant" and powerful self-motivation, organization, and discipline...quite simply such a discovery provides you with "fuel" for your learning opportunities here at GSS. It can give you a reason to willingly get up each day and actively, alertly participate in YOUR education and training.

Here are some document links which will help you better understand more of the KEY words to encouraging secondary school success.