But whatever the reason, getting the best possible education has never been more important than it is right now.  That’s because in today’s world, a good job requires a good education.

In a single generation, the United States has fallen from first place to 12th in global graduation rates for young adults, and the country needs to produce 8 million more college graduates over the next decade in order to compete globally and keep up with other countries that are developing high-tech, high-skill jobs.

The unemployment rate for people who have never gone to college is more than double (10 percent) what it is for those who have gone to college (4.5 percent).  And, during the next 10 years, nearly eight in 10 new jobs will require workforce training or a higher education.

These statistics make it clear that completing some form of higher education is the best tool to meet the challenges of a 21st century economy.

Every day, I see people – people like Larry Crowne – work hard to overcome obstacles to get the education they need to succeed.  Many of them work full time, have aging parents in need of care and attention, or are parents themselves.  Often, they are facing difficult financial realities.  But, they are eager to learn and they persevere because they understand that getting an education will change their lives for the better.  They are reinventing themselves, improving their job prospects, and enriching their understanding of the world around them.

At Bellevue University, many working adults tell us that one of the biggest problems keeping them from getting degrees is time and work commitments.  Many people struggle because they are working to support themselves, they have families or other life commitments that make it difficult to attend regularly scheduled classes.  Our online classes remove that obstacle by allowing working adults anywhere in the country – or the world for that matter – to take classes whenever their schedules allow.
We believe in second chances because we understand that the adults applying to college today have grown up and are more prepared for the challenges ahead.  That’s why we look beyond high school GPAs and take each person’s work and life experiences into account.  Our goal is to give each individual the best possible opportunity to earn a degree.

For those people who have the mindset that college is just not worth the time and money, consider this:   The recession has led to steep job losses across the U.S. work force, but less-educated people have been hit harder than most.  Last year, the pay gap between college graduates and non-graduates reached a record high – four-year-college graduates made 54 percent more, on average, than people who attended college, but did not graduate.

I’ve been lucky enough to witness firsthand the power of education to change lives.  Every year, I meet working adults who have doubts, who are unsure of their destinies, unaware of the abilities they possess.  And, every year, I see those same adults get their college diplomas knowing that they can cast those doubts aside, and do what it is they want to do in life.   Education is the key to unlocking the potential in each of us . . . including Larry Crowne.
Dr. Mary Hawkins has been involved in higher education for more than 30 years and has established herself as a leader and national voice in the educational arena since joining Bellevue University in 1995. Before becoming University President in 2009, Hawkins served as Vice President of Enrollment and Outreach until 2000, when she took over as Provost. Under her leadership, Bellevue University has experienced one of the highest growth rates in the country for non-profit, postsecondary institutions both in enrollment and degrees conferred. Today, Bellevue University is the largest private university in Nebraska and one of the fastest-growing non-profit universities in the country.  The University is a recognized national leader in providing post-secondary education opportunities for working adults and organizations.  For more information, visit www.bellevue.edu

One of the best ways to make incremental progress during your other 8 hours is to learn. There are all sorts of newfangled websites that can teach you a thing or two — some with nifty videos and others with PowerPoint presentations. Call me old school, but I think one of the easiest and most economical ways to learn is by reading a book.

But I discovered something over the weekend that’s better than a bookstore and even better (gasp!) than Amazon.com. Stick with me because I’m going to introduce you to new terms and concepts that you won’t be familiar with. It might take some time to digest what I’m explaining, but hang in there — it will be well worth it.

A friend of mine told me about a place not far from my house that seemed too good to be true. Even after confirming it wasn’t April 1^st, I was still unconvinced. Always up for a challenge, I thought I’d run my own MythBusters experiment. So I buckled my three year-old daughter into her car seat and we set our sights on this mythical place.

About ten minutes later we arrived at a peculiar looking building. We parked and set off on foot. We reached the entrance and I started to have second thoughts. “Is this safe for a three year old? Is this some kind of trap?” My fearless daughter grabbed my hand and said, “Come on Daddy” as we crossed the entrance.

I smelled something. Something strangely familiar and comforting. And then I saw it. It was breathtaking. Row after row after row of books. They had every book I could want. And not just books but DVDs, magazines, newspapers, music CDs, and even (pinch me if I’m dreaming) audiobooks.

The story gets better. Much better. After filling my hands with books for my daughter and me, we went to buy them. The price tags were a little confusing, so I asked the checkout person what the deal was. He told me it was some new decimal pricing system or something. I didn’t understand much of what he said, but I had already decided I wanted the books so I threw down my credit card. “Fill this out,” he remarked, and handed me some sort of membership club form. “Is this like a Costco card,” I asked. “Yes, something like that Sir.”

He handed me a membership card and then told me to enjoy my books. “How much do I owe you?” I asked. “Nothing, just return them by July 5^th,” he shot back. I drove home in a daze. Questions raced through my mind. I decided to do some research. I googled “L-i-b-r-a-r-y” and got a few hits. The sites made it seem like these “libraries” are all over the place, but if there’s one thing I’ve learned, you can’t trust everything you read on the Internet.

All I know, is that I’m never leaving home without my library card again. It is an amazing place with tons of free information. I can “checkout” (that’s their clever term for renting) books, audiobooks, CDs, movies, everything! My guess is that Netflix will sue them for some kind of patent infringement on the whole renting thing, but until then, I’m loving libraries and you should find out if you have a library in your town. You can even find the nearest library to carry a specific book, CD, or DVD.

Think about it. For $10 or $20, you can learn from an expert. You can read the latest trends and learn the newest theories. An expert may charge $300+ and hour or $10,000 for a keynote address, but you can learn so much more by reading their book for free from a library. That’s time well spent.

For a limited time, you can download several free resources (assessment, poster, audio interview, video, and more) at www.other8hours.com and learn more about my new book, The Other 8 Hours: Maximize Your Free Time to Create New Wealth and Purpose.

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Words That Heal and Empower

When you’re nine years old, Aunt Jessie presses her powdered face to yours and whispers, “Now don’t you ever tell anyone what you saw. Your mother would just die.”

This is a scary thing to a child—to be entrusted with a secret that has so much power if could kill someone. Aunt Jessie probably didn’t mean to scare you like that, but words have power. Silence in the face of wrong has power. And when we begin to write our memoirs, we can get caught up in the webs of the past. Sometimes these webs are so tangled that we stop writing.

Memoirists struggle with the issue of revealing secrets as they search how to tell their own powerful, and sometimes shameful, truths. Secrets maintain a great power over us, and we are diminished by them. We become co-conspirators to the family dynamics that we don’t agree with and want to break away from. So we get caught in a conflict—to speak or not to speak. To remain closed and complicit, or to open up and take the risk of losing friends and family or shamed once again into submission. These conflicts haunt people all their lives, solidifying the silence. The way out of being trapped in the past is to write our own truths, but first it helps to get clear about the program that lives in our head.

Did you grow up with these rules?

• The truth is always best
• Honesty is the best policy
• Lying is terrible and you’ll be punished

How about these?

• Don’t you dare tell anyone I told you that
• This is a secret you’ll carry to your grave
• If you tell anyone, you’ll go to hell

Are these comments familiar?

• Don’t air the family laundry
• Family business stays behind closed doors
• You have quite an imagination

How confusing! And you want to write a memoir?

Let’s look at some suggestions for how to manage confusion about truth and secrets. First, you need to claim your own truths. Your story is about you—told from your point of view. Your experiences belong to you, and are unique to you, and you have a right to claim them, even if others disagree. Everyone has a unique point of view about events, as each person perceives the world through different eyes. I have known writers, including myself, who got confused about what to write because they were so worried about what others would say and would think about them. Issues of shame and guilt about what they did or who they were, along with potential judgments by others, got in the way of writing. So if you feel shame or guilt, writing can help you to resolve those feelings. I suggest this: write down your memories honestly as you remember them, and share them with no one else while you are in the process of discovery/recovery about the past.

Next, as the voices of your family play tennis in your head—perhaps spouting some of the phrases listed above, write down each one and then answer it back. If the voice says, “That never happened,” write next to it: “This is how I remember it. I claim my own memories.” If it says, “Don’t you dare write those secrets,” say: “I’m writing down what my truth is, I’m doing it for myself right now.”

When we write our truths, we “disobey” the old rules we learned so long ago, and create freedom for who we are now and allow our voice to be heard.

Then and Now

When we write memoir, we become time travelers, stitching back and forth between the narrator author of present time to the child or younger person that we once were.

This back and forth conversation is part of the healing process of writing a memoir, as it helps to integrate past and present. When we sort through memories and come to terms with them, we create new neural pathways. Bringing a new perspective and freedom to our identity and self-expression is freeing and ultimately healing.

Through this process, we create a relationship with ourselves as we both the narrator of the story and the character—the “I” voice in the story. This dual consciousness is part of the healing process, as the narrator helps us to develop a perspective on what happened, and the character “I” gets inside who we were then. When we write in scene, we take a small hypnotic trip to the past and live in our own skin for a while, then come back out to “now.” The process of writing and telling stories, especially if they are shared helps to heal and to change our perceptions of who we were and who we are now.

I tell all my students to be open to writing two versions of the story: first, write for yourself, to clear out your emotional closet, to sort the events that are jumbled up in your mind. Research has shown that this kind of writing is powerful and creates changes in the brain—in other words: it’s healing.
Write your whole first draft in silence, in secret, so that you can finally hear your own voice. Don’t tell anyone you are writing it, and only share it with your supportive writing group or your therapist.

Tips on secrets and truths

1. Protect yourself and your writing by creating a safe, sacred space where you can explore your story and write what you experienced without censure.
2. Write quickly and freely, sometimes called a “freewrite” to flush out your story without the editor or critic in your head having a chance to interfere
3. Don’t delete anything you write. Sometimes the inner critic attacks us after we write, and we are tempted to erase everything.
4. Think of a secret as an infected wound that needs to be drained and opened to healing light and air.
5. Make lists of your dark and light stories. You don’t have to write them until you are ready.
6. Interleaf the “dark” and “light” stories in your life so you don’t get traumatized by dark or painful stories.
7. Keep track of your inner critic’s comments on a separate sheet of paper. Putting the critic on the page and responding to it with positive affirmations defangs it and frees you to write more.
8. A memoir is written in layers. As we explore one layer of memory and experience, others are revealed.
9. Be patient with the process of writing, layering, revealing, and reflecting.

10.  Be brave—write your story!

Linda Joy Myers, Ph.D., MFT, is the President and founder of the National Association of Memoir Writers, and the prize-winning author of The Power of Memoir and Don’t Call Me Mother, along with numerous fiction, poetry, and nonfiction awards. www.namw.org.

The Power of Memoir is available at www.amazon.com or any bookstore.

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“Which Direction I (You Are Here)” Courtesy of Vido Drago

Whether you’re studying on a college program, for a career qualification, or just for personal interest, you’ll want to make a success of it. But few of us have the luxury of being able to just study – life has to go on as well.

You’ve probably already figured out that having a plan helps you to study consistently (rather than giving up, or cramming in hours of work just before exams). But how can you make sure you actually stick to the plans which you’ve made?

Be Realistic

Firstly, be realistic. Many of us are prone to over-estimating how much we can get done – and studying is a high-energy, intense activity which requires a lot of concentration. You simply can’t focus at that level for hours at a time.

Sometimes, being realistic about your studying plans might mean looking at the other commitments in your life. Do you need to ditch something else in order to have time to study effectively? Can you cut down on social activities to give yourself a couple of weeknights free for studying?

Find Your Best Time of Day

Are you a lark? Some people are at their best in the morning, before the demands of the day have crowded in. If that’s you, then try setting your alarm 30 minutes earlier so that you can spend this high-focus time on your studying.

Or are you an owl? Without the constraints of a school day, you can choose to study late at night, if that suits you. For parents, this can be a good time because children are in bed and the house is quiet.

Even if you think you know what time of day’s best for you, try experimenting for a week or two. Perhaps your lunch hour is a great opportunity to practice your French vocabulary, or maybe you can drive to a coffee shop on the way home from work and study there until 6.30pm.

Have a Place to Study

As well as finding the right time to study, you’ll want to find the right place. Your studying environment can make all the difference when it comes to sticking to your plans. You’ll want to find a place where:

• You’re not likely to be interrupted
• There are no noises intruding (music etc is fine – but it should be noise which you choose)
• You have enough space to spread out any studying materials that you’re using
• You’re in a studying mood – so the family den may not be the best place

If your schedule is very packed, you’ll probably want to study somewhere in or very near your home, so that you don’t spend much time simply getting there. If you have more time, you could try picking a study location a little further away – this can be useful because once you’re there, you’ll be much less tempted to wander back home the moment you get bored!

Mix Things Up

It’s easy to get bored with a study plan if you’re constantly working on the same things. Rather than trying to trawl through the whole of a particular topic in one week, try mixing up your plan a little. Working on one topic one day and something completely different the next will help you to stay energised and fresh.

You can also try a mix of different learning methods. There’s no one “right” way to study. Consider:

• Taking notes from books as you’re reading
• Reading for half an hour, then writing down notes from what you remember
• Listening to audio material while commuting
• Watching videos
• Going to seminars or classes
• Talking to fellow students about what you’re learning
• Writing an article or blog post based on what you’ve been studying (perhaps a beginners’ guide)
• Drawing diagrams or pictures to help you remember or understand a concept

Build in Flexibility

How often have you made a perfect study plan, only to have it fall apart as soon as something unexpected cropped up? Life happens – and sometimes you’ll have to cancel a planned study session in order to deal with an interruption or an emergency.

Be prepared for this in advance: when you draw up your studying schedule, allow some “spare” time which you can use if you need to catch up. Even if your week goes perfectly, you may find that some areas of study simply take longer than you expected – and this buffer time lets you allow for that.

Track Your Progress

Finally, it’s easiest to stick with a plan when you can see that it’s working! There are lots of ways to track your progress: for example, you could tick off study sessions on your calendar, or award yourself a gold star at the end of each week when you’ve successfully completely all the studying which you’d planned.

You can also review the material that you’re learning: perhaps taking a quiz or practice exam at regular intervals. If you can see that you’re making constant improvements, you can remind yourself to stick with your studying despite day-to-day fluctuations in your motivation levels.

If you’re studying – whether formally or informally – do you have a plan? What helps you to stick with it?

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Reports in the NY Times and elsewhere point to the rise of Chinese language instruction in our schools, against the backdrop of the demise of language learning in general. People justify this rush to Chinese by referring to the growth of the Chinese economy. The US government has declared Chinese a “critical language.” How realistic is this Chinese boom, and will it last? Here is a reality check.

1) Chinese will probably not help your kid get a job.

Chinese is being touted as the language of the future, given the growth of the Chinese economy. Some predict that a knowledge of Chinese will be big advantage in the job markets of the future. It is worthwhile remembering that Chinese is the language of business in only one country, China. Relatively few American kids are going to be working in China after graduating.

2) Chinese is not an international language and unlikely to become one.

Almost all Chinese speakers are in one country. Chinese is not an international language. It is not used widely by speakers of third languages. It is unlikely that this will change in the short term because Chinese is very difficult to learn, for most people.

3) Chinese is difficult.

Chinese has no vocabulary in common with English, unlike Spanish, where over the half the words are similar to English words. Most kids in the US who study Spanish do not  learn to speak. English speaking school kids in Canada have had similarly poor results with their French studies. It is likely that kids who study Mandarin in schools will have even more difficulty.

4) Learning the Chinese writing system is time consuming.

To write Chinese requires the learning of several thousand characters. Each character consists of up to 15 or more strokes.  Chinese children are surrounded by the written language from early childhood. Our kids would have devote an immense amount of time to this task. There is already a fundamental problem with literacy in English in our schools. Learning to write Chinese would be a major distraction for most school children.

5) There is little chance to use Chinese.

While there are around 40 – 50 million Spanish speakers in the US, there are only 2 million Chinese speakers. However, most of these Chinese speakers speak Cantonese, so students studying Mandarin would not have many native speakers to practice with, even assuming that some would learn to speak.

6) The rush to Chinese is being pushed by the Chinese government.

The Chinese government has a major program to promote Chinese language studies around the world and appears willing to pay for teachers and for trips to China for school administrators. This represents an opportunity to establish Chinese language programs in certain schools, no doubt. Is it advisable, however, for school curricula to be determined by the promotional activities of foreign governments?

7) Learning Mandarin makes sense for other reasons.

There are excellent reasons to offer Mandarin, as an option, in our schools, without the hype and without making it a “critical language”. For much of the last 4,000 years of history about 20% of humanity has been Chinese. Chinese culture has had an important influence on the course of history. The number of schools in the US offering Chinese has grown from 1% to 4% from 1997 to 2008. This is hardly surprising and is, in fact, largely overdue. Mandarin language instruction should be offered, and looked upon from a longer term educational perspective, and not as a sudden reaction to recent Chinese economic growth.

Steve Kaufmann is a former Canadian diplomat, and President of KP Wood Ltd. He is also the founder and CEO of LingQ.com. Steve speaks eleven languages and maintains a blog on language learning. He wrote the book The Linguist, A Language Learning Odyssey.

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When we talk about learning a foreign language, we often talk about different methods, if you should go to school or not and how much time is ideal to spend on the target language each day. Of course, those are  interesting questions to ask, but I think they’re not as important as one thing: motivation.

We all look for ways to improve our language learning, but often forget that all important thing called motivation. We try to motivate ourselves for many things, but somehow we only look at methods when learning a foreign language.

Woody Allen once said:

“80% of success is showing up.”

Now, that is an interesting quote, but what do I want to tell with it? It’s really simple actually.

When you’re not motivated, you won’t show up to learn your target language (or anything else in fact). Unfortunately, it’s not possible to learn a language through osmosis, you need to work, you need to show up.

That’s why I think being motivated is the most important thing in language learning. It’s possible to learn many things in a short amount of time, but to truly learn a language to fluency you need years of input, study and practice.

Ask yourself: Why do I want to learn this language? Can I actually use it? Are there enough materials to learn it from? Am I sure I still want to be learning this language three years from now? If your answer to those questions is yes, you’re probably enough motivated to go on and learn that language you want to learn.

Still, take your time to decide which language you want to learn. Make a plan to learn it, don’t you just rush in with a dream of ‘speaking it one day’. That won’t get you motivated as it isn’t a realistic goal without thinking about the steps between.

Now, why do you need to have a strong motivation to learn a foreign language? Simply because it isn’t an easy task. Like I said: it will take several years to become fluent, and several years more to completely master it. This isn’t something you just do, you need to have a dream, a goal to work towards.

If you don’t set yourself goals you’ll just fail. And that’s not just the case with language study. In any field of study you need to have a goal, otherwise you’ll just give up and look for something else to do.

The title of this article isn’t entirely true. It isn’t that motivation is all that matters, but I do think that it makes up about 80% of your progress in your target language.

Methods, schools and the amount of time you put in all matter, but it’s the motivation that can make or break your study. When all things fail, you need at least your motivation to get you through and continue learning.

Are you currently learning a language? If so, I’ll give you some ‘homework’. Think about why you’re learning the language you’re currently learning. Is it because you’re in school that you have to learn it? Maybe you’ve chosen to study it, but are you still happy with your decision?

What are your long-term goals regarding your target language? Are you having fun learning it, or do you just see it as a daily chore? Sometimes it’s not a shame to quit studying a language. If you’re not enjoying it and have no real motivation learning it, you’re better off investing your time in another language.

So investigate if your target language is really worth. If it is, think of things why you think it’s worth the time and effort and put that on a paper. Then, hang that paper in a place you can see it easily, that’s it’s impossible to not see it. This way you’ll remind yourself of your goals every day, and why you should continue learning this cool language.

Good luck and happy learning!

Ramses Oudt is a Guest Blogger for PickTheBrain and a Spanish
major who writes about learning Spanish on your own through
immersion at his blog Spanish-Only.com. Although he has a
passion for Spanish, he also writes about language learning
in general both at Twitter (@spanishonly) and his blog.


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Image courtesy of Slorp@Flickr

This report and other recent studies show that online learning, distance learning, and self-learning in general, are not only more convenient, but, in fact, more effective than the classroom, for high school, college and adult learners. In the last decade, the Internet, the MP3 player, the iPhone, and other mobile devices,as well as social networking sites, language exchange communities, online learning systems, university courses online and more, have changed how we deal with knowledge. Independent programmer-entrepreneurs are constantly developing new learning applications. The language lab is already obsolete, can the college lecture hall be far behind? The walls of academia, and the costs of learning, are crumbling before our eyes and ears.

For those who are conditioned to think that learning only happens in a classroom, the world of self-learning can be a little daunting. How do we best take advantage these new opportunities.

1. Get interested

Make no mistake. Your interest in the subject is the essential driver of success. You can’t learn what you do not want to learn. Emotion is an important part of the learning process. If you are even moderately interested in a subject, give yourself  a chance. The key is to get started. If you can create some pleasurable routines, you may find that the subject grows on you. “L’appetit vient en mangeant” (the appetite comes with eating) as they say in French.

2. Expect problems and you won’t be disappointed.

Don’t expect to understand things, much less remember them, the first time you study them. Trust that things will get clearer as your brain comes to grips with new information. It is like a jig-saw puzzle or a cross-word puzzle. As you start to put the pieces together, or string the words together, the full picture becomes clearer. The brain learns all the time, but on its own schedule. Learning does not take place according to a schedule laid down by a curriculum or teacher. Some things are easier to learn than others. Some things just take longer to click in. Keep at it, and you will gradually find that things that seem difficult at first, will become second nature with time.

3. Cover the same ground from different angles.

Your brain is struggling to form patterns to cope with new input from your learning activities. Sometimes, no matter how long you focus on one subject, your brain is not going to pick it up. If you are stuck, move on. Then cover the same general information from a different source, a different book, or a podcast, or an online lecture or a video. Try to become a grazing learner, roaming the countryside, rather than a feedlot learner, just standing there in one spot, munching on the same bale of hay. The broader your base, the easier it is to learn. Just as the “rich get richer”, the more you know, the more you can learn.

4. Anytime is learning time.

Take full advantage of the Internet, iTunes, and various mobile devices, not to mention good old-fashioned books and magazines. Learn during “dead time”. Listen in your car, on the train, or while jogging. Have your learning with you while waiting in the doctor’s office, or listen while checking out at the supermarket. Anytime is learning time. Remember, you are learning through exposure, not by nailing things down. It is more like moisture accumulation in a cloud, rather than building a brick wall.

5. Be a multimedia learner.

The more varied your learning content, and the more varied the ways in which you learn, the clearer the puzzle will become. Different learning activities suit different people, at different times of the day. Vary your activities in order to keep your interest level up. Even if listening and reading work best for you, treat yourself to the odd video lecture, or get-together with other learners. This will renew your batteries.

6. Join learning communities.

The “loneliness of the distance learner” is a thing of the past. Join a learning community on the web, where members share their knowledge and experience. Search for the communities that suit your interests and learning style. You will find encouragement, advice and stimulus from fellow learners, as well as from tutors, teachers and coaches. In these communities, you can measure your progress against your own goals, or compare your experience with that of other learners. You can even teach and help others, which is a great way to learn.

Never has it been easier nor more exciting to be a learner. Let constant learning be a major part of your life-style. The rewards will be constant, personally, socially, and professionally.

Steve Kaufmann is a former Canadian diplomat, who has had his own company in the international trade of forest products for over 20 years. Steve is the founder and CEO of LingQ.com an online language learning system and Web 2.0 community. Steve speaks eleven languages, having recently learned Russian at LingQ. Steve maintains a blog on language learning,and has written a book on language learning called The Linguist, A Language Learning Odyssey.

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Image courtesy of Isadore Weiner/Illinois State Museum

Written by Vincent Kovar

We’ve all had that sensation of reading a selection of text then, only moments later, not remember anything we’ve just read. Sometimes we can read something over and over but never really feel like we “get it.”

Reading comprehension is crucial for every profession and lifestyle. Whether you’re reading a repair manual or the latest business best-seller, comprehension tools add value to the time spent over the page.

Here are 5 quick strategies for increasing your reading comprehension, remembering material and sparking new ideas.

Pre-reading predictions

Before reading the article or chapter, create a three column chart.

In the left-hand column, write down everything you think that the reading will cover and what conclusions it will arrive at. Look at the title, the abstract or summary (if included) and the chapter or section headings. Do some quick online research about the writer and try to get a picture of the shape of his or her ideas. Make your list of predictions as detailed as you can including what topics the writer will introduce and what evidence they might present.

Read the text over once and make notations of what the writer actually included in the middle column.

Compare and contrast the predictions in the first two columns of your chart. What was new, different or unexpected? Try to explain the differences between the first two columns in the third column.

Chunk summaries

As you read, try to boil each paragraph down to 1-2 sentences (grammar doesn’t count here) written in your own words. Once you have finished a section or sub-section, summarize your summaries for that entire chunk before going on to the next.

Compare your summaries with those of a classmate. As the old saying goes, “four eyes are better than two.” Do you agree or disagree on the meaning of each paragraph?

Make notes of unanswered questions and either bring them to class or post them in the class forum for discussion and further study.

3-step post reading review

After you’ve read the entire chapter or article, create a 3-step review.

• step one: write a summary of 100-150 words that describes what the author said in the selection. What was his or her thesis? Use the short paragraph-by-paragraph chunk-summaries to guide you. In other words, make an abstract of what the writer set out to tell you.
• step two: jot down another 100-150 words that describes why this material is important. Think about why it was important to the author. Also write down why it was important to you personally. Is it important to the planet or a specific community? What are the consequences of ignoring this information? What are the risks of adopting the author’s viewpoint?
• step three: determine how the author structured their writing. What type of reasoning did he or she use: cause-effect, model building, induction/deduction, or deconstruction? What types of rhetorical techniques did the writer use to convince you the thesis is correct? Which parts rely on ethos (ethics)? Which parts are mostly pathos (emotional appeal) and which parts are logos (logical)?

Describe the reading to someone else

Using your own words, describe what you’ve been reading to a family member, friend or classmate. Use all the materials you created so far to help you but use language and ideas that you think your listener will best understand.

Include any thoughts that start popping into your mind and discuss how the information has an impact on your life. Or, if the information does not affect you in any way, theorize why not and what it would take for that subject to have benefits or consequences in your life.

Make a mind-map

One of the best ways to cement a set of ideas and thoughts in your mind is to translate it into a different medium or shape. Pour all your summaries, thoughts and reactions into a graphical map. You don’t need to write everything down in detail, just include enough notes so that you understand the relationship that each piece of information has to other pieces. There are many shapes of graphical maps try a few different ones and notice which work best for you and which work best for various kinds of information.

The best news is that even if you use all five techniques described here, it really won’t take more time than other forms of study. Improving your reading skills will make the overall experience both faster and more enjoyable.

Vincent Kovar is a writer, instructor, editor, and entrepreneur based in Seattle, Washington. An Adjunct Faculty member at both Antioch University and the University of Phoenix, Vincent writes about online colleges for eLearners.com

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In Western society, we often think of “learning” in very narrow terms: it’s what we do in school, and once we’ve got our college degree, the learning phase is over – it’s time to work.

Of course, things aren’t really that black and white: we carry on learning after we’ve left school, and not just in our careers but in every aspect of our lives. And learning often doesn’t equate to taking qualifications or passing exams. Approached the right way, learning isn’t a process of ticking boxes on a curriculum or course outline – it’s about exploration, growth and enrichment.

Learning Adds Depth to Your Life

For me, the primary reason to keep learning new things is because I enjoy it. It’s not quite the same enjoyment that I get from watching a movie, and there are always frustrating and even miserable moments in learning anything new … but I’m happier in the long run.

If you take the time to consciously learn new things, you’ll find that you live life more deeply. Instead of chasing quick entertainment that fails to satisfy, you’ll have the pure pleasure of those aha! moments when something finally clicks. The more you learn, the more you’ll be able to make connections between pieces of knowledge – and the more creative you’ll become.

Learning Keeps You From Getting Bored

One of the reasons that I left my day job last year was because I was bored. The first month was fairly novel: it was my first experience of “real” work (I’d had a few student jobs) and I was learning a lot of new things, some of them stretching me beyond my comfort zone. But after that, the routine was the same day in and day out.

A huge advantage to working for myself is having the opportunity to learn all sorts of new things: both hard skills (including some CSS and PHP) and soft skills (like knowing how to interact well with clients). Each week, I’m learning new things – and this keeps me interested, motivated and happy.

Can you go on a training course at work to learn something that you’re interested in? Can you study in your free time, perhaps by joining an evening class or discussion group?

Learning Keeps You Healthy

Studies have shown that our mental facilities are best protected when we use them. Older folk who carry on learning and who stay mentally active are much less likely to suffer from illnesses like Alzheimer’s disease.

Taking the time to learn about nutrition will let you know how to eat well, and learning how to prepare and cook foods ensures that you can take charge of exactly what’s going into your body. Learning a new sport or exercise is a great way to take this even further. And learning about good time management habits can prevent you from developing stress-related illnesses.

Learning Puts You on the Fast Track to Success

The final reason to continue with life-long learning is because that’s what successful people do. If you settle back and decide that you’ve learnt everything you need to know about running a business, about succeeding in your career or about managing and motivating your team … you’ll lose out to competitors who have a passion for learning.

In your personal life, you’ll want to keep learning too. That might mean learning how to bring up your kids well. It could involve learning skills that let you maintain your house without having to pay for or rely on outside help. Learning about personal finance and money management – something which we’re rarely taught in school – can turn your life around.

What have you learnt this week? What benefits has learning brought you in your life so far? What do you want to learn during the next year?

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It’s a complex world, but most of us still manage to get on with it: whatever our job may be, we turn up every day and tackle the challenges that come our way.

When it comes to debt, though, it’s not so straightforward. Many people end up with serious debt problems they just don’t know how to deal with. Why is that?

• It could be because debt’s a complicated subject, full of unfamiliar terms and issues: repayment terms, APRs, early repayment penalties, and so on.
• It could be because we’re content to leave the details to the lenders. At the end of the day, it’s often tempting to assume that one set of terms and conditions is much like another – so all we want to know is ‘Can I borrow the money or not?’
• It could be because it’s just too easy to get credit – or at least it was until the credit crunch occurred. There are too many people who simply have too many debts: multiple credit cards, multiple store cards, an overdraft, a personal loan, a couple of hire purchase deals…
• It could be because we leave it too long before we look for debt advice.

In short, it’s easy to see how so many people who can cope with life’s other challenges still have a hard time coping with debt.

Is it worth getting debt advice?

If you’re in debt and you don’t know what to do about it, you should talk to someone who does know. To a professional debt adviser, debt isn’t something to think about once a month – and then try to forget about. It’s something they deal with all day, every day.

Whatever debt problems you’re facing, you’ll find that the right debt adviser has dealt with them before, and is able to give you some practical guidance on how to tackle them.

It might be something as simple as learning to make better use of your money – learning to budget effectively so you can be sure you’re not buying ‘luxury’ goods and services with money you really need to be putting towards your debt.

If your debt problems are more serious and/or you’ve already cut your non-essential spending down to a minimum, you might need to think about the various debt solutions that could help you sort your finances out.

Either way, a good way to find out what your options are is to get some professional debt advice from someone who does it all the time. In general, the sooner you do it, the sooner you’ll be able to start making some headway on your debts – put it off and you might find you’ve missed the ‘window of opportunity’ to bring your debts back under control without making any major changes to the way you live your life.

What Happens Next?

A debt expert will be able to examine your finances and propose the best solution for your situation. Common solutions include IVAs, debt consolidation loans and debt management plans. Each have their advantages and disadvantages which a debt professional will be able to inform you of.

IVA

An IVA or individual Voluntary Arrangement is legally binding and it works on the idea that you pay back as much as you can reasonably afford and then have the rest written off. The period you are likely to be paying back the debt, if agreed with your creditors will be 5 years. If both parties agree, the lender will agree not to pursue any legal actions against the borrower and write off the debt once the IVA has reached its conclusion.

Debt Management

A debt management plan involves liaising with lenders to lower monthly payments to ensure you will actually be able to afford the repayments and start paying off the debt. Depending on the type of creditor, they may also agree to freeze interest charges. By seeking debt help you will allow a professional to negotiate on your behalf. They have years of experience in dealing with lenders and will also take care of all the administrative work, phone calls and letters.

Debt Consolidation

This involves combining all of your monthly payments into one affordable monthly payment, making it easy to manage. You will also know exactly when the repayments end meaning you will know when you will become debt free.

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