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Take Good Notes
Take Good Notes
One of the most important skills you will need to be successful in my courses is the ability to take good notes. I typically use PowerPoint slides for my lectures, but I consider them to be skeleton notes. The slides are designed to include key terms, graphics, and other important concepts from each week's lecture. Use by themselves, though, they do not include all of the material you will need to know. I expect my students to take good notes during my lectures to make sure they have captured all of the important material. The materials provided here are designed to help you improve your note-taking skills.
PowerPoint on Notetaking.pdfStudy Skills 101: How to Take Good Notes
Study Skills 101: How to Take Good Notes
The Cornell Note-Taking Method
The Cornell Note-Taking Method
What is Class Participation.docxParticipate, Participate, Participate!
Participate, Participate, Participate!
A common course grade component is class participation. But what does this actually mean? A lot of times, students think you need to be the loudest and more frequent talker in order to fully participate, But participation isn't about the quantity of your contributions, but rather the quality. The document to the left outlines way that you can contribute to the class in a meaningful way. The video below describes why class participation is so important. I encourage you to review these materials and reflect on how you can improve the quality of your own class participation in my courses.
Study Better, Not Harder
Study Better, Not Harder
Study skills are an important part of being successful in the classroom. The checklist to the right is a study skills self-assessment. For each line, identify how often you do the behavior during the semester. Be honest! This is for you and you alone, so try to provide a really honest assessment of how often you engage in the different study habits. Once you have completed the self-assessment, add up the totals using the codes provided on page two to see where your strengths and weaknesses lie.
Once you have identified areas for improvement, use the videos provided below to learn how to study more successfully. Video topics include preparing for exams, writing papers/essays, and dealing with test anxiety.
Study Skills Self Assessment.pdf
Understand APA format
Understand APA format
The field of Criminal Justice uses the American Psychological Association (APA) format for professional communications such as journal articles, citation lists, and manuscript formats. I expect students to be familiar with APA format in the course. You can access guides relating to APA format from the APA website or by visiting the Criminal Justice Toolkit provided for you in Canvas.
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