Bite your tongue, nontraditional student! Plus a few more tips for classroom success.

Are you in a face-to-face class? Do you sit in front and ALWAYS raise your hand? Just stop. Really.

Other people want to be able to answer questions too. It can be really annoying to WANT to enter into the classroom conversation and always be waiting around for the older student to stop talking.

Try being quiet for a change. You might find it helps everyone.

Some other things to consider:

1. When asked to share about something, try to keep it short and sweet. Though it's true that your story about meeting a bear in the woods and living through it is oh-so-interesting at parties, chances are that your fellow students just want the teacher to go over the 15 more test questions before the end of class. Don't be annoying or a know-it-all (even if you think you DO know more about some things...)

2. Try making a few friends - - just ask about (maybe) starting a study group or if you can share info. just in case one of you has to miss class sometime.

3. Smile at your neighbor in class sometimes. Carry extra pencils or pens. You yourself might need to borrow one sometime.

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Other blog postings you might like:

10 Motivational Tips for Nontraditional Students

The Sandwich Generation - what is it?

and

10 Nontrad Tips - plus solutions

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Get Connected, and get more info.

The Nontrad site

Join Nontrads on Facebook 

Nontrads on Yahoo

and Nontrads on Twitter

Nontraditional Students Rock! :-)

Here is a little post of encouragement. I think sometimes nontraditional students don't get enough of that.

I think Nontraditional Students rock. Why? Because many of them are working very hard to get through school.

Nontraditional students:

1. Come from many different backgrounds

2. Can have families and many responsibilities

3. Often work very hard and take school seriously.

4. Appreciate that things they want don't always come easily.

5. Must sometimes confront prejudice against older people, in school or in the workplace.

6. Often have full or part-time jobs along with their school responsibilities.

7. May not have the support they need.

8. Sometimes must "go it alone" in order to get the schooling they need, or feel ostracized in class.

9. May face an uphill battle to find childcare.

10. Rack up many bills and money to pay back in order to attend school.

Do you know a nontraditional student? Maybe that student is YOU. Give them (or yourself!) a pat on the back today.

Have a comment? Leave it below. Thanks!

E. Sheppard
Former Nontraditional Student, WKU
English and Allied Arts, Education

Some Nontrad links: The Nontrad site and blog Join Nontrads on Facebook Nontrads on Yahoo Nontrads on Twitter

Nontraditional Students and Midterms - how is it going? Are you in the groove?

Nontraditional Students are in the groove this week.

Or are they?

In other words, are you having smooth sailing right now?

This beautiful photo is from the Microsoft Images pages.

It is a busy time for most nontraditional students right now. Some nontraditional students are in the middle of Midterms this week. Others have tests or quizzes. And yet others are working on term papers or other assignments.

Hopefully students are "in the groove", not in a rut, and are sailing along, well-prepared and doing well in all their classes.

How is it going, nontraditional students? Well, I hope.

I will share a couple of links and some ideas to help you with your studying today and through this semester.

The first one is the wonderful Son of Citation Machine site. This site has a handy footnote maker that helps you conform to APA, MLA, Turabian, and Chicago style while you are crediting your sources for term papers. Here is that link:
Son of Citation Machine.

The second one I shared last posting. It is the Joe Landsberger Study Guides and Strategies site. Here is that link:
Study Guides and Strategies.
As I explained earlier, this site helps you study smarter, but using proven learning and remembering methods. It also has lots of other good links to help with projects and a whole lot more.

More ideas

Have you started a study group for your more difficult classes? This is a time-honored method that still works today. The younger people in the study groups I started really benefited from it, as did I. We quizzed each other with questions each one of us thought would be on a test, and it was great to find out that the questions others had were completely different from those I had!

This reminds me, I need to write another posting about Study Group Tips. Be looking for it soon.

In the meantime, here is a posting link to help you start a study group if you want to:
Study Groups for Nontraditional College Students 

Good luck, everyone, on your tests and midterms.

Leave a comment below.

And here are some more links you might like:

Study Skills for Nontraditional Students - get the best grade you can
10 Study Tips for Nontraditional Students
The Power of Study Groups (from CollegeBoard.com)

And don't forget these Nontrad links:
The Nontrad site and blog
Join Nontrads on Facebook
Nontrads on Yahoo
Nontrads on Twitter

Midterms and grades - how to improve them...

This image is from the Clkr site at http://www.clkr.com.

Midterm Testing...

How did you do?

I have been hearing some stories about midterm testing from some nontraditional students. These tests are often bigger and more important than other tests. At least they used to be. Some instructors like to attach a huge bunch of points to their midterms.
Many people have already taken all of these tests and have done well. Some may not have done as well.
This has happened to me before. I have gotten a lower grade than I expected on some midterm exams. Sometimes, though, I came back and got a better grade on the next big test, or all the quizzes. Sometimes a report helped my grade too, because I got a good grade on that. If you are concerned, you may want to go to talk with the instructor. It is possible that you may be able to do some extra credit to up your grade.
You may also want to form a study group (how to do that) and make sure your next test is passed with flying colors.
Good luck on midterms, and if you are in school right now, I hope things are going very well with all your classes.
Here are some more postings that may be helpful to you:
Get to know your college professorsClobber your test anxiety 
More about study groups
10 study tips for nontraditional students
-Betsyanne
Some Nontrad links: The Nontrad site and blog Join Nontrads on Facebook Nontrads on Yahoo Nontrads on Twitter 
And here is a funny note:

This image is from the Wikipedia Commons site and was taken by Paul Randall.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/14/Emergency_Twitter_Was_Down.jpg