Student Success

Within the past nine weeks of this course I have learned and used many different strategies that will help improve the continual growth in my education and accomplish my academic goals. Some of the strategies and skills that I will apply in achieving academic success are Axia’s educational resources, upholding academic honesty, setting and achieving my future goals, managing my time wisely, improving reading comprehension and retention skills, as well as applying my personality and learning styles. Since using Axia’s educational resources I feel it has brought me one step closer to achieving my academic goals. Axia College has many useful technological tools that provide easy and functional methods of learning. One of the educational tools that I tend to use often is the Center for Writing Excellence. I like this tool because it provides many useful links such as the write point checker, plagiarism checker, as well as the Grammar Mechanics that provides grammar and punctuation rules, notes, and definitions that follow with the skills and drills quizzes. Another tool that is helpful in achieving academic success would be the University Library. Axia’s University Library is a great tool that provides different search engines like EBSCOhost and Gale Power Search. These search engines provide article database searches, journals, books, theses, encyclopedias and many more. Axia Library is a great search engine that is more beneficial for student success with providing the option to search peer reviewed articles, find a specific publication, choose database by subject, and view all databases alphabetically. The University Library is a useful tool that I will take advantage of in furthering my education and achieving academic success. One major think I have learned in this class was upholding academic honesty is a major and serious policy that we as students must follow. Plagiarism is presenting someone else’s work, ideas, and accomplishments as your own. I feel that plagiarism is wrong in every aspect whether or not you meant no harm; plagiarism is a serious violation of the student code of conduct and carries many penalties. By me learning and understanding what plagiarism is, this allowed me to create my own work without worrying about paying the consequences’ for steeling someone else’s words. Some examples of disciplinary actions you could encounter if caught for plagiarism can include a failing course grade, suspension, or even expelled from the University. Some strategies I have learned to avoid plagiarism would include submitting my assignment to the plagiarism checker at the CWE prior to posting my assignment to my instructor. I have also used the technique paraphrasing the information into my own words by using the dictionary and thesaurus provided by Microsoft Word. Another strategy I have learned was to make sure I am correctly citing my sources; because it indicates that I have respected the ideas of others. I have learned that it is very important to me as a student to uphold academic honesty throughout the rest of my education. Another strategy I have learned and will continue to take advantage of is setting and achieving my goals. I have the skill to set up and accomplish my future goals in life, as well as follow through with the end result in mind. One major long-term educational and career goal that I have set for myself would be to become head radiologist of a Medical Imaging Center. My short-tem goal I have set to reach my long-term goal would be to continue my current schooling with a high grade point average and finish my bachelors in science. Some obstacles I have encountered are juggling school, work, and family responsibilities. I have learned to prioritize my goals as well as arrange and handle things in order of importance. I have realized that Axia degree relates to my future goals with being able to juggle other responsibilities and have the convenience of online schooling without a dedicated time of day to still accomplish my future goals in life. Managing time wisely is another strategy I will use to accomplish my goals. It is very important to me to manage my time because I have so many daily activities on top of getting my school work done. I know that for me to succeed in life and accomplishing my goals I need to put aside extra time for class and studying. I also have to put time aside for working, and taking care of my other responsibilities. For me to manage my time wisely I will have to manage my goals progress as well as using school resources and technology that it provided for me. Another skill that I have learned and still are improving on would the reading and comprehension and retention skill. This is a very important skill to take advantage of for reading comprehension and mastering academic material. Some of these techniques include a few simple steps such as making sure to eliminate any possible distractions for example television, cell phones, etcetera. Also making sure you are in a quiet relaxed atmosphere. Analyzing your environment prior to reading to improve your comprehension is another useful technique on mastering academic material. Another useful tool that I have learned and will use in future courses to come to help improve mastering academic material would be the Survey, Question, Read, Recite, Review study technique as well as pulling vocabulary words from material. The SQ3R is very beneficial with the concept of grasping the material and content in academic readings. The last strategy I will apply to my continual growth in education and accomplishing academic goals would be applying my personality and learning styles. Since I began distance learning I have realized; that when I use certain learning strategies for my personality type and intelligence such as, bodily-kinesthetic intelligence or interpersonal intelligence it makes distance learning easier to manage. Since learning about my multiple intelligences and personality type; it has giving me many study techniques and strategies to apply to my future academic success. Since distance learning I have encountered people with many different intelligences and personality types allowing me to learn each other’s learning strategies and techniques to build and improve on my weaker learning intelligences and personality types. By making all aspects of my intelligences stronger I will become an active and responsible thinker with the skill to accomplish my goals, the will and self-awareness to learn, as well as the ability to self-manage and monitor my progress. By following these strategies I will be off to a great start in pursuing my continual growth in education and accomplishing my future academic goals.